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March 25th Commissioners Meeting

March 25th Commissioners Meeting

The Fremont County Commissioners arranged the county's 2008 lease-purchase financing package and extended one more time the deadline for a hunting camp operator to comply with permit requirements.

With a March 25th deadline for Ron Walker of Top Rail Ranch to respond to county requests or face termination of his Special Review Use permit, staff members reported to the board that Walker had been in the Building Department working to get building permits for the hunting cabins on the property and is dealing with verifying the engineering on the septic system for the cabins. On site inspections of the buildings and septic will have to take place this summer as part of the verification. Because heavy snow on Waugh Mountain will prevent an early inspection, the board voted to reinstate the SRU permit and grant Walker until the August 26th board meeting to complete the necessary paperwork for building and septic permits and the associated inspections.

The only action item was approval of a resolution arranging the county's annual financing for various capitol purchases in 2008. The lease financing arrangement this year is through Wells Fargo. The agreement allows for up to $700,000 in lease-purchase financing. Included in that is the expected lease-purchase of 13 new patrol vehicles for the Sheriff's Department. Actually there will be ten new patrol cars plus the acquisition of three used vehicles; a 2006 F150 four-wheel drive truck, a 2004 GMC Yukon, and a 2005 Ford F150 truck. These purchases are being arranged by the Sheriff through a bid process that has Faricy Ford of Canon City being the low bidder. Total price of the Sheriff's package is $361,560. Commander John Dickens says the new fleet will replace vehicles that have been driven to 200,000 miles and beyond.

Jane Mannon of the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold (CC & V) Mine was present to detail their annual 2007 report. Mannon said there was $48,822,000 worth of direct earnings and 364 direct mining jobs in the region. The mine has 86 hourly employees who live in Fremont County and the average hourly wage of for all employees is $22.28. Mannon said direct hourly wages at CC & V totaled $4,761,000 and the gold mine paid $1,000,344 in mineral severance taxes. CC & V produced 281,820 ounces of gold and 89,020 ounces of silver with budgeted production of 301,000 ounces of gold in 2008.