by Ruth Stodghill
AGUILAR — After months of tension between the town of Aguilar Board of Trustees and area residents, both sides came to the table to engage in civil discourse at the Oct. 26 regular meeting of the town’s board, with topics including recent elections, accountability, and the town’s audits up for discussion.
The meeting opened with a statement from the town’s attorney, Clayton Buchner, outlining the procedure for public discussion and expectations for decorum. Aguilar resident Vernon Thorn then addressed the trustees with concerns regarding the running of past elections in the town. Among his complaints, Thorn alleged he was on the receiving end of improper slander and attacks by his fellow trustees when he served on the board, which he believed impacted the results of a recall election targeting him.
After receiving an apology from Buchner if such actions did indeed take place, Thorn said, “All I want to do is for the next election that is coming up, I want a fair election.” He then raised conflict of interest concerns regarding the naming of the town’s administrator and clerk, Tyra Avila, as Aguilar’s election official.
Buchner asked Thorn, “What do you want to happen at the next election? How do we make the next election fair?”
Thorn’s response: for a third party to oversee it.
Buchner then addressed the trustees, saying, “It seems to me that there’s no personal interest for the board to be involved or have staff involved in the election. So that seems like a reasonable thing to do,” said Buchner.
After discussion, the board agreed that they would vote in favor of a measure appointing a neutral third party to conduct the next regular election, and to place the item on an upcoming agenda.
Thorn was then joined by Aguilar resident David Gully, with the duo questioning the board of trustees about a history of a lack of accountability by the board for the completion of various projects in Aguilar such as roof repairs to the community center, the town’s incompleted audits, and the water system.
Buchner noted that the majority of these items were capital improvement projects, and a way to move forward would be for the town to draft a list of improvement projects and get feedback from the community regarding prioritizing the projects on the list.
Gully questioned the board on the delinquent status of the town’s audits, and why the board had apparently been unaware of the full extent of the situation. In response, Buchner said, “There’s no good excuse for not filing an audit. I’ve talked with staff and talked with the board, and there is an auditor on board, and they’re working on it. We can’t go back in time. I wasn’t here.”
After acknowledging that no audits have been filed by the town with the state since 2018, Buchner said, “This is a problem for a lot of reasons. One, the biggest of which is there’s a lot of grants out there that require audits. So we’re going to fix it.”
Mayor Donald Gonzales said, “The audits are getting done. They’re getting caught up. They should be done probably by November, all of it. This is what we were told by the auditor. So that’s what I’m going on. I’ve been talking to him every Friday.”
Infrastructure improvements
Ken Torres gave an update on multiple infrastructure projects undertaken by the town in recent months. He stated that the contract for an augmentation pond has been signed, with construction scheduled to begin in the first week of November. “The contract, the loan, and the grant will be coming to the town,” said Torres. “The town will get reimbursed for the engineer services and the services for the attorney. They will also get reimbursed for working on the water rights issue to get the reservoir going.”
“I finally got an approval letter from CDPHE [Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment] regarding engineering services for the second phase, for the new water tower and the filtration building,” said Torres. Torres recently facilitated meetings between the engineering firm and state on the project. “Now it’s in the state’s hands to start to get the funding to get going on that project,” Torres said.
Torres then reported on progress being made to bring the steps leading into the town hall into ADA compliance. “It’s not the town’s fault that this took so long. The project was given out six months ago, but the contractor overextended himself doing projects for the county, and he was not able to get here on time,” said Torres. “We finally got him to get part of his crew over here so we could get this done before the winter.”
Torres reported that the restroom facility in the town square that has been out of service since the summer is scheduled to be checked by a professional in the coming week. The handwashing sink that needs to be fixed in the Community Center will also be checked at the same time.
“We’re also looking for other grants to try to make sure that we can improve all of the infrastructure coming into the town of Aguilar,” Torres said. “Those are big projects. It takes time, and it also takes money, and we’re working on the grants.”
Tensions ran high when a member of the audience questioned if Torres’ contract to work on these projects by the town was approved during an open session. Buchner offered to produce the minutes from the meeting where the decision was made to contract with Torres.
Trustee hired, promises to resign
The trustees interviewed two candidates for open utilities work positions, including both water and gas technician slots. Town trustee Joseph Porras recused himself from the candidate interviews, as he was one of the candidates applying for a position. During Porras’ interview, Gonzales asked him if he was aware that he’d have to resign as town trustee if he was hired. “I’d resign immediately,” said Porras.
Porras was hired by unanimous decision of the remaining trustees, as was a second candidate. With Porras’s resignation, the board of trustees will have two unfilled positions. A special election to fill one of these slots is currently scheduled for December.
In other business
In old business, the board approved to have the municipal code book updated by the same individual who has updated the town’s website.
The trustees approved the purchase of a new flagpole for the town hall, and approved the payment of bills.
