LA VETA — In another short town board meeting, the only real issue of concern for La Veta trustees was an apparent abdication of duties by the Huerfano County Parks and Recreation District Board of Directors. The town board was in receipt of a letter from Cindy Campbell of LiveWell, explaining she was attending Walsenburg City Council meeting to discuss a common issue for both councils. Brian Rosino, who serves as the Executive Director of District O.N.E., a partner with LiveWell, filled in for Campbell. He explained the letter was asking the town board to appoint a board member to sit on a Recreation Advisory Committee being created under the nonprofit LiveWell organization. The committee would oversee a recreational coordinator, who would in turn, oversee county-wide recreational programming, as well as a budget for the recently created Washington Underground. Mayor Doug Brgoch responded with, “Maybe I’m not tracking this well, but isn’t that the job of the County Parks and Recreation board?” Rosino said it was but that the board was “not interested” in overseeing the coordinator. This led to a lengthy discussion, regarding the statutory obligations of Parks and Recreation and the limited authority of LiveWell’s advisory board. The board will wait to take action until meeting
with the county commissioners at the December city, county, town meeting. Under Old Business, the board heard an update from Mark Hornberger on the town’s water project., and approved a payment of $49,471.27 to cover the latest round of work. Mayor Brgoch said regarding the public hearing on the proposed 2016 budget, no citizens attended, and no comments were received. The proposed totals are as follows: General Fund Revenue $2,521,625 with expenditures of $1,977,788 leaving a General Fund balance of $543,837, Water Enterprise Fund $767,858, and the Sewer enterprise Fund is $667,935. The board plans to adopt the budget December 1st. The board decided there aren’t enough funds to run the 600’ water line in the alley south of Cucharas Street, noting that the town does have a right of way. The board opened two bids related to the Mexican Ditch installation of two bypass stations on the Cuchara River. One was from Glacier Construction of Colorado Springs for $161,998, and the other was from a local business, Paul Morgan Excavating, in the amount of $110,952.80. The board awarded the bid to Morgan pending approval of their engineering firm, Colorado River Engineering. In other business the board: • Tabled action on the contract with DD Wireless as the representative could not make the board session due to weather. • Is waiting on documents related to the Ryus Avenue Bridge Project. • Heard from Mayor Brgoch that, although the town’s water is safe and meets current standards, new health department regulations require the town to soon enter into a new design phase to upgrade the town’s water treatment plant to current standards.
