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Boys & Girls Club seeks funds

Moffat County Commission unsure about $20K request

Collin Smith

Other action

At its Tuesday meeting, the Moffat County Commission:

• Approved, 2-0, a special events permit for the St. John’s Greek Orthodox Church to host a New Year’s Eve party from 7 p.m. to midnight Dec. 31 at the American Legion Post 62 building, 1055 Moffat County Road 7.

• Approved, 2-0, a $228,536 bid from Pinnacol Assurance to supply the county’s workman’s compensation insurance in 2010. It was the low bid submitted.

• Approved, 2-0, a personnel requisition to hire a Moffat County Sheriff’s Office deputy for Dinosaur. The position is full-time.

• Approved, 2-0, waiving the bid process to purchase digital audio and video recording equipment for the interview rooms at the Moffat County Jail.

Grand Junction-based Current Solutions will provide the equipment, which will cost $11,743. About a quarter of the total is funded by the city.

Sheriff Tim Jantz said the county would lose its grant money if the project is not completed by the end of December, which is why he wanted to forgo a formal bid process that can take more than a month.

Some of his staff also called other vendors, Jantz said, but they either could not provide the materials or wanted to charge expensive travel costs.

Other action

At its Tuesday meeting, the Moffat County Commission:

• Approved, 2-0, a special events permit for the St. John’s Greek Orthodox Church to host a New Year’s Eve party from 7 p.m. to midnight Dec. 31 at the American Legion Post 62 building, 1055 Moffat County Road 7.

• Approved, 2-0, a $228,536 bid from Pinnacol Assurance to supply the county’s workman’s compensation insurance in 2010. It was the low bid submitted.



• Approved, 2-0, a personnel requisition to hire a Moffat County Sheriff’s Office deputy for Dinosaur. The position is full-time.

• Approved, 2-0, waiving the bid process to purchase digital audio and video recording equipment for the interview rooms at the Moffat County Jail.



Grand Junction-based Current Solutions will provide the equipment, which will cost $11,743. About a quarter of the total is funded by the city.

Sheriff Tim Jantz said the county would lose its grant money if the project is not completed by the end of December, which is why he wanted to forgo a formal bid process that can take more than a month.

Some of his staff also called other vendors, Jantz said, but they either could not provide the materials or wanted to charge expensive travel costs.

Dana Duran has a bucket system at work.

As the executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northwest Colorado, it’s her job to make sure the facility is up and running every day for roughly one-third of local youths, and part of that is putting out buckets to catch the water that leaks through the roof.

Obviously, Duran told the Moffat County Commission at its regular meeting Tuesday, this is not ideal.

“I can’t afford to send staff to empty the buckets,” she said. “They need to be focused on the kids.”

Officials for the Boys & Girls Club of Craig have worked for the past several months to secure funding needed to repair part of the building’s roof and remodel its entrance, both for maintenance and security reasons.

On Tuesday, they discussed a formal funding request to Moffat County for $20,000 to go toward the overall project’s $188,000 cost.

Moffat County Com­mis­sioners Tom Gray and Tom Mathers said they believe in the value of the Boys & Girls Club of Craig, they just don’t know if the county has money to spare for a remodel project.

They said they would make a final decision by the time they approve the county’s final 2010 budget at their Dec. 15 meeting.

Commissioner Audrey Dan­ner was absent to be at a Colorado Counties meeting.

Boys & Girls Club officials project about $20,500 will go toward repairing the north side of the building’s roof. Most of the rest of the money is slated to pay for an extensive remodel of the building’s entrance.

Where there are now two windowless, steel doors, officials would like to build a covered porch and foyer area that opens directly onto a new front desk.

The project’s goals are two-fold, said Sari Cobb, Boys & Girls Club board member.

Security is a primary concern, she said, since the current entrance does not allow for club officials to keep as much control over people coming and going.

At the same time, the building’s design creates a lot of material issues, Cobb added.

The roof drains onto either side of the entrance, which causes the concrete walkway to expand and contract. Club officials have had to cut off the bottoms of the front doors so they can open year-round.

The commissioners said they would consider the project the same as six others made from outside agencies for next year, though none of those received full funding.

County officials have gone through their budget line by line this year, Gray said, and he is hesitant to give any group $20,000 after cutting expenses for internal offices.

Mathers added later that he and other commissioners have been trying to keep from laying people off in future years, and he is not willing to make pay cuts for county employees to fund an outside organization.

That said, both commissioners agreed that the money would be well spent by the Boys & Girls Club.

“It’s not that you need to convince us,” Mathers said. “It’s just we have a certain amount of money to work with. …We can’t manufacture money.”

Residents who would like more information about the Boys & Club, its remodel project or its services to children and teenagers can call Duran at 826-0411.

Collin Smith can be reached at 875-1794 or cesmith@craigdailypress.com.


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