Chaffee County commissioners met the morning of Feb. 2 to hear from the county Weed Management Department, Solvista Health, Chaffee County Economic Development Corp. and Colorado Communities for Climate Action.
Commissioners finished the morning portion of the work session with a discussion about pending legislative issues.
County Weed Management staff spoke about their continued mitigation of cheatgrass, as well as being involved in conversations with various groups about conducting weed mitigation on private lands and coming up with future planning in case noxious weeds appear after mitigation work is done on a property.
Mandy Kaisner, CEO of Solvista, then spoke about potential funding cuts for behavioral health training and support, as well as disaster response, and how that would affect her office.
“When we deal with things like wildfires or other state or local emergencies, that funding allows us to do what we do, which is to provide some behavioral health support for people impacted by things like fires. Otherwise, we are hopeful that behavioral health continues to have bipartisan support, as we are pretty low funded already compared to other states. We want to keep all the funding we have,” Kaisner said.
Commissioner P.T. Wood asked her, in regards to the state cuts, what the commissioners could do to support Solvista.
“I know right now a lot of that fight’s focus is between early childhood and mental health; that’s where they’re trying to strike a balance,” Wood said.
Kaisner said the biggest thing commissioners could do was to express support for Solvista to move toward becoming a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic.
“The state is in trouble as you know. We’re officially applying to the federal government to become a state demo site for CCBHC,” Kaisner said. “What that would mean is that the state would have an infusion of federal dollars … for behavioral healthcare that they write for and get the support. For Solvista it means a great deal because we would ultimately be one of four community mental health centers in the state who had already been trying to move toward that national goal.”
Next, Deborah Cameron, executive director of CCEDC, spoke. Cameron said she would like to share strategic priorities for 2026 and give an update on the Ascent program.
Regarding strategic priorities, Cmaeron said CCEDC supports creating jobs and assisting with retention, shaping smart policies to keep the county competitive for economic growth and inspiring entrepreneurs.
She talked about how policy work is critical to CCEDC, and their policy pillars include workforce housing, water and wastewater, childcare and early childhood education and infrastructure.
The Ascent program, Cameron said, is currently in its fifth iteration, and this year includes two high school students. CCEDC would like to conduct an in-depth impact study with all 49 businesses that have gone through the program to get a greater understanding of how the program affected each participant.
Cameron also talked about remote worker meetups and how CCEDC is trying to connect remote workers to the community.
After her presentation, Wood commented about something he’d heard about the board.
“You guys have asked me … ‘What do you need from us?’ I think in a recent conversation with a local business owner we were referred to, us three (commissioners) in the county, we were referred to as anti-business,” Wood said. “I don’t agree with that. I think it would be useful for groups like EDC to be sharing stories about how the county helps achieve work and support business.” Commissioner Dave Armstrong said, “All three of us are business owners, with many different experiences. No. 1, it’s insulting to hear, and 2, we want to have a better partnership.”
Cameron responded, “I think it’s very likely an individual business could have an issue and is hopefully having a conversation with you. I think our concern is when we hear from multiple businesses that they’re having the same issue, that’s when our radar detectors are going to go up, and we want to have a deeper conversation, make elected officials aware and address it.”
Next on the docket was Jacob Smith, executive director of Colorado Communities for Climate Action. Since the county is new to CC4CA, he said he wanted to ensure they were effectively communicating what they do as a group for their members and who they are.
Smith said, “We are advocating on the behalf of our members on climate issues at the state level. At the state level that includes a lot of legislative work and regulatory work.”
He said there is agency-level work, which includes the Public Utilities Commission and the Air Quality Control Commission. He said CC4CA never takes a stance on an issue unless all its members are in agreement, and he gave the example of nuclear energy. There are voices on both sides of the issue within CC4CA, and therefore the group as a whole has not taken a stance.
With geothermal energy, Smith said, the conversation is “more mature,” and CC4CA agrees that from a climate and consumer standpoint geothermal energy is positive, but it needs to have side rails to ensure it is done properly for the community it is serving.
Smith asked commissioners and county staff to keep their eyes peeled for any issue that might arise that CC4CA can help with on a legislative or agency level, or even a program level.
The last conversation was led by Commissioner Gina Lucrezi, who brought up several pieces of legislation that she either had questions or concerns about.
“Obviously we can’t make decisions in work sessions, but it would be nice to know a sense of how we’re feeling on different bills,” Lucrezi said.
Some of the bills talked about included solar energy, which commissioners agreed is generally beneficial for both the environment and the consumer but has its issues when it comes to being capped at a certain level.
There were also bills relating to data centers, which commissioners did not support for reasons including the environmental implications, as well as disruptions to the power grid. Although Wood said that it was unlikely a data center would end up in the valley, it would have a ripple effect within the state.
All commissioners agreed that “unfunded mandates,” or pieces of legislation instructing communities how to conduct business, which typically requires increased reporting standards and an associated cost, were not beneficial to small rural communities like Chaffee County.