Public comments at Monday’s Garfield County Commissioner (BOCC) meeting took on some heavy local issues, but had to wait until a presentation by Western States and Tribal Nations (WSTN) finished up. Lobbyist Andrew Browning, WSTN president and founder, gave the BOCC an update on the global energy climate, liquid natural gas export facilities, including Costa Azul in Mexico and what all that could mean for future natural gas extraction in Garfield County.
Next came public comments, which included a potential ballot measure that would involve the county library district, plus Sheriff Lou Vallario and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and how the BOCC needs to let go of its dreams of a natural gas revival in the county.
About a dozen people in red t-shirts were in the audience. Jankovsky assumed they wanted to talk about the library, which is why he opened the meeting with Browning’s presentation. Jankovsky asked those with comments “not library-related” to go first. Glenwood Springs resident Sue Lavin asked commissioners for some oversight of the Sheriff’s Office.
“I was extremely upset to read that there was an arrest at Walmart of a undocumented person, and that Sheriff Vallario had cooperated with [ICE] to make that arrest,” she said. “I have followed this over the years to see that, for example, in 2011, there was an arrest of an undocumented alien at the Strawberry Days parade in front of his family and hundreds of citizens.”
Lavin mentioned state laws that prohibit local law enforcement from certain kinds of ICE interactions. One of those, HB19-1124, “prohibits a law enforcement officer from arresting or detaining an individual solely on the basis of a civil immigration detainer.” The law allows officers to assist federal immigration enforcement officials with executing warrants but only if issued by federal judges. They can also transfer people from jail or prison into the custody of immigration officers, if they have a court order.
“At that time, a handful of sheriffs, including Sheriff Vallario, said that they intended to defy that law,” said Lavin. “And I don’t think it’s hard to see that we live in a county where there’s a lot of distress about ICE right now.”
Other state laws further restrict cooperation between state employees and federal immigration agents, like SB20-083, which prohibits civil arrests outside a courthouse when someone is going to and from court proceedings, and SB21-13, which prevents the state from disclosing personal identifying information or immigration status to ICE. “To have our chief law enforcement officer disobeying the law and also have a record of blatant connection with ICE and support of ICE is very disturbing to me,” Lavin added, requesting that the BOCC encourage Sheriff Vallario to follow the law.
Jankovsky told Lavin that the only oversight the BOCC can provide in this case is through the Sheriff’s Office budget. “Some of the responsibility of what’s going on in this country belongs to the [Joe] Biden administration when they let 13 million people come into this country,” he said. “We’ve had 10,000 murders from those people.” Those numbers came from President Donald Trump’s most recent State of the Union address. ICE has a docket of noncitizens convicted of murder, the majority of whom entered the country prior to the Biden administration.
Lavin said that the issue here is community safety and that the Biden debate is for another time. She asked who is responsible for holding the sheriff accountable if he is breaking the law. Jankovsky responded, “Well, I don’t believe the sheriff is breaking the law.”
“We’re aware of the arrest that you talked about,” said county attorney Heather Beatty. ”And so it’s our position that he is following the law.” Beatty also said that her office received a cease-and-desist order from a nonprofit legal firm in Denver.
Comments then addressed the potential ballot measure that would take money from the library to pay for RFTA’s Hogback bus service in the western part of Garfield County. It all started at a BOCC work session with Rifle City Council and the Silt town manager in February. They gathered to talk about public transportation among other issues, and who pays for the RFTA Hogback service. According to the Post Independent, Rifle is contributing $80,000 this year and, for the first time, the Town of Silt is throwing $40,000 in the pot. But the county has paid the lion’s share to keep the Hogback line in service. The county decided this year to contribute $250,000 to the route, down from $750,000 per year from 2002 to about 2020.
Jim Mann, the Silt Town Manager, floated the idea to mayors and the BOCC of a ballot measure that would essentially take some of the sales tax money that goes to the library district and use it to pay for the Hogback service. No one has written anything yet, but local library patrons are worried that the idea will gain traction and showed up Monday to try to convince the BOCC not to support it.
Jankovsky said that one of the drivers of the ballot measure idea is that the library district has over $25 million in reserves, saying that people in the western end of the county want to know if some of that is going to be returned to the public. “How is it used in your five or 10-year master plan?” he asked Trustee board chair Adrian Rippy-Sheehy who was in the audience.
For the second time in a year, the first being when the library board appeared in front of the BOCC to review the budget, Rippy-Sheehy talked about how that money is being spent. “We had the money that came from the oil and gas, and we very judiciously saved that,” she explained. “And we have that earmarked for [branch building] refreshes.”
Carolyn Howard of Carbondale praised Jamie LaRue, outgoing library district director, for leaving the district in better shape than he found it. “In April, he will leave behind a library district that is financially solvent, enjoys six solid branches across the county and benefits from an array of community partnerships,” she said, adding that community leadership demands innovation. “Garfield County is growing and has been for the last five years, and yet we have a budget shortfall that threatens to limit services,” she explained.
“This, in my opinion, is most likely because of a lack of innovation amongst our county leadership who’s failed to diversify our revenue stream over a decade-long decrease in oil and gas funding.” Howard added, “Insinuating that library district funds are up for grabs to cover budget shortfalls highlights the lack of forward thinkers amongst you.”