Photo: Newly-elected Archuleta County Commissioner Veronica Medina is sworn into office by Judge Justin Faye. January, 2023.
On their regular meeting on Tuesday, August 19, the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners — Veronica Medina, Warren Brown and John Ranson — welcomed the departure of County Manager Jack Harper with a unanimous approval of his resignation. Although no one mentioned whether the resignation was effective immediately, that appears to be the case, because the BOCC held a special meeting two days later to discuss the process for soliciting applications for the position, and also, to define which Commissioner would serve as the administrative contact for the County departments that have been left temporarily without administrative leadership.
CALL TO ORDER THE SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF AUGUST 21, 2025 AT 8:30am.
NEW BUSINESS
Discussions Regarding County Manager Vacancy
Presenter: Cathleen Giovannini, County Attorney
Consideration and Designation of Supervision of County Departments
This agenda item is for the Board of County Commissioners to divide up the county departments that normally report to the county manager amongst the commissioners to supervise until such time as an interim or permanent county manager is hired.
Presenter: Cathleen Giovannini, County Attorney
Now that the BOCC has disposed of their County Manager, who is going to run the show? Especially perhaps, who is going to choose the new people to run Development Services?
We note that the presenter on Thursday morning was County Attorney Cathleen Giovanini.
Ms. Giovanini was hired earlier this summer to replace former Attorney Todd Weaver, who resigned somewhat suddenly in the spring. During the hiring process, the commissioners acknowledged that Ms. Giovanini seems highly qualified to serve as County Attorney — except for her lack of experience with Land Use planning and regulations.
Of course, the County department that’s currently in the midst of a staffing meltdown is Development Services, the department in charge of enforcing building, planning, and land use regulations.
This meltdown appears to be the mainly result of micromanaging by Commissioner John Ranson, apparently supported by his fellow commissioners. From the resignation letter written by outgoing Development Director Pamela Flowers, dated July 14:
It has, therefore, become painfully obvious that each of you lack the capacity to understand your role and your responsibility as a County commissioner. You are not kings and queen of the County. You do not have unlimited power. You were not elected to protect your ‘friends’ from the very rules you have adopted.
The role of those rules, and the difficult and thankless work undertaken every day by Development Services, is to ensure that every single citizen of Archuleta County is treated fairly and consistently. You have been reminded many times that if you don’t like the rules, you have the power to change them. The fact that you have made no effort to make rule changes and instead choose to actively work against and pressure my staff to behave unethically in favor of your pals, shows the depth of your ignorance, laziness, and corruption.
Instead of acting with courage to protect the County, you have chosen to belittle, attack, and demonize your employees for doing the difficult work. One day you scold me in a public meeting for not enforcing the rules, then behind closed doors you name call and insult me, and the dedicated professionals who work with me, because we won’t ignore the rules for one of your friends.
These unfortunate facts show me that my future here is bleak. Though I am not perfect, I am a person of great personal and professional integrity. Standing by and watching you disrespect and threaten the people in this County who are trying to do the right thing because we won’t get in line is no longer tolerable to me. I cannot continue to be associated with the profound incompetence and dishonesty shown by this Board on a regular basis…
Archuleta County has been on a good path of late, but this corruption will most definitely derail the efforts of the many outstanding people who live and work here and just want to do their part to make the County better.
Pamela Flowers
Reportedly, the Development Services department has since lost four additional key employees. Like Ms. Flowers, I am concerned about the efforts of many outstanding people who live and work here.
The question facing the three commissioners last Thursday concerned not only Development Services, but also the supervision of other departments normally overseen by the County Manager.
Commissioner Medina: “Even on Tuesday, there was a department head confused about, ‘Well, who do I ask my questions to? Who do I go to?’ So it’s really just for them to have a point of contact. It’s not meant for us to micromanage any of the departments. We have some amazing department heads; they know their job. They work very well together, and usually they lean on each other, before they ever come to us.
“So really, it’s about getting them someone that they know they can go to. So that’s what this is. It’s not meant to, again, micromanage the departments, because they definitely know how to do their jobs, more so than we might…”
Commissioner Medina then asked her fellow commissioners which departments they wish to help supervise.
And that’s when things started getting weird, again.
Here are the ‘orphaned’ departments:
Finance
Development Services
Public Works/Road & Bridge
Human Services
Public Health
Human Resources
County Airport
GIS/Information Technology
Veteran Services
CSU Extension
This poses an awkward situation. The BOCC, as an elected public board, is required to make decisions collaboratively. When one individual commissioner begins micromanaging this or that department, we are essentially witnessing a breakdown of the legal structure of county government.
But this seems to be just one part of the current roller coaster ride.