County Commission Update

Hi Folks,

We didn’t have our regular meeting last week, but we did end up having two Special Meetings. One of the meetings was to approve Resolution 24-2017 which puts all of Jefferson County’s private lands under Stage One Fire Restrictions. The following acts or uses are prohibited on all private lands in Jefferson County:

a. Building, maintaining, attending, or using a fire or campfire unless noted in the exemptions.

b. Smoking, except within an enclosed vehicle or building, a developed recreation site or while stopped in an area at least three feet in diameter that is cleared of all flammable material.

c. In addition to the prohibitions in Section 50-37-103, MCA, the use of fireworks during Stage One Restrictions is prohibited.

The following are exemptions to this Resolution:

1. Campfire on private property are exempt as long as they are within an improved fire ring and are no larger than three in any direction.

2. Any Federal, State, or local officer or member of an organized rescue or firefighting force in the performance of an official duty.

3. All land within a city boundary is exempt.

The other special/emergency meeting was in regard to the meals being provided to the Jail in Boulder. Beginning on July 1st, we awarded the contract to provide meals to the jail to a new vender. Unfortunately, this past week two meals were served to inmates that had food allergies. One of the meals was intercepted by jail staff, but the other one wasn’t obvious, but apparently the food vender didn’t properly read the ingredients. That incident resulted in the inmate being transported to the hospital by ambulance. We didn’t feel we could take another chance, so we terminated that contract and had the former food vender, the River Restaurant, take over the contract.

FYI: Lyall Watson (1939-2008), South African scientist and author; “Cannibalism is a radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation.”