County Commissioners approve airport engineering, landfill services, software development contracts | News

At their Sept. 17 meeting, the Chaffee County Commissioners approved the selection of Dibble Engineering for contract engineering services for the Salida Airport, an additional scope of services for landfill engineering with Sanborn Head and the engagement of CivicPlus for the development of online Building and Planning permitting software. 

Sanborn was engaged through an RFP process for landfill consultation services in April. The scope of services the commissioners approved includes ongoing testing, analysis, compliance reporting and master planning consultation.

These services “will help us understand the current footprint of the landfill and start that conceptual future state for … infrastructure, such as the new scale,” Helmke said, “as well as the materials recovery facility we anticipate being able to proceed to work on over the coming year.”

The scope of services was a “not-to-exceed” amount, she said, with each of those individual tasks only acted on at the request of the county. 

Lastly, the board voted to engage CivicPlus to support the development of an online Building and Planning permitting system for an initial term cost of $58,860. 

Planning Manager Gary Baker said the county’s DOLA Local Planning Capacity grant, amounting to $66,320, would support the project cost. 

“Eighty percent of this will be funded through the grant, 20 percent is the county’s pledge match,” he said. “I’m really excited about moving us into the modern age.”

The county explored six potential vendors, and “CivicPlus outperformed others in their functionality,” Baker said. “We engaged a lot of the staff in our departments in the selection and are just really excited about getting an improvement to customer service and really working on our efficiencies.”

Planning Director Miles Cottom added that CivicPlus is the county’s current vendor for all agenda and meeting management. 

Commissioner P.T. Wood asked if the cost would grow each year, and Cottom said that year one costs are higher due to the initial launch of workflows for various applications and technical supports. The grant will only apply to the first-year costs, and Commissioner Keith Baker said the county plans to pursue ongoing funds for the ongoing costs. Reimer said those costs would also be supported by fee revenues. 

The commissioners’ next meeting will be held on Oct. 1 at 9 a.m. at 104 Crestone Ave. in Salida. Agendas are available at https://chaffeecoco.portal.civicclerk.com/