County News

By Roger Baker
County Manager

01/04/2007 - The end of one year and the beginning of another has always been an occasion for reflection and reminiscence, and since the Gilpin County Commissioners had no meeting scheduled this week, it gives me a chance to do a little of both.

  I’m not the first person to observe, in looking back, how little seems to change in the days and weeks and even months; but when you look back on the years and decades, you can really see how far you have come.

  Certainly that’s true with our County government, as well. Twenty-one years ago this week I began working for the Gilpin County Public Library, then located in the little log cabin at the corner of Gap Road and Highway 119. It’s pretty easy to see the changes in that part of County operations; we now have a lovely, still relatively new building, with a wonderful collection of materials and staffed by knowledgeable and helpful professionals.

  That sort of change has affected most other branches of County government as well. It’s not just that we have a new Justice Center, and Community Center, and (soon) a new Road and Bridge facility; it’s even more that we have trained and qualified staff to operate them, and provide the services our community wants and deserves.

  I was talking with one of our Sheriff’s Office employees the other day who has been around as long as I have, and we were both very pleased to reflect on how much the professionalism of entire departments has increased, while we are still able to maintain a connection to our community. Even here at the Courthouse—which has been here for over a century now—we may still be using the same offices, and keeping records in the old vaults, but now, with 21^st century equipment and communications networks, and educated and personable employees, we really do put the emphasis on customer service.

  All of which is not to say that all is perfect in Gilpin County, much less in Gilpin County government. We could always improve the ways in which we communicate with the citizens, some of our policies and procedures still need updating, and we sometimes—like every other large and growing organization—have to battle against bureaucratization, the blind dedication to the organization itself, rather than the people that organization is supposed to serve.

  The structure of County government itself continues to be archaic—the offices and their responsibilities are established in the state constitution, making it pretty hard to keep up with the times—but we’ve been very fortunate to have elected officials lately who take those responsibilities seriously, and are always looking for ways to operate within that constitutional framework to deliver better service to the folks who elected them.

  I’m looking forward to 2007. I know we will continue to make progress toward our goals, and even though I will occasionally get frustrated (as will some of our citizens) with the pace of that progress, I know that by year’s end—and certainly in another twenty or so years—we’ll be able to look back with pride at the strides that we have made.