SLV Board of Commissioners starts 2025 with updates, new ideas

By PRISCILLA WAGGONER, Courier Reporter
Posted 1/29/25

ALAMOSA — The SLV Board of County Commissioners met on Monday, Jan. 27, for its first quarterly meeting of 2025. They took on a handful of issues, starting with a vote for the new chairperson. 

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SLV Board of Commissioners starts 2025 with updates, new ideas

Posted

ALAMOSA — The SLV Board of County Commissioners met on Monday, Jan. 27, for its first quarterly meeting of 2025. They took on a handful of issues, starting with a vote for the new chairperson. 

It’s protocol for the position of chair to pass to a new county each year, and Alamosa was up for 2025. After Alamosa County Commissioner Lori Laske’s motion with a second by fellow Commissioner Arlan Van Ry, Alamosa Commissioner Vern Heersink will chair the board for the next 12 months. Meeting dates in 2025, set for the fourth Monday of the month, will be April 28, July 28 and Sept. 22.  

  • ACCESS TO JUSTICE COMMITTEE

District Judge Kimberly Cortez provided commissioners with a brief overview of the Access to Justice Committee, which, as described by Cortez, was created to extend assistance with mainly civil justice issues for people who may not have the means to obtain legal assistance. 

Although this was not mentioned during the meeting, access to justice has been one of Cortez’s passions. When she was sworn into office as a district judge in 2022, former Chief Justice Michael Gonzales noted that, after working for a private law firm in 2009, Cortez left the firm to work in the newly formed “Self-Represented Litigants Project”, which was created to help people who could not afford an attorney to understand the judicial system as part of representing themselves. 

Addressing the board, Cortez described the need to expand the number of attorneys who work with the committee. She also discussed ongoing efforts to encourage high school students to consider a career in the legal profession, including student participation in “mock trials”, a competitive event held among school districts in the state. Locally, the team draws from students across the valley since no single high school is large enough to participate on their own. 

“Judges and attorneys also volunteer time in coaching students as they take on school districts that are much larger,” she said. 

Cortez also talked about the need for people in the judicial system to “get out of their silo” and engage with the community, even at the most basic level like informing people about abbreviations for common court actions, such as eviction. 

  • CSU EXTENSION

Larry Brown, agriculture specialist and director of the Colorado State University Extension Office in the San Luis Valley, provided commissioners with an update on activities in the extension office. Brown started by saying that, when he took over as director, there were two staff. CSU Extension Office now has 10 people on payroll, some full-time, some part-time, but all hired year-round. 

Brown then stepped aside while individual staff members briefed the board on projects and activities they were each involved in, ranging from field trips to CSU Extension where kids and parents got a glimpse at college life to fifth-graders building and launching rockets.  

The goal was not just recruiting but working to inspire kids and teach them that there are “so many avenues they can explore” plus providing programs on “how to be better people in their lives.” 

Madeline Wilson, a specialist in Agriculture Production Systems, and Brown then gave an abbreviated summary of the innovative work going on with farmers and ranchers. The list included, but was not limited to, launching small acreage workshops in Costilla County to be held the first weekend in May, growing a broad coalition as part of an ongoing revegetation program, Costilla County “outreach” with New Mexico ranching families just across the border from Colorado on soil health and water issues, and working with landowners in Subdistrict No. 1 on how to regrow native vegetation on land that has been in production. 

The revenue picture has been improved by hiring a new staff member who came with grant writing skills. 

“Our endowment is closing in on $200,000,” Brown said, with donations from SLV Federal, RG Bank and CPAC.  We’re really making progress on the small scale,” he added, but it’s going to take some time and philanthropic effort to reach their goal of $500,000. 

  • REGIONAL VETERANS SERVICE OFFICER

Alamosa County Administrator Roni Wisdom presented the commissioners with an innovative proposal to increase Veteran access to Veterans Service Officers (VSO) in the Valley.  

The Department of Veteran Affairs provides funding for a VSO on a county-by-county basis. According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, there are 2,700 Veterans living across the six counties. 

For a county to qualify for funding a VSO, the officer must spend the first three to six months in training and then work 1,000 hours a year. But with a valley-wide population of 2,700 veterans, no single county has a population concentrated enough to require 1,000 hours of work a year.  

“We took Saguache as an example and, at 15 hours a week, a VSO would only work 780 hours in a year,” Wisdom said.  

Also, the position, which requires a specific skill set, is only funded at $11 an hour, which is below minimum wage.  

Currently, Alamosa County is the only county with VSOs on staff, including one officer, Bill Brown, who has been in the position for several years and a second, Donald Romero, who was hired in the fall and has yet to fulfill the training requirement. As a result, Veterans from across the Valley have to come to Alamosa for services, which can present significant challenges for some Veterans and a caseload not easily managed by just two VSOs.  

Wisdom presented the commissioners with the idea that the Valley propose to the state office of Veteran Affairs a different model much more relevant to the needs of the San Luis Valley and other rural areas where the state agrees to fund one VSO position to serve two counties and then provide support to Veterans who need to travel.  

The idea is still in its formative stages, but some advance work has been done. According to Wisdom, the idea has been pitched at the state level and, even though they are still not sure how it would work, they are intrigued by the idea. 

The topic was tabled for future discussion.