At its May 7 meeting, the Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) appointed Commissioner Veronica Medina as the negotiator for the renewal of County Attorney Todd Weaver’s contract.
Weaver presented the agenda item to the BoCC, stating that it was for the board to decide if it wanted to renew his contract and, if so, to appoint a negotiator to determine the terms of the contract.
Medina explained that she and Weaver had been working with the Employers Council to refine the verbiage of the contract for the county attorney and county manager.
She asked Weaver if he had had time to review the contract, which he stated he had not done in depth, but explained that the goal is to streamline the contracts, which had begun to be cumbersome due to elements being added piecemeal over time.
Commissioner Ronnie Maez noted that there are differences between the county attorney and county manager positions, which Weaver expressed agreement with, noting that the county attorney position is included in the state constitution, while the county manager position is outlined in other state laws.
Weaver added that the county attorney could be an elected position, although he stated that he was not aware of this occurring recently.
Medina commented that she wanted to bring the contract revisions to the BoCC’s attention and that the contracts were “clean.”
“They’re really concise and there is opportunity to fill in the blank, if you will, and to make those different accommodations if we are negotiating,” she added.
Medina then indicated that she would like to be the negotiator for Weaver’s contract renewal due to having worked closely with Weaver recently.
She added that she had not reached out to Human Resources to find out if any of the commissioners had turned in the written evaluation of the county attorney that the board previously discussed.
“It’s been a very busy beginning of the year with all the projects that we have, but I think it’s important, just like we expect our leadership — our directors — to give their hourly employees evaluations, I think it’s very important for us commissioners to take the time to evaluate our staff and let them know how we appreciate them, areas of improvement and things of that nature,” Medina said.
She added that she had not yet turned in an evaluation, but that she would request that the BoCC turn in those evaluations.
Commissioner Warren Brown asked when she would want the evaluations done.
Maez stated that he “looked at it differently” and that he favored providing a verbal evaluation as the county has done in the past.
He added that the decision on contract negotiations was what was before the BoCC and that the board needed to move forward with that decision.
Medina stated that she agreed with Maez about moving forward with a decision on contract negotiations, but that both the county attorney and county manager contracts included a provision stating that written evaluations would be provided.
Maez noted that the contracts could be changed.
Medina continued that, although one commissioner is not willing to provide a written evaluation, she would personally complete a written evaluation and provide it by the end of July.
She added that any commissioner who wished to provide a written evaluation could forward it to Human Resources.
Brown commented that such an evaluation “is just within the terms of the contract” and that “this is the feedback we should give so they know how they’re doing, how they can improve, what they’ve done well. It just fosters likely better performance, better communication.”
Medina then asked if the commissioners had any objections to her being the negotiator for the county attorney’s contract.
Neither commissioner expressed an objection, and Maez moved to appoint Medina as the negotiator, which Brown seconded.
The board then unanimously approved the motion.
josh@pagosasun.com
