GILPIN COUNTY — The Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) had a busy agenda for their March 17, 2026, work session at the County Courthouse.

There were presentations on the process for nominating Lincoln Hills as a National Historic District, “Mothballing” the East Portal Cabins, creating a paid intern program in the County government, prioritizing grant requests, and opportunities to increase County revenue.

Historic preservation

Community Development Director Jamie Boyle and Planner Jack Zeman started the work session with presentations on historic preservation topics and priorities in the county.

Tom Simmons, a historian with Front Range Research Associates (FRRA) and Dr. Jeanette Patterson, the Executive Director of Lincoln Hills Cares, gave a presentation on a survey that FRRA did to consider nominating Lincoln Hills as a National Historic District. The survey showed that property owners within the proposed district were supportive of such a designation.

The commissioners were also supportive of the proposal and offered to help with letters of support when the proposal is submitted to the National Park Service possibly later this year.

The chair of the Gilpin County Historic Preservation Commission (HPC), B. Travis Wright,  and Katie Peterson from Colorado Preservation Inc. gave a presentation to the commissioners regarding the “mothballing” of the East Portal cabins by the Moffat Tunnel.

The term “mothballing” refers to protecting historic structures from further deterioration until restoration work can be done. Peterson showed slides from a project in Jefferson County where graffiti-proof plywood was installed on a building to prevent further destruction by vandals.

The East Portal cabins are currently owned by the Union Pacific Railroad Company, while the land that the cabins sit on is owned by the National Forest Service (NFS). The presentation ended with a request to engage with Union Pacific and NFS for permission and to arrange for a date to mothball the cabins. BoCC Chair Susan Berumen said that they would seek the necessary permissions.

Boyle, Zeman, Wright, and Jeremy Kaiser, the vice chair of the HPC, discussed with the commissioners strategies for historic preservation in the county which included site visits, adding a GIS layer as a planning tool, heritage tourism, and grant funding.

Internship program

The Director of Human Resources, Chandra Johnson, presented the commissioners with a proposal to start a paid intern program in County departments. The first department to offer a paid internship would be Human Services, and if successful it would expand to Public Works.

 Director of Human Services Janey Barker said that there was a program at Metropolitan State University that could supply students pursuing degrees in social work on a semester or year basis. There were programs available to cover 100% of the cost to help the students learn how to be case workers.

The commissioners gave Johnson the green light to proceed with a trial paid internship program with Human Services as the initial department to provide the program.

Grants

Special Projects Manager Jeri Brewer gave a short presentation on proposed grant priority framework that aligned strategic objectives.

Based on the 2025 Gilpin County Quality of Life and Communications Survey, Brewer listed five areas that the survey participants thought should receive the highest priority when applying for grants. She listed the order as wildfire mitigation and community resilience, capital improvements and community infrastructure, transportation and mobility, historic preservation, and workforce development and training.

After discussion, the commissioners wanted to see workforce development as a higher priority and transportation combined with community infrastructure.

Presentation on increasing revenue

County Manager Ray Rears gave the final presentation, on potential opportunities for the County to increase revenue to meet increasing demand for public services.

Rears gave detailed information on current and projected costs for services mandated by the state, unfunded state mandates like body cameras for the Sheriff’s department, and non-mandated services like the Gilpin County Community Center.

Using year-to-year comparisons, Rears presented a series of graphs that showed an increase in demand for range of services including dispatch calls, the detention center, and road maintenance.

On the revenue side, Rears showed data that gaming revenue has been plateauing in recent years and isn’t expected to increase significantly in the near term.

Rears listed a number of ways that the County can increase revenue and gave the advantages and disadvantages of each. Fee adjustments, deBrucing TABOR, Mill Levy increases, and a County sales tax were all covered.

After the presentation, the commissioners told Rears that they wanted to review the information before taking any action.

Rear’s slide presentation (93 slides) on additional funding opportunities is available on the Gilpin County website (gilpincounty.colorado.gov).

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the BoCC will be March 24, 2026, at the Historic Courthouse at 9 a.m.