County asked to sign land-use agreements after fairgrounds housed incident command posts for recent fires

Justin told commissioners that the county received requests to use the fairgrounds as incident command posts during recent wildfires and presented two land-use agreements for signature. "This one here in front of you is the Waters Canyon. This one, they came in on April or August 5, and then they actually just left on Saturday. So they have removed themselves from the fairgrounds now. It was a total of 12 days," Justin said, identifying the users as the Ute Mountain Ute Agency and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

A second agreement is with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Justin said the USDA Forest Service brought the Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team 1 to work on the Stoner Mesa Fire. "They came in on August 13 to utilize the fairgrounds. They brought in what's called the Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team 1 to work on the Stoner Mesa Fire. They anticipate a 14 day stay, but that's just gonna kind of be dependent on their outlooks in the next couple weeks," Justin said.

Justin said the agreements specify the county’s rate and fee schedule for use of the facilities and any additional reimbursable costs, and he asked commissioners for signatures on the land-use agreements. Staff said they had received positive feedback from the fire teams about the facility’s suitability and that only a few scheduled events (barrel racing and a canning class) had to be moved or combined because of the deployments.

The presentation was informational; the transcript records a request for signatures but does not include a recorded vote or executed signatures in the provided excerpt.