Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Thursday, October 27, 2011
County Gov Touring county government
Posted by Pam Zubeck on Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 10:05 AM
The most obvious thing you can say about the county's new Citizens Service Center is: It's big.
On Tuesday afternoon, several commissioners and others toured the facility at 1675 Garden of the Gods Road, which the county bought from Intel last year for about $22 million. There's lots of space, lots of rooms that were empty when the tour took place and lots of hallways that leave a visitor with the feeling of being in a maze.
First, we were excited to finally get to see County Treasurer Bob Balink's new furniture, for which he paid roughly $10,000 from the clerk and recorder's budget. He transferred the money from there before he left the clerk's office near the end of 2010.
Here's a few shots of what he got for our money. Notice the enlarged photos on the walls, all of which were taken by Balink, which demonstrates his obvious talent behind a camera.
Then there's the exercise room for employees, which features locker rooms and showers. Darryl Glenn, who serves as a personal trainer as well as an attorney and a county commissioner, gave his approval.
At the Pikes Peak Workforce Center, there was lots of space, but not much action. Officials there said they needed the extra space.
Employees don't have to jump in their cars and drive somewhere for lunch. The new building has a cafeteria run by Aspen Pointe. Pretty snazzy.
The Clerk and Recorder's Office uses ballot on demand machines like the one below to print ballots when needed. The machines save the county money, because now they don't have to guess how many ballots to print for certain jurisdictions but rather if they run short, they can ask this machine to fill the gap.
Election Manager Liz Olson says as of Tuesday 50,000 ballots had been received. She's predicting a turnout of 120,000, so voters will have to pick up the pace to hit that number by Tuesday.
Public Health has what seems to be a lot of space but deputy director Dan Martindale says it's not all that much more than in the old place on South Union Boulevard.
It's easy to feel lost in the building when every turn leads you to long corridors like this one.
Finally, if there's any doubt as to the maze-like feeling one gets from this building, here's a map of one section.
