“That cake is already cooked!” – Dick Elsner
The Park County Board of Commissioners went into an executive session during a special meeting on December 19, 2024, to conduct the last interview–Nathan “Jay” Bish, who lives in Pennsylvania–of the six finalists for the county manager position. They may also have discussed what they and the additional interview committee members gleaned from all the finalists’ interviews and, I assume, reviewed the finalists’ applications against the job specifications. The executive session began at about 9:30 a.m. More than five hours later, they returned with news we were all eager to hear. We heard that the top three finalists were identified, and those three would be interviewed again. The new county manager would be chosen from that trio.
Available data on each of the top three is below.
Clarice Navarro
Nathan Bish
Lucas Meyer
During the commissioners’ discussion about this decision, Commissioner Dick Elsner hit the nail: “My concern is that the cake is already cooked, and we aren’t gonna be open [about the decision that’s already been made], but I will leave it at that.”
The cake is already cooked. Although we’ve yet to hear her, the Fat Lady has already sung.
Choosing Clarice Navarro as the county manager would result in an interesting dynamic. She is Hispanic and would provide the administration with a bit of diversity. She was MAGA tested in 2016, sitting on the National Hispanic Advisory Council for Trump. She interrupted her third term as Colorado District 47 representative when Trump appointed her to executive director of the Colorado USDA Farm Service Agency. Before being elected a state representative, she was Congressman Scott Tipton’s district director in 2011 and 2012. She became Lauren Boebert’s district director in 2021 and held that position for at least three years.
Perhaps her bona fides would meet the position’s requirements in the “equivalent combination of training and experience” portion of the spec. But she is a political animal, probably a Type A personality, and who knows how long it would be before the other Type As, Wissel and Michell, clashed?
Kudos, of course, to Wissel and Mitchell, and perhaps former commissioner Leni Walker and commissioner-elect Jason Gemmer for placing her on the top three list. Possibly, they thought it was the least they could do for such a political heavyweight.
The essential question, though, is how long would Navarro be content dealing with the minutiae of county government?
What about Nathan Bish? He appears to be a bright young man with about four years of experience administering a small Pennsylvania borough. He was also the city clerk for the city of Jeannette, Pennsylvania. He has a BA in political science and history from the University of Pittsburg and an MPA from Pennsylvania State with certificates in public budgeting, finance management, and public sector human resources management. He, too, is qualified according to the job spec, relying on the “equivalent combination of training and experience” caveat. But here’s the kicker: he’s a Democrat.
As bright, young, and enthusiastic as Bish is, there is no way the Park County MAGA-centric Board of County Commissioners (not to mention their South Park Outsiders Kitchen Cabinet) would place a Democrat into an administrative position with the county. It just ain’t gonna happen, buckaroos. Indeed, when Commissioner-elect Jason Gemmer was campaigning, he said, “The reason I’m running is, ah, is because I believe that this county is going to be pushed very hard toward the Democrat Party by the Democrat elites. My opinion is I want to keep this county red. I want this county to be free as possible. And I want the freedom for the people.”
Now comes Lucas Meyer, who will be our next county manager. I guarantee it.
In my former life, I was a division director for the City and County of Denver. I hired and fired a lot of folks. I studied hundreds of applications and applicants, and trust me, I know what I’m talking about.
If I saw an application where the applicant listed prior jobs, describing those jobs with a 500 to 600-word description of duties, the red flag would be raised. If, for instance, the job title was budget analyst, and the applicant offered a recap of duties, maybe up to fifty words, that would be good. That would be expected. 600 words, on the other hand, would gild the lily, would be an attempt by the applicant to substitute inane volume for substance, an attempt to make of the job something it wasn’t.
“Wow! Would you look at all those words!!!” a competent manager would never say when reviewing an application.
As an aside, Meyer has engaged in an online discussion on the South Park Bulletin site over the last few days. In one of his comments, he stated that Park County’s budget is $50 million. It isn’t. It’s around $20 million. He also noted that Nathan Bish did not, like him, have an MBA. What Bish does have is even better than an MBA. As mentioned above, Bish has an MPA (Master of Public Administration) from Pennsylvania State.
If one wants to be the manager of Park County, we might assume that he or she would be interested enough to research the county’s budget. For goodness sake, if, in this case, Meyer participated in an investigation of the Park County budget as recent as 2022 under the auspices of the South Park Outsiders, you’d think some of that data would have stuck, that he wouldn’t have erroneously more than doubled the county’s actual budget when discussing it a couple of years later.
Meyer’s application also contains over 1200 words related to what he calls job-related training. Imagine that. 1200 words. And it is training. It’s online training, specifically BAS Prism via the federal government and BOP training via the Bureau of Prisons. Generally, to be eligible for promotion, you must complete these little gems in a specified period. These are short subject-matter courses you log into, maybe take a test after you’ve read the material, and if you pass the test, Voila, you click a button, and you can add the item to your resume. You can go through six, seven, eight, or more subject-matter topics in one sitting.
Once again, a competent manager would look at those 1200+ words, shake their head, raise the red flag, and be warned that this applicant is padding the application, providing the inanity of volume to hide the lack of substance to be evaluated against the job specifications.
We will recall that Meyer made himself a public figure when, among other things, he alleged a criminal conspiracy between Robb Green, a candidate for District 1 Commissioner, and Dick Elsner, the sitting District 2 Commissioner. Indeed, on September 24, 2024, Meyer did a bit of campaigning for the position, stepping up to the microphone to deliver a short diatribe about the selection process and to patronize Mike Smith, who was then the interim county manager. After that meeting, he had a private tête-à-tête with Wissel and Mitchell in the commission chambers, appearing like they’d done this before, just three buddies shooting the breeze.
Compared to the other two “top three,” one must be very creative with the “equivalent combination of training and experience” caveat when dealing with Meyer’s bona fides, like sticking a square peg into a round hole.
None of this matters, though. The decision was made a long time ago. It will be based on Wissel’s and Mitchell’s soliloquies delivered at the BOCC’s special meeting on December 19, 2024.
Mitchell
And I’ll just say a comment that, you know in, in looking at, you know, skills, benefits and all of this, everyone brings certain talent to the table. And when you have three excellent candidates that all have certain unique talents, it really is beneficial to compare them with a whole new set of questions and maybe some what if scenarios, and some other questions about, you know, job satisfaction, some of those other things to really help us cull through. Because you know, I personally would like somebody who wants to stay with the county for a while and who is committed and really wants to dig in and make Park County the best it can be. And so that is my goal for wanting to bring back the top three and, um, give it one more go and ask some really hard questions and make the best decision possible.
Wissel
Now I thank both of you for those comments, because I think this is why we are here. We are in these positions for this particular example and reason. I wouldn’t be offering to do the top three if we were gonna make a decision. It doesn’t make any sense to go through this process in, in the event that we are not totally open to who is the best candidate. And I think that’s always been my goal. I certainly have used my gastrointestinal decision maker on very much of my life. And my gastrointestinal decision maker has given me a direction and I have taken heed of that. But on the other hand, as I, I want to put this on the record… When I was doing the the music business for a long time, there was something that you either had IT, I-T, IT, not information technology. But you had the ability to connect with people. And you could be the best musician in the world mechanically. I mean practice daily and be absolutely the most proficient musician in the world, but if you don’t feel what you play–I guess I can say that ’cause I felt how I played. I played how I felt–there’s no IT. And Mr. Bish and Miss Navarro have some IT, as does Mr. Meyer. Don’t get me wrong. There is a quality in all of six of these that I want to recognize, and it’s the desire and the the, the want to serve. Everyone of these candidates, whether they had the qualifications for this particular position came to us and we were able to interview six wonderful individuals. The common core of every one of these people was the chosen desire to serve and help others and make others better; to invest in them, to lift them up. To help in what small way? That resonated with me. I think that’s why we need to do it again.
Mitchell says, “I personally would like somebody who wants to stay with the county for a while and who is committed and really wants to dig in and make Park County the best it can be.” Ahem… Sometimes, when Mitchell speaks, I cannot help but see a yellow happy face beaming from the heavens.
Wissel will depend on his “gastrointestinal decision maker,” honing in on the IT, that amorphous quality he believes will identify the best candidate.
Wissel has mastered the demagogic penchant for sympathetic condescension, a let’s all gather around the campfire mantra, knowing it is he, the Scoutmaster, and only he, who will decide if another log is put on the flames. It is a self-satisfying show, a specious performance; witness the 599 Rosalie debacle.
Just a note on Wissel’s ascribing to himself the IT: that ascription is probably best left to anyone other than yourself.
Neither Wissel nor Mitchell discuss the job specifications, experience, or “equivalent combination of training and experience.” Mitchell will decide based on who will make Park County the best it can be. Wissel will seek that mysterious quality he calls IT, that quality he perceived himself to have as a rock and roll drummer.
They will re-interview the top three to dispel doubts about their motives and to shut down the scurrilous mutterings about a cake that’s already been cooked. Who buys this baloney? Their motivation is known. They’ll perform their song and dance one more time, knowing all along the decision they’ve already made.
Okay. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it. If someone other than Lucas Meyer is hired to be Park County’s new County Manager, I’ll look pretty damned pathetic. My insight will be devalued to mere nonsense. My integrity will be shot to hell.
But if I’m right…
Update: I’ve viewed Meyer’s Facebook site several times while gathering relevant subject matter data. His site has little content, but until today, two prominent images were notable:
Today, though (12/25/2024), I looked again at his Facebook page. Can you guess which image has disappeared? Yeah, Straight Pride is gone. Perhaps sanitizing history before being elevated to what he perceives as a place where he will give all county citizens a “metaphorical megaphone”? If that is his intent, perhaps instead of removing the Straight Pride flag, he could have posted this:
Now, that would be what a man of the people would do: someone who embraces the full spectrum of We, the People.
BTW, that getup Meyer is wearing is his Knights Templar outfit. Here’s some information that might help you understand what that’s all about.
