Dan Robinson, the Democratic nominee for the District 1 seat on the Mesa County Commission, says the man who currently holds the job, Craig Meis, has a major conflict of interest.
Meis is one of the principals of energy services firm Cordilleran Compliance Services, and Robinson continues to raise the conflict of interest issue as energy-related questions come before Meis and the rest of the commission.
“Cordilleran is a small business enterprise dedicated to providing quality environmental services to our clients,” according to the company’s Web site. “Our base of clients currently includes oil and gas, railroad, mining, manufacturing and processing industries, law firms, real property investment companies, and governmental entities.”
Robinson has shown up at two recent meetings of the Mesa County Board of Commissioners and penned a letter that appeared in the Sunday edition of The Daily Sentinel’s editorial page, asking Meis not to vote on energy-related issues. During last week’s commission meeting, Robinson objected to Meis voting on an issue related to Delta Petroleum, which was accused of failure to obtain proper permits before building a compressor station.
The second issue emerged Monday as the commission attempted to regulate temporary worker housing for 20 or fewer employees at drill pad sites.
“Mr. Meis, you are a direct beneficiary of the industry,” Robinson said during the latter meeting. “Stay out of the vote.”
Meis refused to recuse himself from any of the votes questioned by Robinson. Meis did excuse himself, however, from voting on spending $65,000 to create a Loma Community Plan, saying the company, Olsson Associates, was doing work for his company.
The board, voting without Meis, approved hiring Olsson Monday to do the Loma plan and then, voting with Meis, it postponed the temporary worker housing issue, delaying the decision until Sept. 15.
Meis said he is running for re-election on his energy-industry experience.
“I consider it an asset to the community,” Meis said after the meeting. “I hadn’t hidden from it four years ago and I am not hiding from it today.”
Meis said it is no conflict to pay taxes and vote on tax issues, nor is it a conflict to vote on issues regarding foster parenting and be a foster parent. Meis said he pays taxes and is a foster parent, but no one ever questions those votes.
“It is the silly season with Mr. Robinson, so the silly season continues,” Meis said.
Meis said his definition of a conflict of interest is any decision “of which I have the ability to benefit from financially.”
Dickie Lewis, a Democrat challenging Commissioner Janet Rowland for her District 3 seat, said Meis is setting the bar pretty low. What he is doing may be legal, but not ethical, he said.
“You’ve got to have some standards, I don’t make decisions that affect my friends or my business partners,” Lewis said. “You engender some kind of disrespect for the county commissioners when you engage in that kind of conduct ... If you are a county commissioner, I think you’ve got a different standard.”
•
E-mail Le Roy Standish at Leroy.Standish@gjsentinel.com.
