The La Plata County Clerk’s office in Bayfield will remain open on Thursdays in 2018, La Plata County Clerk Tiffany Parker said this week.
After the county commission announced plans to close the office next year, more than 1,600 residents signed a petition asking the county to keep the office open.
“Well, that’s good,” said Phyllis Ludwig, who organized the petitions, although she said she would like to see the office open two or three days a week.
Parker said officials from the town of Bayfield met with county staff members and offered the space for no charge inside Bayfield Town Hall.
The office will be staffed by employees rotating from Durango to work in Bayfield, Parker said.
Another change is coming to the Bayfield office as well: numbers for customers.
It is not to keep order in long lines, Parker said, but a way for her office to accurately count the number of customers the office serves. While she can track financial transactions in the office, sometimes it takes two or three visits to the office to handle a transaction, she said. Counting the number of customers served will help her provide accurate numbers to the county commission to review for next year’s budget.
Parker said she has talked with other county clerks who have had to reduce the number of days an annex office is open. It has worked in some counties and not in others, she said.
