The Mayor’s Minute from Mayor Patrick Collins – Dec. 1
Published on December 01, 2023
It is hard to believe this year is almost over. I joke with my family that when I was a kid, Christmas seemed to never come. Now that I qualify for Social Security, Christmas comes every 6 months. I’m guessing many of you know how that feels.
The holiday season has officially started in the capital city with the Christmas Parade last Saturday. It was definitely cold! I want to shout out to our Chamber of Commerce for their hard work each year to bring our community this amazing parade. The volunteers who helped man the barricades and line up the floats rocked, and I so appreciate the folks who built the floats and participated in the frigid elements. Makes me proud to live in Cheyenne.
A quick update on the Arboretum and the efforts to create a state historic designation to develop the site to its potential. We held a meeting with Speaker of the House Sommers and a few members of the TRW Committee. I especially want to thank Laramie County Sen. Ellis, Rep. Nicholas, and Rep. Singh for attending and supporting the Arboretum. The plan right now is for the state and city to collaborate on a MOU to develop a partnership for the management and development of the Arboretum plans. We will have a lot of work to get statewide support for this effort.
Our governing body meeting held on Monday night was a tough one for me personally. We presented a proposal to reduce some of the costs for multifamily development by removing the requirement to have 30% of the façade covered with unpainted brick and/or stone. Much of the city council felt like this was a reduction in quality and aesthetics and I definitely understand that concern. I was hoping we could find a compromise where we still have good design standards that support more affordability. I did not do a good enough job selling the idea and will go back and try a different strategy.
Another challenge for me personally during the council meeting was our staff being challenged for their competence in their jobs. I enjoy dissent in the discussions, but it should be on the ideas being debated and not condescending or patronizing to our staff. We have talked about this in the past and it is time to revisit the issue. Sigh!!
We have a South Dakota company looking to make a sizeable investment in Cheyenne to construct a travel plaza near the I-80 and College Drive intersection. It is always challenging when you have many governmental agencies working on a project, but I appreciate the coordination we always get with WYDOT and the County. Hoping to share good news very soon.
Quick shout out to the Mayor’s Youth Council. We meet the Tuesday after every City Council meeting. They have members who watch our meeting and then we discuss what happened. Their questions and insights are very fun.
I met with Ed and Mark Ernste to talk about ways the city might be able to support their housing subdivision. Their proposal is definitely out of the box, but not impossible. I enjoy getting together folks that are building our community and learning all the lessons they will share with us. We have more work to do to make sure we can support their requests. With our housing shortage, I am ready to look outside the box.
I have heard about the non-profit Beast Foundation for a few years now. I have not had a chance to tour their facility, until this week. I was so impressed with the quality of the facilities and the excitement of the kids playing basketball. Four courts that are used for basketball, volleyball, pickleball, and so much more. The founders have a mission to give kids a great place to play and they have definitely met their mission and vision.
In the past few months there have been a couple of applications to build horse racing tracks here in Laramie County. One company, Accel Entertainment, comes from Illinois and wants to upgrade the track in Frontier Park for quarter horse and thoroughbred racing. The company held a neighborhood meeting in the Frontier Days Events Center and the neighbors showed up to share their concerns and get answers. The company shared their willingness to make substantial investments to ensure equine safety and mitigate neighborhood concerns. While the neighborhood understands the impact the rodeo brings for 10 days each year, they shared they don’t want an additional 16 days of crowds and traffic. I came away with 12 pages of notes and have started meeting with staff and CFD to answer the questions posed by the audience. More to come.
We have been working to make sure our employees’ wages are in the salary range our pay studies have identified for each job in the city. We have been hard at it for a couple of years now. I met with our Police Chief and our two Captains to discuss an upcoming increase in police pensions required by the state from our city. We also spent time comparing our police pay with our neighboring Wyoming and Northern Colorado municipalities. Our budget process starts early next year and this is a start for me to begin to set priorities for the fiscal year that starts in July of next year. Hoping our economy stays strong so we will have the revenues to take care of some of our needs.
I am looking forward to all the holiday events Judy and I will be invited to during the season. The one thing I don’t enjoy is the pressure to come up with the right presents. Hoping the season is great for all of you and you all have great gift ideas.