The Mayor’s Minute from Mayor Patrick Collins – May 31, 2024
Published on May 31, 2024
I had coffee this week with Dr. Aldrich who represents Ward 3. I always enjoy the opportunity to sit down with council members. It is a chance to learn what they are working on and to share upcoming priorities in the Mayor’s Office. Our meeting reminded me how important the council relationship is and how blessed I am to work with this group of council members.
I have shared with you the story of the Rotary Club Foundation buying a 12-acre piece of land and donating it to the City for a future park site. Additionally, it would allow the city engineer to do water quality improvements along the creek that flows through the middle of the property. We met with the park design firm that was contracted to help us envision the possibilities. I came away so excited by the potential designs. The folks from the Foundation were excited too. We will be scheduling a public meeting in the future to share the designs once the Foundation and our parks team have made the final tweaks. I say it all the time, but Cheyenne is an amazing city filled with individuals and organizations who give back so much. Thank you all!
At our meeting of the governing body on Tuesday night, we passed an amendment to our UDC to allow for three-story homes in many of our zone districts. I don’t know why our rules did not allow for three-story homes, but this new amendment should allow more flexibility for builders to build what the customer wants. Our Planning Department and Governing Body have worked hard over the past couple years to remove barriers to building affordable and attainable housing. We just need the dang interest rates to drop a couple of points to help buyers afford to buy new homes.
I met with our planning director and chief of staff to look at a piece of property that came on the market in an area where affordable housing just might fit perfectly. It was an industrial area that is transitioning. I like redeveloping infill areas because the infrastructure – roads, water, and sewer – is already in place. The recent housing studies are all showing Cheyenne needs many hundreds of housing units a year for the next five years.
The City has been doing a software conversion for the past year. We have a few of our departments up and running the new software with a couple more yet to go. Doing a conversion is tough on staff as they must do their daily job and prepare their departments for the transition. It is a lot. We met with the OpenGov team this week to get a status update. The next module to go live will be in the Building Department. We received the module for testing this week. This module will allow our building community more access to the progress of their permits. I like that transparency. Once we have it tested, we will need to do outreach to teach the builders how to take advantage of all the OpenGov platform offers.
I met a restauranteur in Casper a year or so ago. He owned a building in Cheyenne and we talked about opening a new restaurant in our city. He came to town this week and is getting serious about making that happen. We have some great restaurants in Cheyenne, and this chef-driven concept would be a nice addition. Fingers crossed!
I meet with our public information officer every couple of weeks to catch up. Bike to Work Day is coming June 26. Time to get your bike ready! We are working on Vision Zero, making a commitment to eliminate deaths and serious injuries on our roadways by 2040. This includes pedestrians and cyclists. Getting a new branding and logo for the city and building a new web site for the new Belvoir Ranch trail system are also on the agenda. Matt keeps all of us updated on City events and information.
Our team working to build a bridge across I-25 to connect the base and city met again this week. I keep thinking about when the city and base were established over 150 years ago. We have grown together both physically and as partners. In the late 50s and 60s the interstate system was built, including I-25 through Cheyenne. It split the base from the city. It is my hope the bridge will allow non-motorized access to and from the base. We have such a beautiful Greenway system and this would give the 2,900 people living on the base access to it without having to load up in a car and drive. It would also give our military members and retirees a way to access the base. There is so much we need to do before this could happen, but the good news is we are working very hard to do just that.
Cheyenne Frontier Days had a gathering of what they called Friends of CFD on Wednesday night. I enjoyed getting a history lesson on how CFD came to be, how the Chamber of Commerce came to manage the rodeo for years, and how today they are an independent 501(c)(6). We got updates from CEO Tom Hirsig, Chairman John Contos, and the Foundation Executive Director Renee Middleton. CFD has a 128-year history of making an impact in Cheyenne and Wyoming. We learned of ways they give back, challenges, and how they are looking long term to keep the rodeo relevant into future. Holly is already loading up my schedule for the last full week of July. Exciting!
When I am asked what keeps me up at night, I answer water! There are a couple other issues, of course, but water is one I see as a threat in the coming years. The issues on the Colorado River directly affect our water. I meet regularly with the BOPU to talk about conservation and our efforts to find new water resources. Unfortunately, every municipality is doing the same thing and finding water resources is a real challenge. This week we talked about a couple of prospects where we are making progress.
The United States of America turns 250 years old in 25 months. I met with Diane Shober and Mike O’Donnell from the Governor’s task force. With the Capitol here in Cheyenne it makes sense for us to collaborate on our celebration planning. We agreed to do just that, and I know the next 25 months will fly by, so I am happy we are getting a start on the planning.
I am sitting at my kitchen table doing my homework like most evenings. We are doing a remodel, and I don’t have a radio or television. I am listening to Sirius XM 70s on 7 on my phone. The phone speaker sounds like the old AM radios I listened to in the 70s and it is bringing back warm memories. I am listening to American Top 40, 1975 edition. High School memories, baby.
It is my dad’s 87th birthday on the 31st. Happy Birthday, Dad!