With a consistently expanding tax base, modest population growth and a well-maintained infrastructure, the city of Cortez faces the 21st century with considerable confidence.

Still, according to Mayor Joe Keck, two pressing realities must be included in any otherwise rosy vision of the city’s future: The area’s lack of high-speed telecommunication services and the limited ability of its sewer system to accommodate continued economic and residential growth.

Those are problems that must be addressed, he said Thursday.

And to accomplish this, Keck stressed, the bickering and infighting that has often marked relationships among local governmental entities must end.

"One of the biggest things facing us is getting everybody to work together —the various government organizations," he said. "The city, the county, the sanitation district need to be working together to do some good community planning and infrastructure development."

The Cortez Sanitation District, an independent entity that operates the sewer system, revealed last summer that its southern plant is nearing capacity and will soon be unable to add any more taps in an area that has been targeted for both industrial and residential development.

"That’s a real limiting factor as far as infill development within the city," Keck said. "I think they’ve got a bond election (to finance expansion) set for May, but they’re really getting down to (the limit) —I think they’ve only got 180 taps left, the last I heard."

Even if voters approved a bond issue to build a new sewer plant, its design and construction would require at least a couple more years; however, the system’s two other plants in north and east Cortez both have enough capacity left for growth in those areas.

"On a more positive note, we’ve got some tremendous assets as far as the quality of life here overall," Keck said. "We’ve got a somewhat balanced economy between some agriculture and tourism development.

"And Bill Argo (director of the Montezuma County Economic Development Council) and the EDC folks are working to bring in companies that will create better-paying jobs.

"I think that’s a challenge, but hopefully (faster) telecommunications are going to be available — at least the area will be wired with the ‘long mile’ by October, is what TCT is saying. Hopefully that will create opportunities for those ‘lone eagle’ folks and other companies that could use that capacity."

Tri Corners Communications, a for-profit company formed last year by Empire and La Plata electric associations, recently announced that its plan to provide high-speed Internet access to the area by stringing fiber-optic lines on power towers to a Grand Junction hub should be completed by year’s end.

In Cortez and other southwest Colorado communities, these fiber-optic lines, far faster than the copper-line connections now available, will feed into wireless transmitters that will broadcast signals to businesses and individuals through rooftop antennae.

But this isn’t the only game in town.

The city has included funding in this year’s budget to construct a fiber-optic loop that would serve the downtown area as well as Southwest Memorial Hospital and the Re-1 school district as well as any other users who wished to take advantage of it.

"We’ve got the money budgeted," he explained, "but the city staff is doing more research to determine exactly how it can be done — we don’t want to do anything that’s going to hurt the business case for the private sector providing those services here.

"We want to see what the city can do to actually complement what’s going on," he added. "It’s fairly complicated, because once you have it available, you have to make it available to everybody —there has to be a mechanism set up to ensure there’s competition."

Additionally, Charter Communications, which provides cable TV signals to the community through a franchise agreement, recently installed fiber-optic cable throughout its service area and plans to offer Internet access and other services some time soon, according to a company spokesman.

And, Keck pointed out, U S West has also installed fiber-optic lines that could be used to enhance its Internet service, which now relies on copper telephone lines for the most part.

"There’s a lot more fiber actually in the ground than people know about," he said.

Keck said another major item on his personal wish list is an indoor recreation center, but that residents would have to be convinced to fund it through a sales-tax increase.

"It would take a vote of the people to do it," he said, "but I hope there’s enough community interest to where people would ask council to bring it to a vote.

"I think there’s enough people here who understand the benefits of a rec center that it would pass now." An attempt to build a center through a 10-year increase in the sales tax was rejected by voters in 1994.

"I’m hoping that within the next few years we’ll actually get something done on that front," he said, "but I think it really has to come from the community."

Keck said he would also like to see the entryways and main traffic corridors in Cortez spruced up.