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Nov.
30, 2000
By Gail Binkly
Journal Managing Editor
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A BREAKDOWN of
the city's 2001 general-fund budget, which constitutes 53 percent
of the overall budget of $15.82 million. |
The Cortez City Council gave unanimous approval Tuesday
night to a $15.82 million budget for 2001 after a public hearing at which
one citizen — former council member Bob Diederich — spoke in favor of
the budget.
"All the time I was on the council, I was always
pleading, ‘When are we going to have a citizen show up to talk about the
budget?’" Diederich said. Now that he has retired from the council,
he said, he decided to be that person.
"This budget demonstrates a heck of a lot of good
effort," Diederich said. He praised the council for putting aside
plans to build a new city hall to save $500,000.
Despite "pretty conservative" sales-tax
estimates, projected revenues for next year are 5 percent over this year’s
after grants were taken out of the total, said budget director Kathi Moss.
"I was pretty conservative with our sales-tax
projections after what happened last summer with the fire," she said,
referring to the Bircher and Pony fires, which closed Mesa Verde National
Park for weeks and caused tourism to plummet.
The city’s total projected expenditures for 2001 total
$15,819,821, Moss said. Of that, the largest portion — $8,355,077, or 53
percent — is for the general fund, which includes the police, parks and
recreation, and public-works departments. Other funds take much smaller
pieces of the pie: The street-improvement fund, at $1,377,450, is the
next-largest item in the city’s budget, at 9 percent.
Discussion on the budget was brief and ended with
expressions of thanks to Moss and City Manager Hal Shepherd for their work
developing it.
In other business:
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Newly appointed student representative Daniel Puls, a
senior at Montezuma-Cortez High School, asked the board not to seek to
have a gate permanently closed at the north side of the MCHS campus.
At the council’s Nov. 14 meeting, citizen Debra Sheldon had
presented a petition with 39 signatures asking for the council’s
support in solving the problem of MCHS students loitering, littering
and using foul language while crossing the campus into the
neighborhood at the end of Elm Street.
But Puls said some 95 students use that opening to attend a weekly
inspirational lunch at Evangel Aseembly of God. He asked instead that
the gate be shut and locked, and keys given to school officials and a
youth pastor to provide access at certain times.
Shepherd said he will discuss the situation with Re-1 School District
Superintendent Bill Thompson.
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The board unanimously approved a conditional-use
permit for a car wash at 1580 E. Main. The single-bay, automatic car
wash will be an accessory to a convenience store and gas station
operated by the new Safeway on the west side of Sligo Street just off
Main Street.
"We’re becoming the convenience-store capital of
Colorado," commented Mayor Joe Keck. "And the car-wash
capital."
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The council approved 6-1, with Councilman Jim Herrick
dissenting, an ordinance on first reading that would eliminate the
existing 500-foot restriction between schools and liquor retail
outlets along state and federal highways within the city. The
elimination applies only to hotels and restaurants with liquor
licenses, not actual liquor stores, which still would be prohibited
within 500 feet of a school.
The ordinance is designed to allow a restaurant to be put in near the
Cortez Middle School. A public hearing on the ordinance was set for
Dec. 12.
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The board unanimously approved an ordinance on first
reading that establishes a definition for medical clinics, which are
now allowed in R-1 residential zones. A public hearing on the
ordinance was set for Dec. 12.
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The council voted unanimously to cancel its Dec. 26
meeting, which is traditional for meetings around the Christmas
holiday.
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