The Mayor's Mixtape
Mayor Heather Graham's weekly brief of current events related to the City of Pueblo.
The Mayor's Mixtape
The Mayor's Mixtape-Episode 12
This week Mayor Graham covers the City Council recap from Monday, May 12 and explains recent grants accepted by the City. She also provides background to the City Park bath house renovation and discussion for the future of the building. Mayor Graham also celebrates National Police Week and provides an update about the Pueblo Police Department.
Don't forget submit your questions or topic suggestions by emailing mayor@pueblo.us.
Welcome to the 12th episode of Mayor's Mixtape. I'm Haley Sue Robinson, Director of Public Affairs for the City of Pueblo.
Mayor Heather Graham:City of Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham.
Brian McCain:Chief of Staff, Brian McCain.
Haley Sue Robinson:We didn't introduce ourselves on the last episode, so I had to make sure that we introduced ourselves for this one, I think people know who we are.
Haley Sue Robinson:I would hope so, to make sure that we introduced ourselves for this one. I think people know who we are. We are available on YouTube, apple, spotify, buzzsprout, and you can also watch us again on local channel 17. There are lots of opportunities to get this podcast, so share with your friends, like, subscribe and rate us, don't forget. You can also submit questions or a topic suggestion. You can email us at mayor@ pueblo. us. So with that we'll, we'll get into episode 12 of the mayor's mixtape. Last night we had city council went a little bit late. Yeah, city circus, is that what we're calling it today?
Mayor Heather Graham:Well, it's's late. It felt like that. Okay, night um.
Haley Sue Robinson:So last night there was a lot of discussion about grants. Um, we first had the colorado energy office grant of 120, 000 for a full-time energy coordinator for the city, and that ordinance generated a lot of discussion. Did you want to talk about why this position is necessary, or even the conversation about what it looks like to potentially continue this position in the future after the grant has finished?
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, so this was a grant that we had applied for quite some time ago, and we were awarded it a couple months ago, knowing that the city council would not approve any additional positions for the city of Pueblo, we had to reach back out to them and see if we could use the dollars to hire through contract so $120,000 worth of a contract for an energy coordinator.
Mayor Heather Graham:They approved that, so we took it to city council to see if they would also agree to it. There was a lot of discussion about not wanting to hire any more full-time employees, which has been a talking point since the budget. No full-time employees. No employees have been hired, except for firemen for this year's budget. So, um, I think that they understood the point. After that it was just going to be a contract. Yeah, um, I think it's important, especially as we continue to find ways to cut back on our energy rates at the city with um, the the 2a valid issue that um failed essentially for the city that we're going to have to start keeping track, better track, of our energy costs and trying to mitigate them within the city.
Haley Sue Robinson:So this position would be responsible for assisting with like energy auditing. Energy auditing yeah, consumption throughout city buildings.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, the city has 300 properties that we take care of, so okay, um, it's a lot, it's a lot of invoicing undertaking.
Haley Sue Robinson:It's a big undertaking to keep track of, make sure nothing is missed and try to find ways, try to find grants, things that could be helpful to the city and I know you also mentioned at council last night council has the option or the ability not to fund the position once the grant is expended, and so I think that's maybe an important note, that there's always a choice with how to move forward.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, at the end of the day, all expenditures are up to the city council and how the city's money is spent. So it's interesting, though, we've heard Councilor Gomez specifically ask for the city to hire additional grant writers, but then vote grants down when the city gets them. So I believe he voted this grant down of $120,000 from the city, only had to put a $6,000 grant match and the next grant also down for e-bikes.
Mayor Heather Graham:So I'm not sure which types of grants the city council is looking for the city to obtain, but any kind of free money the city should be taking in and trying to use it in the best way possible.
Haley Sue Robinson:Well and I know that you've had plenty of discussion when we're applying for grants, is it the right fit? So it's not like we're going to bring forward grants that don't really make sense.
Mayor Heather Graham:No, every grant that we apply for is very well thought out on how it can either be used for capital or infrastructure or contract employees to better the city as a whole. Yeah, Okay.
Haley Sue Robinson:So, speaking of bettering the city, that's what the next grant on the agenda was last night. It was for an e-bike program and it's really kind of to help us incentivize commuters for our part-time employees or even seasonal employees. And then there was also a piece where you took some excess remaining funds from the MLK bypass signage For the grant match. For the grant match yep, and this is for city employees that earn less than 80% of the area median income, than 80 percent of the area median income, and it's for income qualified permanent employees. So talk about this e-bike program and why it's a good, it's a great incentive for city employees.
Mayor Heather Graham:The city of pueblo has over 800 city employees, so it's always good when we can incentivize or find new and improved ways uh, when it comes to transportation for our employees. So I think it's a great thing, especially for part-time employees. When we think about part-time employees in the city, it's usually parks department individuals, and so I think that it can go hand in hand with being able to get an e-bike to ride to work and being a parks employee. It's exciting for the city Again free dollars to be put into our community and to our employees, and so we're thankful for these types of grants that go back to the very people who are providing the services for the community.
Haley Sue Robinson:Well, and I think e-bikes, e-scooters, things like that are becoming more and more popular, and so to be able to offer that to employees is a benefit when working here is pretty cool. Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah, it is exciting, I'm glad it passed. Okay. And then, finally, this is actually a grant that you talked about previously, but last night the Department of Local Affairs, the $25,000 grant was approved. That one was approved seven to zero by city council, and that was specifically for the shelter.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, so this is going to be a planning grant the city is going to utilize to do a master plan for the city shelter. It'll talk about infrastructure needs, capital needs, what grants we could potentially obtain, capital needs, what grants we could potentially obtain, how our dollars should be spent. The city is getting ready to award the RFP so City Council is going to see first reading of that on the May 26th City Council agenda for Safe Side Recovery. So we're excited about our new partnership, cool Moving forward.
Mayor Heather Graham:Also yesterday we were bringing another um partner on to have a one-day clinic at the um shelter. It's going to be the public community health center. Oh, wow, um. So they have a homeless resource office on grand and they are going to have a additional office space where they'll provide services on Thursdays at the shelter where the unhoused community will be able to go and will be first come, first serve, kind of like a pop-up, almost like a satellite campus or something satellite campus yeah, so a big thank you to Donald Moore and his team for coming together with a partnership with the City of pueblo, and being able to provide that service.
Haley Sue Robinson:So it really is starting to become more of that wraparound service area right in one location at the shelter.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, so we're going to start with one day a week and kind of see where we go. They're looking to start the clinic on June 5th.
Haley Sue Robinson:Thursday June 5th will be the first day, so it's coming up really quickly.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, it's exciting. It's something we've been working on for a few months. We had to wait until the RFP was awarded, though, okay.
Haley Sue Robinson:And we had to get the plan set. And, going back to this DOLA grant, there was not a match required, no, this was just free money, great, okay, cool. Speaking of controversy and lots of discussion last night, this seems like a topic we have talked about ad nauseum, but I don't think we've actually really talked about it here on the podcast, just generally speaking, at the city, the bathhouse yeah, so last night there was plenty of discussion was a chieftain article that came out yesterday and it was regarding the RFP that recently was put out and that the city did not award someone for that RFP. Can you talk a little bit about that process and what it looked?
Mayor Heather Graham:like.
Mayor Heather Graham:So the city has been working for years and years and years to put enough money aside to redo the bathhouse at City Park, the tennis court facility, in order to offer a better, more state-of-the-art complex with the conference rooms, upgraded bathrooms, because that bathhouse is very old, it has asbestos, it has issues with the foundation, and so this has been a project that the parks department has really just been putting a few thousand dollars away every year, I think, for like the last 10 years. So the city of pueblo was awarded a grant, we had general fund dollars and we were going to use arpa dollars to renovate and construct a new tennis facility in city park. Originally, city council was supportive of it.
Mayor Heather Graham:it was the only thing I have vetoed to bring it back to the table so your first yeah um, so that we didn't lose out on the two hundred thousand dollars that we had already spent, because now that money has been wasted, uh, as far as design and the architect work, um, ultimately the city council ended up voting down all the funding sources, and a lot of it was arpa dollars.
Mayor Heather Graham:So another grant, uh, it's like over half a million, yeah it was a large ARPA I think it was 900, 000 okay in total arpa dollars that were going to be used. So city city council votes that down, so all funding bathhouse stops. So in the meantime we had a select group of citizens coming to city council voicing their concerns, their comments, saying that they would like to take over the bathhouse facility and renovate it for a much lower cost than the city, the experts, the staff was saying that the cost would be, and so we sat down and put an RFP together for this group to be able to apply to to renovate the facility. So anytime there's anything involved with the government, it has to go out to rfp. It's not just something that we award, it's not just something that we say Joe Smough, maybe you may not be a licensed contractor, come on and renovate this building. That's not how the government works.
Mayor Heather Graham:So we put the RFP out. The applicants asked me for additional days because they weren't able to get the RFP done in a timely fashion. So we granted them days. It went through the bid process. There were three, I think, different department heads that were on the internal bid review. I was not one of them. I did not see the bid and the bid was turned down because it did not meet some pretty significant areas that the city was looking for.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, and I think we have the mandatory requirements that were listed that they didn't meet.
Mayor Heather Graham:So, number one the proposal stated intent to pursue historic landmark designation, which was prohibited, and so we did not want the bathhouse to have a historic designation on it, because once a historic designation is put on something it is very hard to remove it. It would be very hard to take it down, you would have to spend a lot of extra money. I feel like a limiting factor. It is a limiting factor Similar to Block Hills 5 and 6.
Mayor Heather Graham:The city council years ago right over here, put a historic designation on five and six, and now you see why it's. You see it's still sitting there year, year after year, right? So we didn't want anybody to be able to put a historic designation on the bathhouse. Um, the second was non-compliant with restroom fixture requirements, so the city asked for a certain amount of restrooms to be provided, based off of capacity in the area with the tennis courts, with the state tournaments that come down. That was not met. I think this is the big one Lack of financial guarantees or committed funding sufficient to complete the renovation and sustain ongoing operations. So we know that the bath house was going to cost the city a little over three million dollars. So in order for us to turn over a piece of city property for somebody to do renovations on it, they would have to have a pretty substantial, substantial financial background, yeah, guarantee, in which obviously this outfit did not.
Mayor Heather Graham:So I would say that those were the three biggest reasons why the RFP was not able to be met and the team had to turn down the proposal.
Haley Sue Robinson:And I think one of the things in the financial guarantees I know there was mention of grant funding was that grant funding already secured? No, it was no grant funding grants had been secured.
Mayor Heather Graham:Okay, no actual dollars. I don't think had been secured that we're going to be able to sustain the reconstruction, renovation of the bathhouse okay, when the city puts out an rfp for anybody to answer um, whether you're a contractor or you have to be licensed and bonded. You have to have the credentials that you need, especially when you're going to be working on or taking on a city project or building. This is not new. This is not. This is how we protect uh taxpayer assets okay, so you know liability insurance and all the insurance yeah licensed contractors check those boxes.
Haley Sue Robinson:Licensed architects and engineers, okay, this RFP this didn't have those things Interesting, okay, so I guess what happens now.
Mayor Heather Graham:I've kind of let this up to the city council now, so they've voted down all of the funding sources last December.
Haley Sue Robinson:I think it was Yep, it was beginning of December last year.
Mayor Heather Graham:So I had kind of given them the timeline of what would happen if they did that. They did it anyway.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, like we just hosted Girls State Tennis last week we just hosted Girls State.
Mayor Heather Graham:Tennis yeah, tons of people down there Hundreds of people.
Haley Sue Robinson:We were down there.
Mayor Heather Graham:And kind of what the options were going to be. So now that the RFP was not answered, there was no proposal that was awarded. It's really going to be up to the city council, would they, if they want to dedicate general fund dollars? Um, I think the building should come down and in the way that it is now, I mean, we had the asbestos testing done, um, so there's some holes in the walls. We thought that the building was coming down and a new building was going to be built. So it's really going to be up to the city council and what they proposed to me.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, so we'll see if anybody comes forward with a solution. Yes, we shall see. Okay, switching gears a little bit now that we've covered city council. It's National Police Week and so we want to give a special shout out to Pueblo Police Department. But last week you attended the community meeting with Chief Knoller. That was for Quad 3. Is there anything in particular that he covered at that meeting that maybe you want to share with folks?
Mayor Heather Graham:You know, he just went over the calls, like what kind of calls come in the top calls that come in for Quad 3, which is Bessemer? What businesses could potentially do to help safeguard their businesses with our program at the police department where they come out and do the environmental study? Um, oh yeah, the septed yep. Uh, obviously the in-house community was talked about a lot um and what the police could potentially do when those issues arise.
Mayor Heather Graham:Um, you know, again, we talked about how the police are limited when it comes to loitering and trespassing. Uh, the individuals would just be issued tickets, not necessarily removed, um, so there's a lot of frustrated business owners, there was a lot of frustrated business owners, there was a lot of frustrated landlords that were there to voice their concerns, and so I mean, we just tell it how it is. Legislation has tied our hands. This is what we're available to do and not to do With the shootings in the police department.
Mayor Heather Graham:Um, we are significantly understaffed right now, um, with all the people we have out. So if you fired your weapon, or you were part of it, um, or you were shot you, there's time frames until you can come back to work, um, until you can be on the streets, and so we are working really with a skeleton crew right now. When it comes to the police department. I think the chief said that we had 140 active bodies that were out. The city of Pueblo's police department is authorized for 231. So really down 90 officers when it comes to officers that are on light duty, open positions that we have, and then all of the officers that were out for the shooting, so um I know that's taking a significant toll, taking a significant toll.
Mayor Heather Graham:The call volume is up, um you know, 50 calls holding pretty much all day, every day. We're hitting summertime, which is the busiest time for the police department, so they're really working at proactive ways to try to address some of these issues. Chief knoller is going to be presenting to the city council, I think in a couple of weeks, and he's going to propose at the city council authorized hiring more cso officers to help with these lower level reporting and crime that we have a lot of the community members voicing their concerns with, and so that's a proposal that he's going to be bringing to city council. It's a lot easier for us to hire CSOs. It only takes about four weeks instead of the 48 weeks that it takes to be a police officer. They can still take reports, they can still go and collect evidence, and so we believe that it might be a good use to hire some more CSO officers to help in the community.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, so there's some solutions, despite the fact that we're down in staffing.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, and then also, you know, during the summers we'll have an additional 10 officers from the SROs that are not in the school, so they'll be coming on in June. Yesterday we graduated eight officers, class of 74, which is one of our larger classes, so eight new officers also. So I mean we are, we're trying, um, but when you have four officers shot and many officers who are involved in those shootings, people are are kind of put on the sideline until the y meet the marks.
Haley Sue Robinson:Sure um, and I think it's important for folks to understand
Haley Sue Robinson:So we had eight officers that graduated yesterday. However and you touched on it a little bit there's that 48-week window. Yeah a year, and when we have those officers graduate, they're now paired with folks on the streets, so they're not alone in a police vehicle. They're not, um, as chief Noeller likes to say, like a true police officer that we can count on as an extra body yet, um, until they're able to to be on their own once they've completed all of that training. Yeah, so, while they're sworn, personnel now it's still difficult.
Mayor Heather Graham:It is, but I mean police department is still kicking butt. I mean maybe we could post this on. You know the information that was presented about Part 1 crimes and how it's down significantly. It's pretty incredible what we've seen. Last year at this time we had 11 homicides. We have four right now. So you're seeing a huge decrease when it comes to Part 1 crimes.
Haley Sue Robinson:Well, and it's not just homicides, arson, burglary, aggravated assault, they're all down.
Mayor Heather Graham:But they're down from the high rise of 2020. So, even though we might say it's down, it's not down to what it was before 2020.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, that benchmark of 2019 is pretty key for the public to understand, but it seems like we're making some significant progress, despite the fact that our staffing levels are difficult or even, as you mentioned, going into the warmer months I know that's when dispatch sees their high call volume, yep.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, yep. So see a cop, thank a cop. Okay, that's what we want to say, okay.
Haley Sue Robinson:Well, and especially during National Police Week. Yes, I think that's important, yep, great. Okay, I think that's all we have for updates today.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, I think so Did.
Haley Sue Robinson:We have four updates today. Yeah, I think so. Did you have anything? Chief of Staff.
Brian McCain:Yeah, CML's in town tonight. Oh, yes, so the Colorado Municipal League. They're coming in for their regional meeting, so we're going to interact with municipalities from the region. I think there's like 38 or 40 people that are signed up Yep.
Brian McCain:And it's a good opportunity for them to see not only our community, what we're doing, but to share ideas, thoughts, pick their brains about what they're doing in their communities to deal with everything from crime to sales tax and what their solutions are, and just kind of brainstorm and steal some ideas and they steal some from us. So it's it's always good to see them in town yeah, oh, and friday.
Mayor Heather Graham:Do I talk about friday night?
Haley Sue Robinson:oh sure, yeah, so we have the uh dedication ceremony for the sister cities, uh commission, and we have folks from uh chihuahua, uh puebla and bergamot, so three of our sister cities, and we'll be down at the pillars park, uh, down at the levee, and we can't really call it a reveal because the mural is complete. You could go see it today, but, um, we have some special guests in town on Friday, that's at 5: 30. That'll be fun. Yep, pillage park very excited. So, yeah, lots of good things coming up, plenty of things to enjoy here in town. So busy week.
Haley Sue Robinson:it's always a busy week. Okay, thank you for the update. Don't forget to like, subscribe and leave us a comment, or you can suggest a topic. You can email us at mayor@ pueblo. us. See you next week.