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 21
This week's episode of The Mayor's Mixtape includes questions from the listeners with answers from Mayor Heather Graham. She also highlights the recent economic and business development within the City and the plans to continue to promote the businesses large and small in Pueblo. Additionally Mayor Graham gives a brief update about Pueblo City Council from Monday, July 14.
Don't forget to like, subscribe and share the podcast. Email your topic suggestions and questions to mayor@pueblo.us.
Okay, welcome to episode 21 of the Mayor's Mixtape. I'm Haley Sue Robinson, Director of Public Affairs for the City of Pueblo.
Mayor Heather Graham:And I'm Mayor Heather Graham. I almost forgot who I was.
Haley Sue Robinson:I was like do you remember who?
Haley Sue Robinson:you are, I was starting off, remember who you are, okay? Um, well, let me remind you that you email us, mayor@pueblo. us , if you have questions or topics to suggest for the podcast. You can find us on apple, spotify, buzzsprout. You can also find us on youtube and government channel, local channel 17, to watch the replay. For those of you who maybe didn't tune in, last week we had a special guest and we actually went on the road to the Real-time crime center.
Haley Sue Robinson:So, um, if you missed that episode, I would recommend that you watch it on youtube. Uh, you know most podcasts you can, like, I say, listen on apple or spotify or something like that, but that one's more of a visual, it is, podcast. So if you missed it, um, tune into our youtube channel. Um, you can also find it on the mayor's facebook page, Mayor Heather Graham, or on the city's facebook page on LinkedIn. Um, all those places as well. Um, so, mayor, we frequently invite folks to send in their questions or their topics, so we're actually going to start with some questions this morning, since the penny won't be printed anymore. Will that change the half cent sales tax to the five cent sales tax?
Mayor Heather Graham:I wish we were going to be able to get more money. That sounds like a great. That sounds great, but unfortunately no. It's just really based off of a percentage of a penny, so a half cent, and so we'll continue to collect the half cent as long as the voters continue to vote that in.
Haley Sue Robinson:I think this listener was maybe just trying to get us some more money, which I think sounds like a great idea I, I wish we could. Yeah, me too. Okay, uh, mayor, we've had some exciting news in the city, uh, with the sale of EVRAZ steel. What role does pueblo have in the future of the mill going forward?
Mayor Heather Graham:yeah, the the city is super excited about the sale of the Long Rail Mill. It is an American-owned company, now Atlas Holdings, which I'm actually going. They're in town, so I'm going to visit them Today. Yeah, right after we're done with this meeting.
Haley Sue Robinson:Cool.
Mayor Heather Graham:So it's exciting. It's exciting that they came in and that the jobs are going to continue on. In our community there's about 1,200 jobs that are at the mill, so they're a very large employer, one of the top five employers in our community. So the city is excited about it. We're excited to be bringing our partner in.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, I know this is something that EVRAZ has been working on for, honestly, a couple of years and has been a really big priority for a lot of folks in pueblo um, just to ensure that the jobs are kept. And also, I think there's a lot of importance on an american-owned um steel mill and we do get our our name, uh, or one of our monikers, as the Steel City because of the steel mill. So it's exciting, yep, cool. Also, with the decommissioning of the Army's depot 16,000 acres, what role will the city have in the future development of the site?
Mayor Heather Graham:I think that you know PuebloPlex has now taken over a portion of the area out there. City will continue to hopefully drive economic development and growth out to that area. We had our friends from SwissPod here last week and, as you know, they have the hyperloop that's being constructed out on Pueblo Plexus property, and so I continue to be hopeful for additional partnerships with people like SwissP od bringing more jobs to the community now that PuebloPlex has the space, um, because they've taken over yep, hopefully we can start to see some expansion out there cool, very exciting.
Haley Sue Robinson:Um, this was a follow-up question from last week's episode about the Real-Time Crime Center and the drones as first responders. I'm wondering if we have insurance on the drones in case of hazards such as lightning, hail, etc.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yes, all of our drones are insured. They're very expensive, so we insure them. Yeah, the new, the five new drones as first responders that we're uh getting in 2025, uh, they cost us about $350,000.
Haley Sue Robinson:So um, yeah, we would want to have insurance on it.
Mayor Heather Graham:So, uh, they are insured and, um you know, even when we had talked to Brink, who is the provider of the drone, If we have any issues with the drone, we can actually just send it back in and they'll send us a brand new one. Oh, really. Yeah, so we have a good partnership with the manufacturer of these drones.
Haley Sue Robinson:Great. Well, and you know, last night at the council work session we heard from Naomi Hedden, who we also hosted on the podcast recently, and I think that's one thing that's important for our purchasing director is insurance and, you know, when we are making these really large purchases, focusing on the longevity of them, especially when it comes to technology, absolutely, yeah, I think that's a great question. And then this last question was wondering how good the video of the drones look in the rain, and that's one thing that we I followed up with Chief Knoller about. I know we currently have drones besides our drones as first responders and we have drone pilots within the police department and we've used them in situations where there has been rain.
Haley Sue Robinson:Another thing um, well, the well, the quality obviously is not as good as when it's clear outside. We've used those drones to help the fire department as well. So there's been situations where there's smoke or flames or or other things that maybe kind of interfere, or you would think would interfere, with picture quality. Um, but we're still able to to use them to the full effect that we need to right so yeah, good questions, okay.
Haley Sue Robinson:so, um, mayor, over the weekend, uh, the city posted an economic development or business development from 2025 on Facebook, instagram, linkedin, and it included some businesses like Black Bear Diner, Dutch Bros, What A Burger, the addition of new housing, including the cottages at Park West with 93 units, and Pueblo Springs Apartments with 199 new units, and there were also additional larger corporations like Les Schwab and tractor supply. Mayor, this was a request that you made, uh, to kind of notify the public. Why did you think that that was important to do?
Mayor Heather Graham:I think that we continuously hear that there's no growth in the community and, you know, no new housing being built and, quite frankly, that's untrue. We have 300 new units coming online.
Mayor Heather Graham:This is the biggest growth that the city has seen in many years when it comes to multifamily city has seen in many years when it comes to multifamily housing out on the boulevard, several new businesses coming to Pueblo, opening in Pueblo, and so I think it's important to tell the story of really what's going on in the community. Talk about the new businesses that are coming in. We're going to start running a similar video on small businesses that have come to our community because, although they're not new builds, they might be an existing brick and mortar or they're not chain. You know, they're also the backbone of this community, and so that's going to be next highlighting some of the small businesses that have come into our community. But I think it's important for the community. You know, maybe you don't get all the way to the north side of town, or maybe the north side people don't have a reason to come to the south side, and maybe you don't know what that large hole in the ground is being dug for.
Haley Sue Robinson:Like the tractor supply over by Ron Colley, tons of calls. What's going on?
Mayor Heather Graham:What's being built, and so I think it's important for the city to continue to tell the story about development and new businesses and new housing projects coming into our community.
Haley Sue Robinson:Sure, and I think another thing and you've talked about this a lot is just increasing amenities. We in city government really look at amenities that that we can control, as like parks or the, the offerings that we have, that we fund. These are all amenities as well. Um, you, you've mentioned it before as far as like economic leakage and so some of these uh, places like Dutch Bros, how long were you in? Line today. It actually was kind of short. I was excited. What time was it.
Haley Sue Robinson:Well, it was 6.45, so I was coming back from the gym and it was kind of short, yeah, so I did try to go by yesterday and it was in the afternoon at like probably 12.45. Yeah, oh, it was packed. Crazy busy it was packed. Yep, it's only's only what. Today is day three of it being open, but I mean, the only time I've ever had dutch bros before is in colorado springs. So I know previously we've talked about um economic development, and one of the levers that that you want to pull is that economic leakage and so I I literally was just thinking about Whataburger and Dutch Bros.
Haley Sue Robinson:Those are two things that Are in other communities.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, that people drive to go enjoy Yep, and now they're here.
Haley Sue Robinson:And now they're here, and so I don't have to go to those other communities, so there's no leakage anymore.
Mayor Heather Graham:Amazing how that works, isn't it? Yeah?
Haley Sue Robinson:it's exciting. So when we posted these videos on social media, we did get a couple of follow-up questions, and I know some of these we've talked about before, but I thought we could maybe bring it up again because it seems to be like a reoccurring topic and also it's been a few episodes since we've talked about it. But one thing in particular a lot of folks talk about is hey, what are we going to do with some of these large vacant buildings, or how can we turn these commercial buildings into something else? And, and one in particular that folks talk about a lot is Kmart yep, south side Kmart, north side Kmart. Can you talk about what? The city's role is there?
Mayor Heather Graham:or like yeah, city has no role. I mean, these are privately owned businesses. From my understanding, kmart has a lease with the landlords of the two locations. Whether Kmart is in there or not, they are required to pay. We're talking like 40-year leases, right? So these property owners, these landlords, are going to continue to collect their check every month. Owners, these landlords, are going to continue to to collect their check every month. Um, they're not going to put their building back into a good use for what the community sees as a good use, when you have these people who don't even live in our community, who are just continuing to collect a rent check every month. That's why we see those properties okay, um, empty and security. You know the north side, you know they continuously have a security truck driving around, but they'll continue to keep them empty as long as they're collecting a dollar.
Mayor Heather Graham:Because it's still kind of profitable yeah if we have the vacant property, we do vacant property liens on buildings they pay their money.
Mayor Heather Graham:So there's absolutely nothing the city can do when it comes to privately owned property, privately owned businesses, we can take it for code enforcement. We had a lot of conversation last night about boarded up privately owned properties in the downtown area, boarded up privately owned properties in the downtown area. The city can only do so much enforcement when it comes to boarded up properties. We issue tickets, we get these individuals into court. They pay the fine. We issue a ticket, we get them. It's a six cycle. Yeah, the city, the government, cannot go in and take somebody's property because it has boards on it or because it's vacant.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, I think that's one thing that actually recently came up with. You mentioned like businesses downtown, but that's one thing that came up regarding code enforcement. There was kind of some misinformation out there that if they go out and they issue a vacant property notice and folks have to register with that payment, but if it's boarded up that all of a sudden the city owns it within a certain period of time, yeah, that's not how life really works.
Mayor Heather Graham:We can lien the property, but the liens are not they're not high value liens, yeah to where we would assume somebody's privately owned property.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, we're talking uh, five hundred dollars weed liens. We're talking three hundred, right?
Mayor Heather Graham:yeah, exactly those are the kinds of liens that we're placing? Yeah, so the city government does not have the tools to take over privately owned spaces for having boards in their windows. Okay, do we like it?
Haley Sue Robinson:no do we agree with it?
Mayor Heather Graham:no sure do we issue tickets?
Haley Sue Robinson:on it. Yes, yeah, oh, I know um code enforcement is. Honestly, this is a pretty well-staffed code enforcement, one of the most well-staffed code enforcements we have had in a number of years. But, man, they work their butts off yeah, cleaning up other people's properties yeah, yeah, um, and whether it's boarded properties, like I said, weed properties, like you just see weeds growing up above people's fences, or or whatever the thing is, but, or, or junk vehicles, all those types of things, uh, but they were, they work their butts off.
Mayor Heather Graham:They do yeah it's a hard job cleaning up other people's crap it is.
Haley Sue Robinson:It is, and maybe not necessarily a job I would want to have, because I think it's pretty tough, okay, yeah, but I'm grateful that they do it, um, okay. So, mayor, there was uh quite a bit of discussion last night at at Council. It was great to hear from Naomi a little bit more about the process with the Pueblo Municipal Justice Center. Anything in particular you want to focus on or talk about as a recap from the City Council meeting?
Mayor Heather Graham:I think that you know we're going to continue to wait on PMJC until we get actual numbers back. Sure, Take them to City Council see what we're going to do as far as financing goes. We hope to have those numbers the first week of August.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, so that's pretty soon. That's pretty soon. Yeah, it's two weeks away.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, we heard Naomi discuss that with city council last night, so I was glad she came. I was glad that she came and presented on the process that they have used to procure this contract with Trane moving forward. Pmjc's air conditioner went out yesterday right before the city council meeting started.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah.
Mayor Heather Graham:And it was over 95 degrees in the police department. So it's back and it's working. But we're starting to see it go down more frequently now working, but uh, we're starting to see see it go down more frequently now, so it's been. This is probably the fifth time in the last month. That it's, that it's gone down.
Haley Sue Robinson:So with the high temperatures we're gonna see, uh, more of that well, and we have a couple triple digit days coming up, and so I know that's one thing that we're all worried about is what happens over there and, as discussed last night, we have some of the city's most critical infrastructure in that building, with our it department, with dispatch um, and then just being able to have normal operations with municipal court and the police department.
Mayor Heather Graham:It's really important yeah, and then we had scarf work session so we're looking forward to Steel City, arkansas River Festival July 26th.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, that'll be fun River surf competition, build your own boat, race, rubber duck race and trail gate, which sounds fun. So kind of a little bit of everything. Oh, and the bike and paddle parade. So free things, competition things, live music and lots of fun for people.
Mayor Heather Graham:So that'll be awesome. Yeah, that'll be exciting 11 days.
Haley Sue Robinson:Well, and kind of highlighting some of our biggest water amenities in the city, from the Nature and Wildlife Discovery Center all the way down to Kayak Park, pillar Park, yep.
Mayor Heather Graham:So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Haley Sue Robinson:It'll be great, yeah, anything else that you want to focus on from the city council meeting last night?
Mayor Heather Graham:You know, I'll just reiterate that we had some small businesses come in the downtown area who are super frustrated with the property damage that's being done to their establishments. But as frustrated as I am, as frustrated as, like the police department is, when we see these uh, one-off issues um happening. You know, across the street we had a chair thrown through the window and um, that's very unfortunate, it's. It's nothing that any of us um ever want to see for our, our business community, our small business community. So there was lots of talk from city council that they would like to start a small business fund and where people can apply for funding to get broken glass replaced like a relief fund a relief fund.
Mayor Heather Graham:So we will wait to see if that comes full circle. That's being proposed by a couple of members of city council. So in the meantime, if you're a part of the downtown association, we have already started a program through my office that allows businesses to to try to get the the closeable gates.
Haley Sue Robinson:Uh, for the little ways, the little scissor gates that go across the front of a like a storefront or maybe your your door. Um, yeah, you recently started that with the public downtown association. So that includes the city going out and measuring and then fitting their structure or their building entrance entryway for those gates to help protect. I think there's been a number of programs that the city has partnered with other folks in the past, like Crime Stoppers with the lights on for safety For safety.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yep city allocated $200,000 to put in security systems for Census Track, which is the downtown area. Also, when I was in City Council, I allocated $300,000 to small businesses that are in a Census Track that they could apply to receive a grant, so all of the sales tax that they paid in over five quarters. If they paid on time and their sales tax was kept up, they got all that money back from the city of Pueblo.
Mayor Heather Graham:So, that's one thing that we've done for small businesses. During COVID, the previous administration provided parklets to a lot of the downtown businesses for outdoor patios, patio furniture, patio heaters, patio lights. So those were some of the things that had been provided to the downtown businesses over the last several years. So it's not that the city doesn't care. It's not that city government doesn't care or the police department doesn't care. We hear your frustrations.
Haley Sue Robinson:We're doing what we can and I think we share them. Doesn't care, we hear your frustrations, we're doing what we can. We share them, I think. I think that's another thing that folks want to hear from us is we share your frustration, yeah, the.
Mayor Heather Graham:You know. The individual who was caught by the police department um, right after he threw a chair through the to the front door of the um senate, was taken to jail for hours. Um, let out, re-offended, re-arrested, let out, didn't show up to court, was out on a pr bond and police picked him up and he's now finally back in jail for um not showing up for court. So three times it took the police department three times before that this individual is being kept well, and those are only the three most recent offenses yep, yeah, it's not that he didn't have any other offenses prior.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yep, so you know, to say that the police department is is not doing their job is. That's completely misinformation. It's damning information for our community. It's damning when we're trying to recruit and retain police officers. You know, as of yesterday, we had 39 open positions, 134 working officers and our allocation is 231, which means we are nearly 100 cops short. That's not an excuse, that's just reality.
Mayor Heather Graham:Those are the numbers, those are the facts. They're doing everything that they possibly can to answer calls. Last night, when we were sitting in the city council meeting, we had 43 calls, holding at nine o'clock. It's hot.
Mayor Heather Graham:People are calling 911 a lot, and so we just remind the community to call when it's an emergency only and hopefully we can get out there and solve some of this petty crime. The smaller crime City Council froze five police positions. The last city council meeting to hire five CSO officers because we have a higher rate of people applying to be CSOs and they can go out and they can help with these low level offenses. Take reports, collect evidence, collect video footage of.
Haley Sue Robinson:They get to do a lot of the follow-up, reporting and kind of assist where our officers who are on duty they can't go to an active crime scene or respond in that way, but they can respond in other ways. So when folks call and you know, say they have property damage, or folks call and there's a trespass or something like, our CSOs can go to those types of calls. Yep.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, and I think that that will, that that's going to start to help with some of those um low level offenses that we see yeah.
Haley Sue Robinson:I saw another question, um that that came up last night during the city council meeting, uh, on Facebook in the comments and one person asked you know, what can businesses do as far as connecting their cameras? And I know we have the Community Connect program with the police department. There's an open house actually tomorrow, on Wednesday, at the police department in the community room and that allows folks who already have business cameras to connect it into the Real-Time Crime Center. We talked about it a little bit last week, but it's really cool. Tomorrow folks are invited. Maybe, if you don't have a camera system or you want to learn more about how the program works, you'll be able to meet with vendors and get some questions answered, and then they're actually giving tours of the Real-Time Crime Center.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, I think that'll be great.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, there are some opportunities that we can address this, and I think you hit the nail on the head, mayor. We share folks' frustration. It's frustrating to us as well. Mm-hmm. Anything else to add about City Council?
Mayor Heather Graham:I think that's probably it for today.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, yeah, that sounds great. Well, oh wait, oh, I'm ready. Scott Hobson oh gosh, yeah, how could we even pass that up? I will say, you know, I've only been at the city for a short period of time, just three and a half years. And then someone like Scott, who has been at the city for 26 years and in city or county government within the state of Colorado for 39 years, Impressive.
Haley Sue Robinson:That's probably the most joy and laughter I've heard in a city council meeting in my entire three and a half years. It was really special, it was really cool. So for our listeners, if you didn't tune into city council last night, I would recommend going to Facebook and watching the live feed for the proclamation. Yep.
Mayor Heather Graham:The dedication of the trail.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, and that that that trail naming is really special. Yeah, it's really special. Um, we're gonna miss scott. We are, yeah, yep, he's done a lot of amazing work in our community, both for city government and for county government, whether it was in parks planning or in housing development. He's just been an incredible professional. Yeah, last night was special to be able to recognize him. Cool to see his family, his kids and his grandkids and a great grandchild, which is obviously why he's retiring so he can spend some time with family, but I'm glad you added that.
Mayor Heather Graham:Congratulations, scott Hobson. Congratulations to Scott I wish you many years of happy retirement.
Haley Sue Robinson:And hopefully. I know Andrew Hayes mentioned he hopes that everybody forgets Scott's number, but I think we might still keep him on speed dial so we can ask him some questions. Yeah, historical knowledge, exactly, yep, yeah, so congratulations to Scott, thanks for stopping me on that one Mayor.
Haley Sue Robinson:You're welcome. Exactly, yep, yeah, so congratulations to Scott. Thanks for stopping me on that one Mayor, you're welcome. Okay, well, I think that's a wrap, then, for episode 21. Don't forget, you can email us, mayor@pueblo. us, and find our podcast on Apple, spotify, buzzsprout, youtube, local Channel 17. And we'll see you next week.