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 22
Mayor Graham hosts Director of Public Works Andrew Hayes to talk about economic development. They discuss Mayor Graham's ballot measure proposal for updated language for the 1/2 cent sales tax and what the future of economic development looks like with the changes. They briefly discuss the 1% sales tax ballot measure proposal and how that tax can be used to accomplish capital improvement projects for citizens to see the value.
Don't forget to email questions and topic suggestions to mayor@pueblo.us.
Welcome to the 22nd episode of the 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.
Andrew Hayes:Andrew Hayes, Director of Public Works for the City.
Haley Sue Robinson:And we have a guest today. Thanks for joining us, Andrew.
Andrew Hayes:Yes thanks, thanks.
Haley Sue Robinson:I want to remind you that you can find this podcast on Apple, YouTube, Spotify, Buzzsprout, and you can also watch it replayed on Government Channel 17. So there are lots of opportunities to listen to this podcast. Also, don't forget, if you have questions or you want to suggest a topic for Mayor Graham to cover, you can email us at mayor@ pueblo. us. Okay, so let's jump right in. If you caught last night's city council meeting, you know that we were covering ballot initiatives and, Mayor, you were talking about how this could potentially invest in Pueblo's future and centered around our economic future. Both in the room, on Facebook, there were a lot of opinions, so let's talk a little bit about what happened last night and your take on everything
Mayor Heather Graham:Sure. So several weeks ago I brought forward a change in the criteria ordinance for the city to be able to utilize the half-cent sales tax differently than we have been utilizing it for the last 40 years. Ultimately, City Council voted it down 4-3. During our public testimony and after listening to City Council's comments, they felt that the change was too significant for the city council to just be making the decision and they suggested that we take it to the ballot. So, um, we are now taking it to the ballot. So we have mushed the criteria ordinance into the existing ballot language.
Haley Sue Robinson:Did you say mushed?
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, mush, mushed it together.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, got it, yep.
Mayor Heather Graham:Is that politically correct?
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, it's perfect.
Mayor Heather Graham:and included now in the expenditures of the half-cent sales tax will include economic leakage, economic catalysts and what's the third one, placemaking.
Haley Sue Robinson:Placemaking.
Andrew Hayes:Placemaking. That's correct.
Mayor Heather Graham:and so we heard from PEDCO, which is our partners in economic development. They came up and gave testimony, also saying the exact same thing that if we are going to be taking such a significant change, that it needs to go to the vote of the people. So that's exactly what I am proposing for the November 4th election.
Haley Sue Robinson:And, Andrew, what do you say? That the takeaway was in the room for the reception of this proposal?
Andrew Hayes:Sure, I think there was big hesitation on any kind of proposed change to the strategy that we've had for three or four decades now.
Mayor Heather Graham:Can we take a time out first? Can we say why Andrew's here? It's kind of weird that just the director of public of works is talking about economic development. So you want to talk about your new role,
Andrew Hayes:Sure,
Mayor Heather Graham:and what else you've been doing?
Andrew Hayes:Yep.
Mayor Heather Graham:Okay.
Andrew Hayes:Do you want to do that at the end and mush it in?
Mayor Heather Graham:No, just do it now.
Haley Sue Robinson:We're going to do it right now,
Andrew Hayes:Okay, yeah. All right,
Mayor Heather Graham:Okay, go ahead.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay. So, Andrew, part of the reason you're our guest this morning is you have kind of a new role with the city. Of course, you're still the director of public works, but there's been some change to some of your job duties. So walk us through a little bit what that looks like and why you're joining us this morning.
Andrew Hayes:So the mayor's reassigned me into her office here as an advisor or economic development expert here to kind of help bring some closure or close the white space between the different departments in the city, between the other economic development partners that we work with, like Pura and PEDCO, our utility partners.
Andrew Hayes:So obviously in public works.
Andrew Hayes:We bring in the state. That's right, but we do everybody In the public works end of things. Obviously infrastructure plays a big part in economic development and it's an enabler for all of the activities that we want to see come to our community. So it's a natural fit, kind of rolling into this as an economic advisor and particularly, like I say, closing this gap where the other partner agencies are working with us. It's an important role that has not been here in the city.
Haley Sue Robinson:And that kind of makes sense that in public works a lot of the levers that are pulled with economic development has to center around permitting, which is one of the primary jobs of, or primary functions of, public works.
Andrew Hayes:That's right.
Haley Sue Robinson:So, Mayor, how long has this kind of been in your mind as a proposal to kind of bring this to the forefront?
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah. So I think over the last six months we've seen a significant gap, especially when we are talking about talking to our partners. The city as authority only reaches so far, so it's important that we have Pura and PEDCO, CDOT, regional building everybody in the same room to help with economic development, to make sure things are getting done in a timely manner. City's really trying to roll out the red carpet when it comes to bringing new developers, whether it's with housing or new businesses or helping existing businesses grow, and so I thought that this would be an opportunity, and who would know it best than somebody that's already staffed with Inside the City that can really hold your hand through the process? So we've already been working with a couple of.
Mayor Heather Graham:Several different incoming prospects or businesses that are already here to make sure that they're getting their permitting done in a timely fashion, make sure that they're getting what they need to get the shovel in the ground so that they can start building. So Andrew's been doing this for a month.
Andrew Hayes:That's right since the beginning of June.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yep.
Haley Sue Robinson:Great
Mayor Heather Graham:and it's been helpful, so excited.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, cool. Well, thanks for explaining a little bit about the new job duties in your role. So, Andrew, let's transition a little bit to your take of how City Council went last night and the reception of the mayor's proposal for the ballot measure.
Andrew Hayes:Right. There was some obvious hesitation on several council members' parts in terms of their willingness to accept, I guess, a change of strategy here. Sure, I would argue that our strategy that's been in place for three or four decades now is not very effective. It has also been singularly focused on creation of manufacturing jobs only. That is an important key part of an economic development strategy getting those base jobs in place. But it can't be ignored that we are also going to need supporting services for service jobs. We also need to make sure that the enablers are in place, so the infrastructure needs to be there as well. So all of these pieces fit together neatly in a comprehensive economic development strategy. Other aspects too, like business retention and expansion, need to be considered. We also need to make sure we're developing workforce and have the training and education tools in our belt to be able to get the workforce ready to do the jobs we need.
Haley Sue Robinson:So essentially utilizing our partnerships that we have already. I know, Mayor, you talked about it when you visited Grand Junction, about how they use their university. So, Andrew, when you talk about workforce development, to me that says CSU-Pueblo, PCC. And how are we encouraging folks to get their certifications or continuing education to make sure we have a qualified and educated workforce meeting the demand for whoever our partners are that we're bringing in?
Andrew Hayes:That's right. So it's a critical part of making sure that people also who are raised here have an opportunity and a pathway through their education process to be able to stay if they want. They don't need to leave to go get training and experience elsewhere. They can do that here and come back and work here and raise their families here.
Haley Sue Robinson:So that kind of also addresses the issue that we hear a lot of is the brain drain. We educate a lot of our folks here in Pueblo and then there's not a job waiting for them or an internship opportunity or a future for them to make their home and stay in Pueblo and, you know, raise a family or have a career or things like that. So that would address those things, okay, great. So, Mayor, let's dig into kind kind of the, the strategy behind um, those, those three um placemaking, economically leakage and um economic catalyst and what does it mean, and what does it not mean?
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah. So economic catalyst is going to be a business or an opportunity that's going to be a large sales tax base that's going to help with the city's budget deficit, that's going to bring people into our community to spend money that we aren't necessarily getting right now. When you talk about economic leakage, an example not a buzzword is Costco. Lots of people in the community drive to Colorado Springs to go to Costco. I know that Councilman Flores, you know, cited. Well, we have a Sam's Club. Why do we need a Costco?
Mayor Heather Graham:Well, I think what people don't realize is we are a hub for Southern Colorado and you have the smaller communities, cities, municipalities around us that come and shop at our Sam's Club.
Mayor Heather Graham:There is not a day or time during the week that you can go to Sam's Club and pretty much every single parking spot be full. And it's the same in Colorado Springs for Pueblo. So you have tons of people who drive to Pueblo to go shop in Colorado Springs, which is located right next door to a Sam's Club. So I think that there's opportunity and room for both. And then, when we talk about placemaking, that's more of amenities, bringing amenities into the community that are going to drive people to uproot their families, or get married and have kids and continue to have your family located here in Pueblo. So I think that these are three things that we are missing. These aren't just buzzwords that we have taken, these aren't catchy phrases. This is what we've seen other communities doing when it comes to economic development and how they're trying to capture businesses or families or jobs coming and staying in their community.
Andrew Hayes:One thing that's, I guess, important to mention here, too is that these types of strategies, where we're focusing on also bringing retail to back to the city, is a way for the city to also generate sales tax revenue. Currently, we're using sales tax dollars to invest to incentivize jobs that are out there.
Andrew Hayes:Those primary jobs indirectly create sales tax by giving us places for people to work and money for people to spend here in the city. But the piece that's missing is there is no direct engine to put sales tax dollars back in through those investments. This expanded strategy would allow for that and help us close these budget deficits that we're talking about.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, so when we talk about closing the budget deficit you mentioned some of this last night, Mayor, in earmarking this towards capital improvements, and one of the questions was why specifically capital improvement? Why would we earmark these dollars towards capital improvement projects instead of say salaries?
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, not this money. Are you talking about the 1%?
Haley Sue Robinson:The 1%.
Mayor Heather Graham:The 1% sales tax overall?
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah.
Mayor Heather Graham:So the 1% sales tax overall that we're going to be encouraging people to read up on, people to consider, would generate about $26 million into the city's budget every year. So currently our sales tax rate is 3%. 3 pennies on every dollar goes into the city's general fund and then we pay wages, we pay infrastructure costs, we do capital improvements all out of this small piggy bank of funds, and so we're going to take it to the voters to ask for an additional penny on every dollar to be given to the city. In 2024, when we looked at the numbers of what it could have potentially generated, it was about $26 million.
Mayor Heather Graham:I think it's important for us to use those funds for capital and capital infrastructure within our community, because we haven't been keeping up year after year with capital. So, for example, previously the city, you know, spent about $2.5 million to $5 million on roads. When the previous administration debruised, they allocated $10 million a year. Over the last three years we've paved $30 million in roads. If this 1% was to pass on November 4th, I would suggest that all of the 1% funding that is collected in 2026 be used for capital investment, and when I talk about capital investment, I mean strictly for roads from 2026's budget. We have slated projects from 2026 to 2029, for roads and concrete improvements that need to be done in our community. So we know already what roads need to be paved, what concrete needs to be redone or fixed, and that would be, I believe, a good use to allocate those funds to for the 2026 budget. So $26 million in roads in 2026's budget.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, and so the reason I bring up the 1% sales tax increase alongside the ballot measure for the half-cent sales tax is they kind of seem to go hand-in-hand, because the capital improvement projects that you just mentioned then also help attract business. When we see those road improvements, when we see curb and gutter improvements, not only does it help the individuals who live here and work here each and every day, but it makes it more attractable to folks who are maybe thinking about bringing their business here. So kind of walk us through why this infrastructure improvement is a priority and why right now we're just simply unable to invest those dollars.
Mayor Heather Graham:I think it just hasn't necessarily been a priority year after year because the city hasn't had the funding available to upkeep on infrastructure roads, bridges, amenities in our community and so we're always piecemealing funds together to get the project done. So it would be beneficial to everybody not just the city but to the community and visitors coming into our community if we could allocate a lump sum of money every year to make sure that these projects get done, to make sure we can bring new amenities, to make sure we can pave new roads, to make sure we can put new infrastructure. And we continuously have developers calling who want to bring housing projects here. But the cost of putting the infrastructure in sometimes can be more than the housing development and so we have people leave our community because they don't want to do the city's work essentially, or what they think is the city's work. So I think that being able to have extra income to put towards infrastructure is what this community needs.
Andrew Hayes:Maintaining the roads is always going to be important. Those are bills that will come due no matter what, and I think what's really important is, I guess, making sure that as a city we are looking at the way to minimize those costs over time. It's not necessarily about that it's going to be a big, expensive bill right now. The city and the public will have to pay those bills at some point. So it's our job to kind of keep us on this low-cost curve, so to speak. Those investments again are enablers for economic development, for new housing, for quality of life, for amenities. It's all super important.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, so kind of transitioning back to the half-cent sales tax. One of the questions last night that you received from Council Mayor was what kind of conversations have you had with our partner PEDCO, and what has it looked like to develop the ballot language? You mentioned it a little bit earlier, but.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, so since before the beginning of the year, so last year, the city attorney and I had been having discussions with PEDCO about changing the half-cent sales tax ballot language. So we started a twice-a-month meeting in which we would go to PEDCO and have conversations. It was me, a city attorney, and our director of finance would go and talk about the changes that we wanted to see based off the feedback that we get from citizens. Right, so we met with they, had a team that they put together, some past board members, some current board members, staff board members. They had a consultant come in and talk at one point and we were really able to narrow down language that we thought was appropriate to go into a ballot change. PEDCO essentially came back to the city and said we don't want this to be a ballot change. Could we work on the criteria ordinance? So the city then put together a proposal to change different aspects of the criteria ordinance, which we have changed several times. We changed it for training. We've changed it for the RTA projects. We've changed it for the small business loans that we gave to the community, and so this would be another change that city council could have approved.
Mayor Heather Graham:So back and forth, back and forth with PEDCO over the last several months.
Mayor Heather Graham:At the beginning we weren't going to put a cap on the dollar amount for the projects that could be spent. PEDCO insisted that there was a dollar cap amount, so we included that in there at 15% of the total funds aggregated and brought it to City Council and then, as you know, PEDCO board members showed up and spoke against and then some city councilors spoke against it because they felt like the change was so significant it should go to a vote of the people. So that's where we are today. This in no way, shape or form, is PEDCO's money. They are a contracted consultant that the city uses. The city pays PEDCO $350,000 a year to subsidize the BTC and to do advertising and marketing on behalf of the City of Pueblo. So they are a contract. Every prospect, every expenditure. It has to come before the city council and the city council has to agree that this is a prospect they want to see in the community and these are jobs that they want to consider bringing to the community.
Haley Sue Robinson:So this essentially doesn't just become some side slash fund or pet project fund it still goes before council
Mayor Heather Graham:Still has to go before council for approval, and it all has to be tied to economic development. It's an economic development tax. That's why the language that we included was very specific to economic development. This is is not talking about doing city projects, doing capital projects for city infrastructure, unless it has an economic development driving factor attached to it. That's the only way that it can be approved. It's the only way City Council would even be able to look at using these funds to pay for those types of projects.
Haley Sue Robinson:So I think one thing that you just mentioned that was important and we heard a lot of it last night was that and we saw in some of the Facebook comments that folks are concerned that these dollars would just go into the pockets of developers and somehow there is no community benefit. So can you talk a little bit more about how that investment works and why it doesn't just go to the developer?
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah. So most of the time I think the city would envision it going to infrastructure. When you're trying to bring in these large companies like a Costco or Super Target or really anybody that's looking at coming to the community right to bring hundreds of jobs, these companies have money. They're multi-million, sometimes billion-dollar companies who are looking. They don't want PEDCO's $5 million cash incentive. They want the city to land bank for them. They want the city to subdivide property. They want the city to put infrastructure in and they want the city to cut the red tape so that they can be first to market in order to open their business.
Mayor Heather Graham:They do not want $5 million thank you gift card to the City of Pueblo. That's not what these companies are looking for. That's not what they look for in any other company. In fact, if companies are coming in here asking for cash like that, it's probably not a good company that we want to bring in. We want to make sure that our dollars are being spent for infrastructure purposes, to bring businesses to our community.
Andrew Hayes:The concerns of the businesses that we've talked to have all been about speed and readiness to build. They want a building permit tomorrow. They want to have some assurance that the risks that you know their investments are going to have issues are low, so that we can help that by streamlining our permitting processes, by getting land prepared and ready and by extending infrastructure to the less developed areas of the city, they're going to facilitate the kind of development we want to see. As the Mayor said, it's not about giving out cash for jobs. Sometimes that's helpful, sometimes it's icing on the cake to help close a deal, but it shouldn't be necessarily the first thing that we're considering.
Haley Sue Robinson:It's not the lead carrot, essentially.
Andrew Hayes:That's correct.
Andrew Hayes:It could be the thing that you know, if we were competing against another city for a prospect. It could be the thing that maybe closes the deal in Pueblo's favor, but it shouldn't be the lead.
Haley Sue Robinson:Okay, Mayor, let's look into the future. What does Pueblo look like if this ballot measure is passed, and what could we anticipate?
Mayor Heather Graham:I think it just gives an expanded purpose for us to be able to use the funding in different ways that we've not been able to use. I think that you're going to see more retail come into the community. I think you're going to see different kinds of placemaking and different kinds of jobs that we wouldn't have necessarily seen before. Right now, the half-cent sales tax is heavy on manufacturing jobs.
Mayor Heather Graham:The reality is, you talk about some of these manufacturing jobs that have come to our committee and these people. You don't even know where these people are. You don't know where train is. You don't know where foam core is If you're not out in the industrial parkway every day. You don't even know what these businesses are, who these people are that work there. I think that changing the half cent sales tax dollars are going to allow businesses to come into the downtown area, the north side of town, the south side of town. You're going to start to see growth in places that we normally don't see growth because half cent sales tax dollars cannot incentivize or normally don't incentivize in those areas within the community. I'd hope to see shopping centers, hotels, people walking the streets, small businesses being able to expand infrastructure, amenities, capital, you'd hope to see growth. I think that that's really the bottom line.
Haley Sue Robinson:Kind of feels almost like a little endless list.
Mayor Heather Graham:It is an endless list.
Mayor Heather Graham:There's so much to be done and there's so many people that care about the community and the amount of emails and calls that we have received, that people think that this is a great idea and that this is something that they're going to support. Changing it to be able to spend the money differently it's a lot. A lot of people want to see their half-cent sales tax dollars being spent differently. We agree.
Haley Sue Robinson:So I think one last thing to ask is why is there so much resistance to change?
Mayor Heather Graham:There's always resistance to change right, but I think that this change is going to be monumental for the community and I think, if City Council allows it to go on the ballot, which we heard last night, that they think that the people should have the choice. So I think it's going to pass and a lot of the voters will do a good job representing what that means. If people vote to let us expand the usage of the half-cent sales tax, I think it's a real game changer and I think that people are ready for a game changer in Pueblo. So I'm excited to see this move forward and hopefully we can get it passed on November 4th.
Haley Sue Robinson:What do you think, Andrew? Why is there so much resistance to change?
Andrew Hayes:Yes, change is hard right the idea of changing a strategy that we've invested in for decades. It's hard to grasp and for people that aren't involved in the business of economic development every single day, it can be a complex topic. It can be hard to understand sometimes, but there's a simple approach here that makes sense build that economic base. Also facilitate the supporting jobs and services that need to be there and build the infrastructure to enable all this development that needs to occur. Pueblo has all the ingredients All of them are there for an outstanding place for a business to call home, and I think we need to market that well. I think we need to recruit businesses that are aligned with the resources and assets that we have, that don't necessarily take all the assets that we have in one fell swoop. These are important considerations, I guess, as we're going forward and finding the right partners as well. But when a business comes to town, I think that virtually anyone's going to be hard-pressed to say Pueblo's not a good place. The ingredients are here, we just need to make it work.
Haley Sue Robinson:It kind of feels that way, not only with business, but we hear it all the time with people of. You know, folks up north who have some sort of concept about Pueblo or they've heard things about Pueblo. Then they come down, they visit the Riverwalk, they eat our food, they experience the music or arts and culture of Pueblo and they're like, oh my gosh, Pueblo's amazing. So it seems like the same sort of thing with businesses as it is with people around the state and how they can enjoy our beautiful city.
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, you're never going to know until you try.
Andrew Hayes:Get off the highway.
Andrew Hayes:Come in and see us.
Mayor Heather Graham:Get off the highway, yeah.
Haley Sue Robinson:I think that's one thing we hear all the time is get off the highway and get off I-25 and experience Pueblo, and so hopefully, this ballot measure is a way to really get folks here and propel us forward. I think a really interesting question that we we can ask ourselves is do we want to keep using a 40 year old rule book or do we open the door to a broader, more responsive strategy rooted in today's reality? And so that's the question that we're going to put towards the voters is do you want to do what's happened for the last 40 years or do we want to try something different?
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, what's the quote I like to use? He's doing the same thing.
Haley Sue Robinson:The definition of insanity?
Mayor Heather Graham:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
Haley Sue Robinson:Yeah, absolutely.
Mayor Heather Graham:But, we're not going to be insane anymore. We're gonna. We're gonna look at ways to change.
Haley Sue Robinson:Be creative and enticing and responsive, yeah, great. Anything else either one of you would like to add?
Andrew Hayes:Excited to be doing this role for the Mayor and for the city. This is an exciting time for Pueblo and the future is very bright. If the resources are there to enhance development, this is huge.
Mayor Heather Graham:It's amazing the amount of meetings, just in the last five weeks, that we've had with people coming to Pueblo who want to experience Pueblo, who maybe want to bring their business, the amount of meetings we've been able to wiggle ourselves into to try to say, hey, what can the city do for you? I mean, we're making cold calls, we're trying to figure out how to bring people here, and I think that this is something that should have been done a long time ago. I think that the city has a role in bringing economic development to the community. I mean, who better than the City of Pueblo to be exercising the use of the half cent sales tax dollars when it comes to economic development? And so we're happy to be a part of it.
Haley Sue Robinson:Great, that's exciting. So we'll see this ordinance before City Council on the 28th?
Andrew Hayes:That's correct.
Haley Sue Robinson:Next Monday, yeah, and then we'll hopefully see this on the ballot November 4th. Yep, okay, great. Well, that's what we have for this week's updates and a recap of City Council work session last night. Andrew, thank you for joining us today.
Andrew Hayes:Thank you.
Haley Sue Robinson:And don't forget, you can find this podcast on Apple, Spotify, Buzzsprout, Youtube, on local channel 17. Please like, subscribe, share it with your friends and you can always email us, mayor@p ueblo. us, for your questions or topic suggestions. We'll see you next week.