The Mayor's Mixtape-Episode 57

Episode 57 of the Mayor's Mixtape offers a recap of the Monday, April 27 City Council Meeting. Over 20 ordinances were on the agenda with CSAC approvals, updates to native landscape and weeds with the Master Gardners, opioid settlement agreement funds approved for programming with Pueblo School District 60, a land option agreement for Project Falcon and more. 

 Don't forget about the city-wide clean up with free dumping for city residents at CSU Pueblo and Colorado State Fairgrounds on Saturday, May 2, 2026 from 8am-3pm. A third location for green waste is available at RecycleWorks located at 1595 Stockyard Rd. We home to see you there for Team Up to Clean Up with the City of Pueblo. 

Transcript

Welcome And How To Reach Us

Haley Sue Robinson 0:07

Welcome to the 57th episode of the Mayor's Mixtape. I'm Haley Sue Robinson, Director of Public Affairs for the City of Pueblo.

Mayor, Heather Graham 0:13

And I'm Heather Graham, City of Pueblo Mayor.

Brian McCain 0:16

Brian McCain, Chief of Staff.

Haley Sue Robinson 0:18

Okay, and I'd like to remind you, you can find this podcast on YouTube, BuzzSprout, Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on local channel 17. And if you have questions or want to suggest a topic, you can email us, mayor @pueblo.us.

Budget Gap And Parks Program Cuts

Haley Sue Robinson 0:36

Mayor, we had a long night last night.

Mayor, Heather Graham 0:38

Yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 0:39

20 plus ordinances on the agenda. A couple got pulled, but we still had 20, even um with uh future dates included. Um but I did think that maybe we could start off with your opening remarks from last night regarding the budget. And um, you know, I I know we've received a lot of emails lately regarding parks programming, uh the tennis program, and cuts that are being made across the city. And so um you had a presentation that you actually used for your commentary.

Mayor, Heather Graham 1:17

Short thing just put together. Just really what I look at as the person who makes the decisions.

Haley Sue Robinson 1:21

Okay.

Mayor, Heather Graham 1:22

Um, when it comes to the budget. I know we've received a lot of emails saying City Council approved these programs, City Council to do this, um City Council approves overall amounts, right? They approve line items and part-time wages. Um there are no line items when it comes to programs in the city. So what's actually being cut is part-time employees, a reduction in part-time staff.

Haley Sue Robinson 1:48

Okay.

Mayor, Heather Graham 1:48

Um the programs right now that they do run are in the parks program.

Haley Sue Robinson 1:54

Mm-hmm.

Mayor, Heather Graham 1:55

Happen to be uh tennis, pickleball, books in the park, movies in the park, uh, Sun City Band. So these are all part-time people that we hire every Sunday to run these rec programs. Um I chose these programs specifically um because they are not team sports. Um they are not uh the football teams, the PPAL and the the the sporting teams that affect many participants at one time. Um we have to start making budget cuts somewhere. I showed everybody last night the um the B one for projected 2027's budget, and as you can see we're at a ten million three hundred and eleven thousand dollar loss. So uh that we are going to have to pull out of reserves. Well we don't have um we don't have that luxury to just continue to pull the money out of the reserves. So we've been doing several different things to make cuts, uh freezing employees. So I showed uh the employees that have been frozen to this point, including a police captain position. Um nine employees, about nine hundred thousand dollars for twenty twenty six. We froze twenty-eight positions in twenty twenty-five. Um so you're almost at forty forty staff members in the city of Pueblo that we have frozen full time. Um so it's really time that we start looking at our our part-time employees and um we look at them before the season start, right? 'Cause we don't want to hire and then um have to lay people off or fire and pay unemployment working.

Haley Sue Robinson 3:35

Or cancel programs.

Mayor, Heather Graham 3:36

Or cancel programs, yeah. Um with the tennis program too, the courts are gonna be resurfaced uh for the first two months of the summer.

Haley Sue Robinson 3:43

Okay.

Mayor, Heather Graham 3:43

Um so there's not gonna be a lot of action in which people can go over there and uh do tennis lessons. They just got the lights in in the last couple of weeks and they're gonna be starting uh the resurfacing project in mid-May.

Haley Sue Robinson 3:56

Okay.

Mayor, Heather Graham 3:56

And that's gonna take a couple months uh to get done. So that was another um part of the tennis.

Haley Sue Robinson 4:04

Sure.

Mayor, Heather Graham 4:05

Um so we also showed all the programs that were.

Haley Sue Robinson 4:12

Court will be open? Like

Mayor, Heather Graham 4:12

not during the resurfacing.

Haley Sue Robinson 4:14

No, I mean like there's still access. We're not closing pickleball courts. We're are we closing the tennis courts?

Mayor, Heather Graham 4:20

No courts.

Haley Sue Robinson 4:21

Okay.

Mayor, Heather Graham 4:22

The venues will be continued to um be provided and taken care of. Um, but we will not be paying part-time employees to come in and give tennis and pickleball lessons. So I know over the past few months at City Council we've had um some students, some central high school uh students who um talk about how impactful the tennis program is, and um you know, I know Councilor Hernandez said the community needs to kind of step up and fill the gaps where the government can't, and I think it'd be great if some of those community members wanted to come and uh teach tennis lessons uh to the kids who still want to participate in that. Um but I just want to reiterate cuts are being done overall, all over the city, uh not just to parks programs. Um the hiring process for parks programs is just first. Um we're gonna have this continued conversation throughout the entire year of 2026.

Voluntary Separation And Hiring Freezes

Haley Sue Robinson 5:22

And uh another piece that you have implemented with um with personnel is the voluntary separation program, correct?

Mayor, Heather Graham 5:30

Yep.

Haley Sue Robinson 5:31

Um so there are kind of multifacet or or multi um approaches to how we're addressing this issue.

Mayor, Heather Graham 5:41

Yeah, we're encouraging people to retire and essentially going to give them a bonus um to end their careers with the city uh come June. So we're gonna have a half a year of savings for twenty-six and a full year of savings for twenty-seven. So we had about twenty people um submit for that program their time frame to withdraw is still in process, so we don't know the exact number of um separations that we're gonna have, but there are gonna be quite a few.

Haley Sue Robinson 6:08

Okay. Great. Um I'm sure we'll be talking more about the budget as the year goes on. And

Mayor, Heather Graham 6:15

it's that time of year.

Haley Sue Robinson 6:16

Yeah, absolutely.

CSAC Nonprofit Funding And Oversight

Haley Sue Robinson 6:18

Um we also had um some CSAC presentations last night and approvals for our nonprofit funding. Um did you want to talk a little bit about what that looks like or um

Mayor, Heather Graham 6:30

Yeah, so usually this is done early on um in the year, not as not as late as April, but we had to uh re-enter into a new IGA with the county, so it was a little bit postponed, not knowing if the county was gonna be able to fund uh their half of CSAC. Um, and then there's been a lot of discussion about uh priorities for CSAC, where the money goes, how it's spent, does it go to operations, does it go to salaries? So this is really the most engaged I've ever seen a city council when it comes to CSAC. Um, which is good that they're um you know, setting these parameters because look 'cause last year they didn't. Um we had several joint budget meetings for the CSAC program with the county, um, and nothing was ever solidified. So it's gotta see city council engaged and um wanting to uh make sure that the city's dollars are being spent um in the way that they see fit.

Haley Sue Robinson 7:29

Um so we kind of approved we were a little bit all over the place with uh running the gamut from um whether it was CSAC or parks or police.

Park Grill Ban For Fire Safety

Haley Sue Robinson 7:40

Um we also had another ordinance that was passed last night to ban the use of charcoal or open flame grills um in our parks. This was, you know, in response to folks who uh really were kind of recklessly um participating in the parks uh with grills and and open fires, and so propane grills are still allowed. Um, but that's for all of our parks within city limits. And I think uh especially this year with nearly every day being a red flag warning for two months, the timing of this is really good.

Mayor, Heather Graham 8:18

Yeah, and it was really, you know, down at waterworks parks were leaving open flame, smoldering, um, you know, not paying attention and we don't want to have a fire down there. So

Haley Sue Robinson 8:30

Right. There's uh there's a lot that could catch fire, but there's also residential area down there. There's a lot of wildlife, so it'd be really dangerous.

Opioid Settlement Funds For Schools

Haley Sue Robinson 8:38

Um another thing council approved last night was uh additional funding for the uh opiate s settlement with um continued education and prevention meas measures uh with District 60 in the Botvin program. Um so we talked a little bit about that. Uh that's been something that's been going on for a number of years and there was a recent settlement. Um

Mayor, Heather Graham 9:02

Yeah, so anytime a settlement occurs, the city gets a portion of those dollars, so we have to accept the funding. Um we've got our larger largest proportions at front and they'll continue on for many years, um, and we can use that funding um for for programs like this District 60.

Haley Sue Robinson 9:22

Yeah.

Mayor, Heather Graham 9:22

I think even spoke about last night. Um we have a little over a million dollars in in these um Opiod funds currently, so

Haley Sue Robinson 9:31

That's fantastic. Yeah. Um they talked a lot about prevention and and good health measures uh in the schools, and so I think that's

Native Landscaping And Weed Code Update

Haley Sue Robinson 9:40

important.

Mayor, Heather Graham 9:40

Yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 9:41

Um we also heard from the Colorado Master Gardeners last night. We had a lot of folks, um, they stayed late because as we mentioned, it was a long meeting. Uh they talked a lot about native landscape, um, updating municipal code for weeds, which according to the background ordinance hadn't been updated since the 70s.

Mayor, Heather Graham 10:01

Yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 10:01

Um so this was this was exciting for a lot of folks. Um helps with native landscaping, um, encouraging folks to grow native plants, um, helps with pollination, things like that. Um, and maybe something outside of your typical garden or a a green yard. Um, you know, grass, I guess is my point. Yeah. So yes, and sunflowers. Um which is interesting because I think a lot of people don't realize that sunflowers are weeds.

Mayor, Heather Graham 10:32

Yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 10:32

But it's because they're pretty.

Mayor, Heather Graham 10:34

Yes.

Haley Sue Robinson 10:35

But I thought that was great, um, really good engagement, and uh that was something that Councilor Danti um championed.

Mayor, Heather Graham 10:43

Yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 10:44

And so there were a lot of folks that were really excited about that last night as well.

Mayor, Heather Graham 10:48

I think it's super impressive that this was her second ordinance that she's passed and put together in four months. A lot of um back and forth and uh stakeholder meetings, uh once when a councilor decides to ask for an ordinance to be drafted. Um it's something that we require as stakeholder and and conversations for whatever you're trying to make a change to. Um so that's pretty impressive that she's she's already done two so far. And Councilor Ruiz-Gomez brought that up last night. So I love that.

Haley Sue Robinson 11:20

Um and I was just impressed with how many people were there and uh, you know, they offered to speak with code enforcement um or anyone in the community um for education. So I thought that was

New Airport Restaurant Lease Timeline

Haley Sue Robinson 11:32

great. Um another exciting thing that was passed last night was a new lease agreement for a new restaurant with uh SOCO Frontier Enterprises out at Pueblo Memorial Airport. Um so we're looking forward to that. That space has been empty for about a year.

Mayor, Heather Graham 11:48

Yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 11:48

Um and so we had put out an RFP and now this was approving the lease agreement with um that group. Can you talk a little bit about the timeline or what that looks like as we move forward uh with the airport?

Mayor, Heather Graham 12:02

I think Brian can.

Brian McCain 12:05

Yeah, so the lease was signed last night. Um they actually have all their own restaurant equipment, so they're gonna start going in ASAP and kind of cleaning it out, um, pulling out what they're not gonna use and moving their stuff in. I want to say, and don't quote me on this, but they want to be up and running by June-ish time frame.

Haley Sue Robinson 12:22

Great.

Brian McCain 12:22

June, July. So they want to move fast and they're excited to go in there.

Haley Sue Robinson 12:26

Cool. So we'll see something by the by the summertime. I know um there was discussion about whether there would be a slopper on the menu or not.

Mayor, Heather Graham 12:35

We can make them. That

Brian McCain 12:38

Was a requirement on the R RFP. Not really, but it should be.

Haley Sue Robinson 12:41

It should be, yeah. It that should have been part of the RFP. But um, you know, it's a really good space because uh when you go out to the industrial airport complex, um, you know, there's a lot of businesses out there. There's not really any restaurants out there. So um, you know, this is an opportunity not just for folks who are flying in and out of the airport, but for the business people um out there. So when they open, Mayor, we're gonna have to take a trip out for some lunch.

Mayor, Heather Graham 13:09

Let's do it.

Haley Sue Robinson 13:10

Okay.

Project Falcon Land Option And Incentives

Haley Sue Robinson 13:12

Um okay, so finally, uh one of the later ordinances that was approved, there was an option agreement put forth for the 300 acres for Project Falcon. Um, can you talk a little bit about this? This they they weren't actually purchasing the property. This was an option agreement.

Mayor, Heather Graham 13:30

Right. So previously the city had held an option agreement with PEDCO for Project Falcon. That agreement um ends today, actually. So to keep the project um going, we had to enter into um a new agreement and um obviously we were gonna do it with Project Falcon at this point in their timeline. Uh so we got it on um pretty late uh uh last month because um it had to be done last night before the the option ended today.

Haley Sue Robinson 14:06

Got it.

Mayor, Heather Graham 14:06

Um so within the agreement I think somebody asked, you know, are you giving the land for ten dollars? 'Cause that's that's the price of the the option. That's not necessarily the price um of the land. That land um there's a piece of land that is very close to it that sold recently for three million dollars. Um so we know that um

Haley Sue Robinson 14:30

it's valuable

Mayor, Heather Graham 14:30

with the comparables the land is probably worth two to three million dollars. Um at this point, uh Project Falcon is looking at that to be part of their total incentive uh package, much like the city has done previously with other economic development projects, um, land as part of the total um incentive um instead of cash or um a building or land can be used.

Haley Sue Robinson 14:58

Yeah, city attorney Sikes talked about just having kind of a nominal fee and and that's part of an incentive package that's normally negotiated with um with folks or has been previously.

Mayor, Heather Graham 15:09

Right.

Haley Sue Robinson 15:09

Okay. Um so then the next piece of that would be more of the full proposal from Project Falcon, or where are we in that process?

Mayor, Heather Graham 15:19

They starts today. Um that's kind of the time frame. So um we're hoping that negotiations will conclude or um move along over the next sixty days. It's they've been working with uh PEDCO previously, now the city, uh for quite some time. So I you know I think that they're they're ready to make a a decision.

Haley Sue Robinson 15:44

Sure.

Mayor, Heather Graham 15:44

Um their ask is quite large. Um attorney Sikes last night stated that it was upwards of sixty-five million dollars in incentive package, including or not including um land or uh infrastructure, those types of project. This has kind of been an ongoing project for the city last November. Um we moved some money out of the Half-cent sales tax to do design and uh layout work for what could potentially be tied to this project with wastewater improvements. Um so so the ask is large. There's lots of improvements that need to happen. Um there's lots of moving parts still when it comes to the county and the urban renewal authority, the state uh is involved. So it's it's a pretty big uh complex. It's it's not just a city incentive package at this time.

Haley Sue Robinson 16:40

So there's there's quite a few entities involved.

Mayor, Heather Graham 16:42

There's quite a few entities and they all everybody has to get on the same page before any kind of decision is made. And you know, when you have like five different governments, that could be difficult.

Haley Sue Robinson 16:53

Sure. Okay. So they are in negotiations with each of the entities.

Mayor, Heather Graham 16:57

Yep.

Haley Sue Robinson 16:58

Okay.

Mayor, Heather Graham 16:58

And so yeah, last night was just the option essentially saying it's so this is a this piece of land that they're looking at. It's like kind of like a hot piece of land. We get lots of calls and questions about it. Yeah. So that's why they wanted to make sure they had exclusive option and rights to purchase or have part of their incentive package for at least the next 60 days.

Haley Sue Robinson 17:20

Okay, that makes sense.

Mayor, Heather Graham 17:21

Yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 17:22

Great. Okay. Um anything else?

Mayor, Heather Graham 17:27

Cleanup.

Haley Sue Robinson 17:28

Oh, yeah. No, I just I just meant about council last night. It was like we said, it was long week.

Mayor, Heather Graham 17:35

Councilor Gomez ran a

Haley Sue Robinson 17:37

He did a great job.

Mayor, Heather Graham 17:37

He did a good job running the meeting last night.

Haley Sue Robinson 17:40

Yep.

Mayor, Heather Graham 17:40

It's hard, right?

Haley Sue Robinson 17:42

Yes.

Mayor, Heather Graham 17:42

I was the president for a couple years, so it's hard to wrangle everybody in and make sure.

Haley Sue Robinson 17:47

Yeah. Well, and uh, you know, open and close the hearings, and uh are we still talking about folks who are for or against it and discussion. Yeah, it was a lot.

Mayor, Heather Graham 18:00

Yeah, so he did a good job.

Haley Sue Robinson 18:01

At one point when he was like, okay, we only have 20 more to go, I was like, oh gosh, okay, we're in for the run.

Mayor, Heather Graham 18:06

We started our meeting at 5 30 last night.

Haley Sue Robinson 18:08

Yeah, for

Citywide Cleanup Details And Rules

Haley Sue Robinson 18:09

sure. Um but yes, uh this weekend is the cleanup. Um uh May 2nd, we have three locations: Colorado State Fairgrounds, CSU Pueblo. Um, you can bring your green waste to Recycle Works. Um we are taking volunteers if people want to come uh flag or um help with traffic or help us load, unload, um, things like that. We are taking volunteers. Um all you have to do if you are coming to participate is bring your ID or a utility bill that shows that you live within city limits. Um we asked folks not to bring big oversized vehicles, no, no moving vehicles. I know that sounds a little bizarre.

Mayor, Heather Graham 18:52

Like U-Hauls.

Haley Sue Robinson 18:53

Correct. Correct. I wasn't gonna call them out specifically, but yes, that's exactly what we're talking about. Um just it makes for a bad experience for everybody. It makes it really slow. Um but it should be great. It's supposed to rain most of the rest of the week, but then it's gonna be nice on Saturday. So perfect day for cleanup.

Mayor, Heather Graham 19:14

Well, we've been out there in the snow.

Haley Sue Robinson 19:16

We have, yes,

Mayor, Heather Graham 19:16

we have the first cleanup many years ago was actually a blizzard the book the great blizzard in May of like 2022.

Haley Sue Robinson 19:25

Yeah, yeah. It was it was pretty wild.

Mayor, Heather Graham 19:28

We were disgusting.

Haley Sue Robinson 19:29

And by the end of it, uh people were bringing their tree branches that were breaking off because of how heavy and wet the snow was. So yeah, that was uh that was an adventure for sure. Um but we hope to see you this weekend. It's from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Um, like we said, it's free for city residents. It's one of our favorite days of the year.

Mayor, Heather Graham 19:50

Is it?

Haley Sue Robinson 19:51

I think so.

Mayor, Heather Graham 19:52

Yeah, it's good.

Haley Sue Robinson 19:53

Right? It's fun, it makes people happy.

Mayor, Heather Graham 19:55

It does so some people

Haley Sue Robinson 19:56

cleans up Pueblo.

Mayor, Heather Graham 19:57

When they actually

Haley Sue Robinson 19:58

sometimes it makes people mad.

Mayor, Heather Graham 19:59

Yeah.

Haley Sue Robinson 20:00

It's okay. They get over it and then they dump their trash and then they're happy. And we're happy too. So uh bring their bring your large items, uh, household trash. Don't bring any e-waste or hazardous material. Um, but if you have green waste, it take it to RecycleWorks, and we hope to see you there. Um any other upcoming events? Not that I can think of. Not yet. Probably soon. Okay.

Closing And Listener Questions

Haley Sue Robinson 20:28

Well, then that's it for today. I want to remind you you can find us on Apple, YouTube, BuzzSprout, uh, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. If you have questions or topic suggestions, you can email us, mayor @pueblo.us. And we will see you next week.