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 68
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The Mayor's Mixtape is finally back with episode 68. Mayor Graham provides a recap of the City Council meeting from Monday, August 25, 2026. Learn about the shopping cart schedule fee, next steps for the Pueblo Police Department BATTLE grant, the next steps for the Leonardo da Vinci Museum request, and the upcoming 0.25% sales tax ballot measure for Fire and Technology.
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Welcome Back And Council Highlights
Haley Sue RobinsonWelcome to the 68th episode of the Mayor's Mixtape. I'm Haley Sue Robinson, Director of Public Affairs for the City of Pueblo.
Mayor, Heather GrahamI'm Heather Graham, City of Pueblo Mayor.
Haley Sue RobinsonMayor? We took a little hiatus from uh the Mayor's Mixtape, so we're finally back. And um I do want to remind the listener that you can find us on BuzzSprout, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. Uh lots of opportunities to listen. You can also email us, mayor @pueblo.us, if you want to suggest a topic or a question to uh Mayor Graham to cover. Uh we have so much to talk about. It was a very long night last night at City Council. Um we did start off with a couple of really exciting proclamations. One for uh Kim Bowman and recognizing her commitment to service and and her retirement from Posada. Uh we also had uh Andrew Hay, Andrew Hayes Day um for the work that he did during the Aspen Acres fire. And then we also had a recognition for uh Mental Health Awareness Month and the call to action to participate in the memory walk on September 5th. So it was a good start to the night um with a couple of those things. But we had quite a few um hot topics.
Shopping Cart Ordinance And Responsibility
Haley Sue RobinsonI think maybe we'll start with the shopping cart fee. Uh that's been something that has been in the works and will go into effect um January of 2027. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Mayor?
Mayor, Heather GrahamYeah, sure. So this was uh an ordinance that I brought forward a few years ago. Um and I've heard a lot about, you know, why are you targeting the businesses instead of target targeting businesses?
Haley Sue RobinsonYeah.
Mayor, Heather GrahamYeah, pushing the carts and um what this ordinance is really about is making sure that these uh retailers are cleaning up their their carts at night, right?
Haley Sue RobinsonThat they're securing them at their facility.
Mayor, Heather GrahamIn some way, shape, or form. This doesn't necessarily have to be an additional cost.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm there was a lot of conversation about, you know, why are you passing this cost on to the retailers? Well, that's that's not what we're doing. We're asking retailers uh to make sure when they close their doors at night that all their their carts are removed from the parking lot. Um so the city of Pueblo isn't having to pick them up. And that's what's been happening for the last several years is when we are going and cleaning up these um encampments or driving around town and uh collecting trash with our community service, um, there is often shopping carts and many shopping carts.
Haley Sue RobinsonYeah.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm sometimes in a location we can pick up a thousand carts.
Haley Sue RobinsonSure.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm and what happens is the store does not want to take these carts back. They do not want to come and pick these carts up. So what happens is it goes on the taxpayer, right? Because the City of Pueblo employees pick the carts up, have to take them to the the dump to be uh melted or disposed of. Um and it's this this sick cycle of uh, you know, whose shopping cart is this and um why doesn't the retailer want it? It's it's their property.
Haley Sue RobinsonSure.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm so when they're just leaving it out in the middle of a prairie, it's um it is your responsibility uh to take it back when we call or to have it cleaned up. And so I think over the last couple of years we've seen many of our retailers put a plan uh together on how they're going to um collect their carts at night, make sure that they're not leaving their property, which is really what the goal of the ordinance was. So I think we've already established and uh and met that goal, um, but the fines and the fees had to be processed as part of the um original ordinance that passed city council a couple years ago. Um I don't necessarily foresee the city fining these retailers because everyone's done a a pretty decent job of doing what they need to do to make sure that their carts aren't traveling around the city.
Haley Sue RobinsonYeah, and whether that's you know like the locking mechanism on the um on the wheel of the cart or if it's asking staff to make more rounds of out in the parking lot or whatever that looks like, there's a couple of ways that they can put that plan in place.
Mayor, Heather GrahamYeah, um, because if you are a business owner and you have a cart left at your business, uh I mean, to have the trash company take it is an additional charge to your business. Um same thing with the city, when the city is cleaning them up, it's it's pretty expensive for us to take those and
Haley Sue RobinsonSure
Mayor, Heather Grahamand dump them. So um this is was one of our our goals a couple years ago, and we've seen it come uh full full circle now.
Police Grant Tabled For Work Session
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay, great. Okay. Um you know another uh big topic of discussion last night was the uh battle grant that the police department uh plans to accept. Um it's my understanding that this grant is something that the city has applied for and received for at least
Mayor, Heather Graham2009.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay. Yeah, I was gonna say
Mayor, Heather Grahamdespite what uh some of our citizens spoke about last night.
Haley Sue RobinsonOver a decade.
Mayor, Heather GrahamThe city has received this grant since 2009.
Haley Sue RobinsonSure. So um that actually was uh tabled for the the second reading vote until uh September 14th, and uh a planned work session is Tuesday, September 8th. Um so we'll uh we'll anticipate a little more in-depth uh conversation around that and what that looks like.
Mayor, Heather GrahamI guess, yeah.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay.
Mayor, Heather GrahamIt's what city council wants to do. So what we'll hear from city council.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay.
Da Vinci Museum Funding And Pushback
Haley Sue RobinsonUm well let's let's get to the elephant in the room, don't you think?
Mayor, Heather GrahamWell, which one?
Haley Sue RobinsonTrue. That's true. Yeah, we uh last night was uh a lot. Yeah uh so we had pack chambers to start, like I I mentioned we had those proclamations and recognitions. Um so there was packed chambers to start and standing room only, and then we had folks that were waiting. And the folks that were waiting then um came for this next piece, which was the uh Leonardo da Vinci uh museum and the half cent sales tax allocation um for that ordinance. So that was a lively discussion uh I think for probably about two hours last night.
Mayor, Heather GrahamAt least, yeah.
Haley Sue RobinsonUh I know we started uh about 8.30 and I don't know, I left here at like 1120 after so I I think there was at least two hours of discussion about this. But um the proposal is then to table it um until September 14th and to bring them back for a work session with discussion of more in-depth financials, their budget, their ticket sales, and uh get some additional questions answered by counsel.
Mayor, Heather GrahamYeah, so this has been a long process uh with our friends from the Da Vinci Museum. Um you know, as you know, they were granted the use of the Bull Rider Sports Performance Center in February of 2025. Um they have been working on this project for several years before having community meetings, um, trying to select a location.
Haley Sue RobinsonSure.
Mayor, Heather GrahamThey finally selected a location. Um they had come to city council several times to say what their plan was. Um, you know, during those first few months, uh they did in fact say that they would not um need money uh from the government. Um and what has changed, I think this is the most important part, is previously they could not apply for money from the government.
Haley Sue RobinsonThe half cent sales tax.
Mayor, Heather GrahamThe half cent sales tax because they were not part of the RTA um and the criteria had not been changed. The criteria was not changed until February of 2026. So um just like the other 20 applicants um that Advanced Pueblo has received to this point, um they applied for funding for jobs that they were bringing to the community um and they also prov uh applied under placemaking.
Haley Sue RobinsonSure.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm, which is uh renovation. Um uh has a lot to do with tourism and trying to bring people to our community.
Haley Sue RobinsonYeah,
Mayor, Heather Grahamhence placemaking, and so they originally sent an application in for 1.8 million. Um you heard Mr. Arrigo talk about last night why that kind of changed and it really had to do with the timeline of when they first applied for the funds, um, and then now all the way to August, uh, when they're open, they know how many employees they have and they know what that looks like. So they reduce their ask um to only the placemaking section. So I bet you, gosh, we have had five different executive sessions with city council on the Da Vinci and we've provided city council with a full application. We actually had uh members of the Da Vinci come in and talk to Advanced Pueblo and pitched their their whole project to Councilor Boston and Councilor Hernandez in April. Um we took it to City Council, City Council says move it forward, so ordinance are drafted, agreements have been drafted. Um City Council has uh delayed, I'll call it, this process for these for this project um since April.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay.
Mayor, Heather GrahamAnd it was very frustrating and disappointing last night to hear several of them say that they still had additional questions. Um because quite frankly, not any of them outside of President Aliff asked for any additional information um or questions since this first went on uh first presentation two weeks ago. Um so to grandstand and and hold the community back um because you city council are unprepared um for your council meeting. Um it's it's disappointing. And I think that the community is very disappointed in City Council, and I think that they should be.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay. So we'll anticipate that uh the next steps include the work session. Will there be any other supplemental information that's provided or what do we have to do?
Mayor, Heather GrahamThey have just all of the information.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm it's been provided several times. Um so I'm not really sure what their questions are. I know the Councilor Hernandez had a question, you know, tell us about your ticket sales. Um and Mr. Arrigo tried to really explain well, it's it's not just about the ticket sales or the visitors, because those those come in different a different fashion, right? Um some are membership based, some are students, some are kids, some are adults, some are seniors. I can't just tell you we've had 13,000 people and the tickets were twelve dollars a piece, um, and we've made 400,000.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay.
Mayor, Heather GrahamIt's there's there's different tiers, they're different prices. Um and to Mr. Arrigo's defense, he was never asked any of these questions to be prepared for.
Haley Sue RobinsonYeah.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm so why why would you bring that? It's kind of uh uh interesting. Um and and you know what else is interesting is when we you know talk about grilling a citizen in the way that Mr. Arrigo was grilled last night over a total uh project cost of eight hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, these same city council members who in fact did the grilling um were two of the city council members who were just ready to hand Project Falcon over uh sixty-five million dollars uh to bring their business to our community without ever seeing a single financial document or a single plan from Project Falcon. Um so you you really have to wonder what is going on with City Council and why are they behaving this way. So I think the public should ask those questions. Um and I hope City Council gets their act together because this project's good. It's good for our community.
Haley Sue RobinsonThere was uh quite a quite a bit of support last night.
Mayor, Heather GrahamThere was over 20 people who got up and spoke and we had two naysayers. Um so I think that the public has spoken.
Haley Sue RobinsonSure.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm the people who care about the project has have spoken. Um and the community has spoken about they want to see their tax dollars being spent differently, and they do not want to see them sit in a bank and be unused.
Haley Sue RobinsonYeah. I think um one person in particular that shocked a lot of people, and she jokingly even uh mentioned it, was uh former city counselor uh Barb Vidmar.
Mayor, Heather GrahamYeah.
Haley Sue RobinsonAnd she was one of the folks that uh spoke against the change in criteria for the ordinance, but then she spoke in favor of the allocation and how it fit the criteria. Uh there were quite a few gasps in the crowd, and I thought it was pretty funny uh just that she could make light of the situation and say, you know, I I think you all are surprised to see me considering the last time I was here was in February.
Mayor, Heather GrahamThat's how good of a project this is.
Haley Sue RobinsonUm I thought that was interesting.
Mayor, Heather GrahamIt's a shame.
Haley Sue RobinsonSure.
Mayor, Heather GrahamBut I think it's gonna get done. So
Haley Sue RobinsonWe just have to wait another couple weeks.
Mayor, Heather GrahamWell, we've been waiting since April. What's a couple more weeks at this point, right? For something good that's um already in our community and hopefully we can uh retain it and expand it.
Haley Sue RobinsonSure.
Sales Tax Votes And Budget Warnings
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay. Um well after that it it continued to be lively at City Council last night. So um the remaining four ordinances on the agenda were the sales tax ballot measures. So we had four uh 0.25% sales tax measures. Uh the first one for was for parks, pools, and programming. Uh the second was for roads and infrastructure. Uh the third was for nonprofit or non-departmental funding, our contractual agreements that we have at the city. And then the final was for fire and technology. Um the first three uh failed in a four to three vote, so those will not be on the uh ballot in November. And uh the last one, uh the fire and technology passed five to two. Uh so that will be on the ballot come November. And I I thought maybe you could share with us what the allocation looks like, what the taxpayers could anticipate um if that ballot measure were to pass, what what it would go towards.
Mayor, Heather GrahamSure. So the the only one that passed was the fire and technology. And um when presented we talked about new uh fire apparatus. Um as we know that many of our fire trucks are 30 plus years.
Haley Sue RobinsonRight.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm so they're kind of getting to the point of of not being able to use them. Um so it would be mainly for um apparatus and equipment for the fire trucks. Um an apparatus is about 1.5 million dollars. So pretty expensive. Um that's just the basic costs and then everything they have to put on it. Um and then the technology side is uh technology as it relates to public safety. So that could be uh the radios, the body worn cameras, sure, um, any kind of technology that has to do uh with fire or um police.
Haley Sue RobinsonLike our RMS.
Mayor, Heather GrahamRMS can. Yeah.
Haley Sue RobinsonYeah. So the the technology that's used with dispatchers for both police and fire. Um and then like equipment that's in vehicles that our emergency responders use.
Mayor, Heather GrahamYep.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay.
Mayor, Heather GrahamYeah. So it was interesting that they decided that, oh, actually we need to pass this on to the people of Pueblo instead of just um, you know, make the vote ourselves here tonight. Um those ballot questions took a long time for city staff to do. We incorporated requests from city council on what they also wanted to see. Um I had four different town halls where we went and spoke to community members about uh things that they want funded, right?
Haley Sue RobinsonSure.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUh there was a a a big conversation earlier this year about the cutting of the tennis program.
Haley Sue RobinsonSure.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm in 2028, it's going to be more than just the tennis program that is going to be cut because the city will not have uh the financial means to support any programs that are being ran out of the city of Pueblo. Um in fact, we will probably have to do significant layoffs going into 2028's budget. We know we have about $1.2 million left with the $10 million deficit. So the goal of the budget, uh the goal of the questions for the ballot measures was to let the people of Pueblo decide how they want their tax dollars to be spent. Whether that was uh road maintenance and infrastructure, whether that was continuing to fund all of the nonprofits that the city funds through contractual agreements like the zoo, like HSPPR, like the Nature Center. Um it cost the city about five million dollars a year to fund all of those programs. So um there would be a specific allocation um and then the the pools and the parks and the programs. So um it's unfortunate that city council took that into their hands last night um to make the decision for the public without any solutions moving forward to the public. Um I've yet to hear one city councilor um provide an actual solution to the city's budget. Um all they want to do is criticize the very budget that they pass um every single year without any input um or problem solving put into the actual budget as they continue to spend money week after week after week. I mean I think out of their contingencies last night they spent eight to ten thousand dollars um on just sponsorship. So um each of those those requests adds up uh to the overall city budget. So um city council is the sole authority when it comes to spending the city of Pueblo's money. So I'm curious to see what City Council is going to do uh next year when we have these budget constraints.
Haley Sue RobinsonAnd it's my understanding that uh council has a few of our council members have attended uh the budget meetings that you've held with directors.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUh-huh.
Haley Sue RobinsonHas there been conversation about what it looks like to move forward or input there?
Mayor, Heather GrahamNo. So uh they've come to the meetings, they've taken it in, we had the budget presentations that they requested will be back um on the 31st. But I mean the budget is pretty much set at this point.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay.
Mayor, Heather GrahamUm and it'll be making its way through uh city council and for approval over the next couple months.
Haley Sue RobinsonSo then um next steps with this ballot measure, uh this along with the ballot measure for the zoo tax will go um to the county clerk and recorder and be put on the November ballot, and then um we'll see it on election day for uh voters to decide what they'd like to do.
Mayor, Heather GrahamYep.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay. What else am I missing, Mayor?
Mayor, Heather GrahamI don't know. There's been so much.
Haley Sue RobinsonMm-hmm. Yeah, it's been uh it's been a little while since we were back on the podcast, so I I know uh we got a couple of emails, a couple of Facebook messages, a couple of people called uh City Hall and said, Wait, did you guys are you done with the podcast forever? No, we were just on a short hiatus.
Mayor, Heather GrahamYeah.
Haley Sue RobinsonYeah. So it's nice to be back.
Mayor, Heather GrahamWe'll be back tomorrow. I don't know when that one will air, but President Aliff is wants to be guest tomorrow. So maybe we'll have two this week. I don't know. Yeah, we'll have to plan that out and see how it works. Maybe we'll do a couple every week.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay.
Mayor, Heather GrahamSo we can make sure that we're getting accurate information out into our community because that seems to be an issue.
Haley Sue RobinsonSure.
Colorado State Fair Events And Sign Off
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay. Um well we do have a couple of upcoming events. Uh it starts the Colorado State Fair um this weekend. Um, we'll be at the legislative barbecue on Friday, but uh very exciting. The Colorado State Fair Parade is Saturday. Um, the city is float number five, and so we're excited for that. I know we've been working on the float starting this week. Um also want to remind everyone I know school started, um, but our pools are still open. Um, City Park pool is still open. Also, Mayor, your favorite day of the year at the pool is coming?
Mayor, Heather GrahamDog day.
Haley Sue RobinsonYep, pups, pups at the pool. Um, that's Monday, September 7th from 9 to 11 a.m. And also the second session is 12 to 2, and it's $5 a dog, and the humans are free. Um But also, since uh students are back in school, we still have the rides at City Park. Those are open. Um, the hours are a little bit different in the fall, so that's Fridays from 5 to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 2 to 8 p.m. And that's through October 17th. So still plenty of opportunity to get out, enjoy our um parks programs and get a couple more swim days in before Labor Day hits. So that's exciting. Um any other events that I'm missing that you know of?
Mayor, Heather GrahamNo.
Haley Sue RobinsonI know there's always lots going on, so those are at least the the city things that we have going on.
Mayor, Heather GrahamYep.
Haley Sue RobinsonOkay, well, uh want to remind you to find us on uh BuzzSprout, YouTube, um wherever you get your podcasts. And um remember you can email us, mayor @pueblo.us, and we will cover your topic suggestion, or you can ask questions of the mayor. Tell your friends and uh neighbors and family like, subscribe, share, and rate our podcast. And we'll see you next week.