City Council Does Work in Work Shop

By T.M. Luker

FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- There is no doubt that the financial crisis has stressed out the small town of Fort Collins. There is a need for environmental health, jobs, and security for the community, which has been taking a downward spiral over the past few years. City council members, board members, and the mayor met on Tuesday to address these issues, and discuss the proposed budget, in order to meet these demands by the public.

In the first order of business, there was discussion for opening up jobs to help contribute to the city’s revenue.

“I think in these tough economic times that one of the things we can and should be doing is creating that environment for job growth and job enhancement,” said city councilman Wade Troxell.

To this statement, a clear answer to this issue was avoided, yet there was some discussion on a possible solution such as private contributions.

“It’s a matter of prioritizing.” said Mike Freeman, the Chief Financial Officer. He also stated that the community is currently receiving $25-30,000 in private contributions. Although this is still in the discussion stages on whether or not there is room in the budget. The success of industry cluster, which are businesses that are deeply instilled into most aspects of the community and therefore open up jobs with their success.

To this issue, Wade Troxell also gives his own opinion on a possible solution.

“How do you reconcile costs in these hard economic times, when we should be doubling down primary employment?”

Another frantic topic of discussion was funds going toward security to the community as far as public alarms to the police. The worry of tax payer money going to false alarms, that waste time and cause confusion were questions directed at Captian Jim Szakmeister of the Fort Collins Police Service.

“We’ve seen a good response from the companies trying to fix the problem so we don’t waste tax payer dollars as well as provide a false sense of security.” “We try to bring down the cost and manage it better.”

The subject of creating energy efficient businesses was brought up by Kelly Ohlson, another city councilman. He gave his argument about the use of corn based ethanol which he called, “A boondoggle put on the American people.” “I don’t think we should be participating in it.”

In order to create less of a financial strain on the Fort Collins economy, there has been a proposal for a .85 percent increase on sales tax called 2B, Resourcing Our Future.

This is still lower than what is charged in the Denver Metro area, yet there along with the increased sales tax is another fee called the PIF, public improvement fee, this something that would be varied according to where you shop, and it is also a minuscule amount out of individual pockets. According to some estimates, the sales tax could generate $18.5 for the community. When brought up in the city council work shop, the general consensus of the participants was support for the economic stimulator.

According to Ohlson, it is the people’s main responsibilities, since his opinion of the city government’s tactics for action seem lackadaisical.

“We talk the talk better than we walk the walk sometimes.”

Although the work shop was a discussion on what could possible happen and what should potentially be done to fix these communal issues, there is still uncertainty in what the future Fort Collins will look like until the actually community has their say at the polls.