By Nick Hensley
FORT COLLINS, Colo.—On Tuesday evening the Fort Collins City Council met to discuss the economic future and recommended budget for 2011-2012.
During the work session the staff presented three sections of the budget. They sections included: economic health, high performing government and environmental health.
A big topic was the sales-tax proposal, which is issue 2B on the November ballot. If the proposal was approved, there would be a 0.85 percent increase of sales-tax. The sales-tax increase is estimated to bring in $18.5 million in revenue a year. From the revenue, 50 percent of the money would go towards roads and transportation. The extra money would be pushed towards police, fire services and parks and recreation. The tax would also have a 10 year existence.
Critics of the proposal think it is a lot to ask in tough economic times. Some critics commenting on a Coloradoan.com blog say that “the only people supporting this tax increase are government employees.”
However, supporters say that the tax increase is necessary due to the budget decrease and decrease in revenue.
Revenue and economic health was also one of the topics discussed at the meeting. According to Jim Clark of the Fort Collins Visitor Bureau, economic health is a big concern for the years to come. Fort Collins has seen a big decline in lodging. This could be due to tourism here in Fort Collins, but the members think that the city needs to start changing the way people hear about Fort Collins and start to visit. The idea to move towards search engines was brought up as well during the meeting. However, in a public relations sense, Fort Collins is very good at promoting itself through breweries here in town such as New Belgium Brewing Company. Clark also said that Fort Collins is behind on cutting edge technology involving advertising, and the city needs to catch up in that department.
The meeting was the 3rd of 4 work sessions discussing the 2011-2012 budget. The next meeting will be held on October 19th, and will be open for public comments during this meeting. The next work session will be on October 26th.
I thought that you wrote the story in an understandable way, and that it had good inverted pyramid style. I also thought that you explained each part that you were discussing really well. Further I liked that you added how public relations was doing well by listing the breweries that offer the tours. The only thing that I would maybe rework is the length of your paragraphs. There were two paragraphs in particular that were really long. I understood why you had them long, because each paragraph discussed a certain topic, but there were places that you could have broken it up so that there were two or maybe three smaller paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteI thought your story was very organized and you did very well at explaining the issues in your own words. I like that your last paragraph talked about the future meeting which definitely follows the inverted pyramid style. I think that the quotes you used were very good, but some more might have made your point better just for future reference. Also, there are big blocks of text and some of your quotes within the text that would look better if they were separated and made more noticeable in your story.
ReplyDeleteScissor,
ReplyDeleteI think your lead could use a little bit better of a hook. Its good becasue it's informative and short, but doesn't grab the reader.
Also, break up your paragraphs. When readers look at long graphs like that, they are less likely to read it. Short paragrahs keep the readers attention and moving through the stroy.
Also make sure the quotes are their own paragraph.
Your transistions are good.
Scissor?
ReplyDeleteGreat inverted pyramid style. I think you really did well at getting the information to the reader in a way it could be easily understood. I agree with Chad, the only thing that looks off is the big fat paragraph in the middle of those short and simple ones. So next time I would just break it up and make it less to read.
ReplyDeleteOverall good story!