By J.A. Dandridge
Fort Collins Colo. - Snip, cut, decrease are the sounds you would hear during the Tuesday Fort Collins city council work session. Reductions and tight finances were being squeezed over a discussion on economic health, high performing government and environmental health budget recommendations. This gathering was a part of four sessions on 2011- 2012 finances. These future plans seemed to consistently reflect the current unfortunate economic times of the United States throughout each section on the issues.
Fort Collins tourists are pinching pennies; the city must leave behind important projects. There are possible job and crime prevention cuts that reflect the larger scale of rough economic times in America.
The City of Fort Collins has a beautiful downtown, lots of community events, and it still is not enough. A large sum of city council budget is behind the idea of attracting new visitors to increase growth in a slow moving economy. That is why Convention and Visitors Services is one of the funded services that may be replacing the second phase of a previously funded railway quiet zone study.
Each day the familiar sound of thunderous and obnoxious train chimes make their entrance upon the ears of Fort Collins residents and echo their way onto the Colorado State University campus among other areas. This problem could be solved after the completion of a $75,000 phase two study on quiet zones. Mayor Pro Tem, Kelly Ohlson reminds the audience that the Downtown Development Authority no longer has the funds to complete this project. They ran out of funds even during the development. Although the project is important, there would be zero funds to actually execute the study, so it simply must be abandoned for 2011-2012.
The city wants to spend its time nurturing elsewhere, because even when it comes to tourist, they are cutting back on their own personal budgets too, making the city’s pocket even thinner. Jim Clark of Fort Collins Convention and Visitors Bureau tells how people are only interested in softball or baseball games for their children when they come to Fort Collins. Corporate travel has also caused lodging taxes to go down, where other cities like Boulder and Loveland will soon be voting to raise their sales taxes. Denver has the highest sales tax at 15%, while Fort Collins lags behind. With the new budget leaning towards increased advertisement through online media hopefully new visitors will be coming this way.
It is clear that some will lose and some will gain, even when it comes to jobs and safety. The Crime Prevention Program Specialist of district five will be reduced down to compensate for things like Urban Renewal Authority. Reduced Advance Planning staff for city council will also mean more lost jobs.
The next work session will be Tuesday October19, the fourth and last work session before further revision or recommendations are finalized.
I really like how you painted a scene of the meeting in the lead and throughout the story. I also think that your story flowed from one part to the next and was written in a ready-friendly way. You also did a nice job at writing in an inverted style, with the most important aspects closer to the top and with a nice reference to when the public can get involved next. The only thing you may want to think about is cutting your paragraphs down so that there's not such a big block of text.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed how you talked about Fort Collins and how the city is trying to focus on the downtown area. I think it flowed very well and did not seem to be jumping around a lot. I would of liked to see at least a few direct quotes from somebody at the meeting. The opening lead was really good, next time though try to make it a little shorter, or split it into two paragraphs. I can see the inverted pyramid style with the most important facts are in the beginning. I would try next time though, cutting down the paragraph sizes. Overall though I enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteYou turned this story from a boring city council meeting into more of a narrative piece, which is different and I liked that. There was an added since of character. However I do think that it could have been trimmed down and paragraphs could have been broken up. Also adding more quotes could have shown voices and opinions from the city council members. Or since this story had more character, you could have added quotes from citizens of Fort Collins to get their feel on 2B.
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