$ Where is the “Dinero” Going? $

By: Janelle Kienast

FORT COLLINS, Colo -- Many of you may think that a city council meeting is not your cup of tea, however there is no better way to find out about the core working of your community than to attend a meeting that touches all the bases.

The city council meeting started out with City manager, Darin Atteberry presenting the three main topics that were covered through the meeting; economic health, high performing government, and environment health. The meeting took place on October 12, 2010 at 6:00pm in the Council Information Center in the City Hall.

While listening to the presentation of the city Manager’s 2011-2012 Recommended budgets, it becomes apparent that the city of Fort Collins is making some drastic changes. Through this meeting several members brought information and suggestions to keep the community alive and well. For instance, visitor trends, transportation funding and Fort Collins police changes, were some of the many debatable changes looking to be made or reworked.

Since the economic depression struck, the cities lodging revenues have been greatly affected, however with the slight increase in the last year many people are hopeful for a full recovery in this area. In order to help this ring true, a topic of conversation was hotel production followed by the ideas to increase funds for airport marketing were addressed. Members stated that the key ideas behind this is to have money coming in and furthermore improve revenue.

Following these topics, came the proposition to increase lodging taxes. It was then stated that Fort Collins’ current lodging tax stands at 9.7%, which is average tax for the state of Colorado. The main idea behind this is to keep an eye on the changes in other Colorado tourist towns and make a move from there.

Opinions on budgeting the sidewalk cleaning through Old Town was the next controversial topic presented through the meeting. The real question was whether the city needs this extra expense. Currently the city of Fort Collins power cleans the sidewalks six to seven times each year. However, if the budget was to be cut for the sidewalk cleaning, this would dispose of all power washes each year. Member then tried to defend the idea that vendors and store owners should be responsible for their portions of the side walk. Whether this will actually work raises many questions.

The last a probably most important topic discussed was the budget cuts through the Fort Collins Police. Captain Jim Szakmeister stated that due to the funding cuts all half time positions are being lost. This ultimately affects the senior watch as well as the neighborhood watch. He also presented the fact that slower responses to some neighborhood calls are being delayed due to these cut backs. It will be hard to work on community prevention plans with the reduced funding, which also created some thoughts for members.