The April 21 regular meeting of the Westcliffe Board of Trustees (BOT) saw a changing of the guard in the Mayor’s seat, as outgoing Mayor Paul Wenke passed the gavel to Mayor Pro-Tem Christy Patterson, after swearing in Trustees Charles Jagow, Kit Shy, Randy Wilhelm, and Art Nordyke to their new terms.
“I’ve always enjoyed doing this job as Mayor and Trustee,” Wenke said as he prepared to take his leave of public service. He cited the town’s Facade Grants and support for the town parks as two of his proudest accomplishments while in office. Before officially stepping down as Mayor, Wenke presided over two agenda action items: the first, consideration whether or not to go ahead with planting trees in those parks this year, a discussion that began at the BOT’s March meeting. After discussion of drought concerns and consultation with Town staff about the cost and efficacy of shade cloths for Memorial Park in lieu of tree planting, the BOT approved motions to postpone tree planting until next year, and use the current year’s $40,000 budget amount allocated for trees to purchase the shade awnings. The second was consideration of a motion to purchase a street sweeper for the town, which also passed unanimously.
After being seated as Mayor, Patterson presided over the consideration and approval of the current year’s Facade Grant recipients, which included a consideration and approval of overhauling the Facade Grant guidelines to expand opportunities for Westcliffe businesses not in the core commercial districts. “It didn’t make much sense for all the businesses not on Main Street not to be able to apply,” said Trustees Wilhelm and Bob Fulton, who worked on the new guidelines: “The new map goes from Main Street and Bassick down to the Bluff, all the way down Rosita to 2nd Street, and then 2nd Street to North Ave. 3rd Street goes all the way out to Lake DeWeese Road, and Main Street/Highway 69 South to the town limits.”
The new guidelines also specify that only one grant is allowed per building, as opposed to allowing multiple tenants in one building to apply for separate grants. Grant applications will be due at the end of February, and the reimbursement window closes at the end of December in the same calendar year. After discussion, the BOT tabled a vote on the new guidelines, pending further edits, but voted to approve the four recipients of this year’s grants: the Wildflower (formerly the Wolff) Hotel, Abryli Properties, Wapiti Realty, and the Sangres Art Guild.
Patterson also read into the record a public statement she had drafted for the infrastructure expansion project south of the town limits: “I wrote this up to help answer questions people had,” she explained. The work on the infrastructure project consists of water and sewer line installations on town-owned lots that will also improve development possibilities for privately-owned lots in the same area. The work is scheduled to commence in May. The BOT discussed edits to the public statement, to be approved in a later vote, with Fulton making a motion to put it online before the groundbreaking.
Included in the discussion of the infrastructure statement was a discussion of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Round Mountain Water and Sanitation District (RMWSD) with regard to ownership and maintenance of the water and sewer lines. The Town of Westcliffe will own the lines for a period of ten years, after which time they will revert to the RMWSD, with the District also providing maintenance during that time.
“There should not be anything new or surprising in the MOU,” said Town Attorney Dan Findlay: “You could have a motion to the effect that Westcliffe approve the MOU contingent upon there being no other changes.” Shy made a motion to allow the Mayor to sign the MOU as written, as long as the RMWSD approves it as written. The motion carried unanimously.
In other business, the BOT heard staff reports and approved a proclamation of April as Sexual Assault Awareness month.
– Elliot Jackson
