The Mayor’s Minute from Mayor Patrick Collins – March 13, 2026
Published on March 13, 2026
I am writing the Minute on Thursday evening after a long day of our community battling record-setting winds. I have lived in Cheyenne for most of my life, and today’s winds were the strongest and most sustained I can remember. I want to give a shoutout to our public safety and Urban Forestry teams. Our Forestry team spent the day cleaning up over 50 trees that were blown across roads and Cheyenne Fire Rescue responded to over 173 calls. The Cheyenne Police Department was very busy responding to 290 calls. Our facilities and safety teams were busy taking care of our damaged City buildings and vehicles. Unfortunately, the roof of the Depot and other buildings were damaged. The other team that deserves our thanks is the Black Hills Energy team that responded to outages all day long. Working in these dangerous conditions took a focus on safety and teamwork. It is important to exercise caution when faced with conditions like we have experienced. Traffic signals losing power, downed power lines, and falling trees and branches require everyone to slow down and be aware of their surroundings. We are scheduled for a couple more days of high winds. Please be safe.
I spent time at the Capitol last Friday asking our legislators to not override a Governor’s veto. The City was awarded $2.175 million for a project that will bring 444 housing units to our community. The Legislature passed a bill that would have clawed back the dollars before we could complete the process. The Governor used his line-item veto to delay the claw back, and happily, the Legislature agreed to the later date. We will go before the State Lands and Investment Board in early April to finalize the process. The developer hopes to break ground later this year. Thank you!
Read Across America is such a fun time of year for me. I get to read fun books to kids in our schools. I was invited by the 3rd graders at Arp Elementary School to read “Mr. President Goes to School.” It is a great book and the kids were amazing. I like asking the kids what they learned from the book – they always have the best answers.
Cheyenne and F.E. Warren AFB were both born together in 1867. The relationship between our base and the city is something special. The base is commanded by Colonel Terry Holmes. It is great when our schedules allow us to get together to catch up on what is happening in both our organizations. Over the years I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of our military members and I always come away amazed by their dedication to the mission and how they take care of each other.
We were contacted by a county commissioner from Sedgwick County, Kansas, and the mayor of Colwich, Kansas. They have a data center looking to locate in their area and wanted to talk about our experiences. I appreciate their concerns and we talked about some of the best practices like using technology to cool the data center instead of huge amounts of water and making sure the data centers cover the entire cost of the electrical upgrades to protect the local ratepayers. We also discussed temporary lighting used during construction and how it can affect neighborhoods and making sure they have standards for noise control. It is fun to talk with elected officials in other states.
We had a very long City Council meeting on Monday evening – more than 6 hours. We were on final reading for the last group of county pocket annexations. Supporters of a farm on an 8-acre parcel were there to show their support and how the farm improves their quality of life. City Council voted to delay the annexations for eight months so they can farm for the next few months and then we can spend time working on putting things in place to make sure the farm will succeed in the future. I loved the passion of the farm supporters.
In December 2024, City Council passed an ordinance to fund stormwater maintenance through a fee everyone would pay. At Monday’s City Council meeting, an ordinance to repeal the fee passed on second reading. Stormwater infrastructure is public safety infrastructure and we need to find a way to fund it. The Legislature’s Select Water Committee has voted to make stormwater their No. 1 priority in the interim and I am hopeful they can help us find a part of the solution. In the meantime, City Council is repealing our fee.
The City’s budgeting process is officially underway. This week, we started meeting with the agencies we share with County and some of the outside agencies we partner with.
Arts Cheyenne was the first meeting. Our $50,000 contract supports our community’s public art scene. They recently moved into the Asher Building on 15th Street where you can visit their gallery. Their efforts have helped with the murals you see downtown, the large boots, and they are helping with the maintenance of our downtown bronzes.
Safe Harbor’s contract with the City is to help our police department with interviews with children who have been abused or endangered. Unfortunately, they did 58 interviews for cases in Cheyenne and 144 in total. I appreciate their effort to train our police officers on how to work with children who have been involved in these kinds of trauma. This is one contract I hope we can cancel one day, but I know that day will probably never come. It breaks my heart that kids need these services.
City-County Health is a shared agency with the County. We will invest just over $1 million next year to support their operation. Environmental health, family planning, public health nursing, maternal child health, and immunizations are just some of the services they provide. I appreciate they are out inspecting our restaurants to make sure they are safe places to eat.
The Animal Shelter contracts with the City and County to shelter the animals our animal control team picks up. The City’s part of the contract is $650,000. We have worked over the past three years on the formula to fund our part of the shelter’s operation and it is great to say we have it fine-tuned now. The shelter does a great job of providing a safe and loving place for displaced animals. They received a litter of kittens this week. Spaying and neutering animals would help reduce the number of unwanted animals in our city.
The value of our contract with the Emergency Management Agency was on full display today with our high winds. EMA held a phone meeting with all the agencies to coordinate the response. It is a good partnership with the County.
We created the Combined Communication Center with the County early in my first city council term. Bringing all the emergency call centers into one place was designed to save money and improve 911 and emergency responses. Their focus is continued training of their operators to be a better resource for our emergency management agencies in the county.
The City had some Covid-related dollars left at the end of 2024 that had to be encumbered by the end of the year. Our police chief came from an agency that used Automated License Plate Readers as an investigative tool for law enforcement. These ALPR cameras take a picture of the rear of cars that pass by including the license plate number. The data is encrypted and stored in a CJIS rated manner to make sure it is secure. The police department held a public meeting on Wednesday night to share how they use the data to help investigate crimes in our city. We have a contract for 23 of the ALPR cameras and the technology has been essential in solving a number of crimes in the past few months. We are working hard to balance community privacy concerns with the use of technology for solving crimes. I appreciate the members of the public who came to the meeting and our police department for putting on the meeting.
Wishing everyone a safe and fun St. Patrick’s Day. Everyone is Irish on the 17th!