The Mayor’s Minute from Mayor Patrick Collins – May 15, 2026

Published on May 15, 2026

This week’s activity has been dominated by the budget process. I sent my proposed balanced budget to City Council for their consideration on May 1. Since that time, we have had budget work sessions almost every day at noon. These work sessions are a chance for the departments to share with City Council what is going on in their departments and to discuss their budget requests. This year, the meetings have been longer than any year I can remember. The number and quality of questions have been outstanding. The work sessions will end on May 15, and then the Governing Body will debate our Fiscal Year 2027 budget, starting with the Committee of the Whole next Wednesday.

Cheyenne is growing and we need to make sure our equipment and facilities can match that growth. With a growing number of parks, fire stations, buildings, roads, trees, and more, we have to bring on additional employees and provide the vehicles they need to perform their work. Looking to the future, we are going to need to build new facilities for our team to maintain our City vehicles. Our team is looking at similar sized, growing communities to understand how much property is needed and what kind of facilities to plan for. Our mechanics work on everything from simple SUVs to fire trucks to sanitation trucks – you name it. Planning for proper future facilities is important for setting them up for success.

Dealing with the federal bureaucracy can be frustrating. Victoria Seaman, the Western Regional Director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, stopped by to help the city find a way to make our relationship more efficient. As a city, we don’t have a lot of dealings with HHS, but I really appreciated her connecting us with other departments that have a great deal of interaction with us. The federal government can be a force multiplier when things go well. Hoping we can get there!

May is National Historic Preservation Month. I was joined by members of the Historic Preservation Board this week to discuss their efforts to preserve our historic places for future generations and read a proclamation. Cheyenne has two National Historic Landmarks, 25 National Register properties, and over 1,300 contributing structures in nine National Register Historic Districts. A couple huge successes in the past year are the Governing Body committing to the adaptive reuse of the Historic Pumphouse and the progress being made on the Reed Avenue Project that will help spur the additional restoration and reuse of the historic buildings along that corridor. I appreciate City Council and their leadership in these initiatives.

One thing I love about my job is how much I learn each week. This week was about the history of our first park superintendent. Tammy, Stephanie, and Katherine stopped by to discuss a gazebo their family had donated to Lions Park in honor of their grandfather, Jacob Paulus, who worked in our parks department from 1923 to 1969 and was the first superintendent, serving in that role for 35 years. His son Richard started in parks in 1952 and followed as superintendent in 1969, serving in that role for 22 years. Unfortunately, the gazebo was damaged during the big windstorm in March when a large tree fell on it. The family grew up in the home on the south end of Lions Park – now our forestry office – and have a great love for the park and the memory of their pioneer relatives. Replacing the gazebo and the historic plaques is a family priority. So cool to meet the sisters and learn about the family history and service to our city.

America’s 250th birthday is coming this July 4. Our community has a lot of events planned to celebrate our semiquincentennial. I was invited to speak with the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students from the South Triad at their big track meet on Tuesday. It is my hope that this celebration season will help all of us learn more about our founding fathers and the amazing thing they did when they created our country and declared “all men are created equal.” Getting a chance to share that message with the athletes at the track meet was special.  I hope the kids had lots of water and sunscreen. It was a beautiful, sunny, perfect day.

I asked our retiring Municipal Juvenile Court Judge, Ronn Jeffery, to look at our city juvenile ordinances. For the past few months, Ronn has put together committees of experts to review our existing ordinances and policies. He reported progress this week and I am impressed. The policy committee has submitted their report, and the rules and ordinance committee is putting the final touches on the recommendations that will be presented to the Governing Body. I want to thank the people who donated time to this effort and Judge Jeffery for his leadership.

The Mayor’s Youth Council held their last get together at Derby Lanes this week for a bit of bowling and fellowship. I joined them and bowled for the first time in so many years. Tom beat me by one pin in the first game and Sophia was leading when time expired in the second. This is such a great group of kids – I have really enjoyed our time together. We will honor them at our next meeting of the Governing Body.

My last event of this week was the Meta Data Center Community Action Grant Program. Meta shared they are “excited to give back to the community that welcomed us.” Twelve grants were given to 11 local agencies:

• The Boys & Girls Club for STEAM education and E-Sports;
• The City’s Community Recreation & Events department for a video wall for Fridays on the Plaza;
• The Cheyenne Little Theater Players to replace 30 windows in the 1887 historic building that were blown out by a hailstorm;
• Cheyenne Regional Medical Center for STEM-related books to encourage kids visiting their pediatrician to read and learn;
• Circuit Breaker 4H to help the local robotics program to expand statewide;
• The Cowboy Cole Memorial Foundation to support their suicide prevention efforts across the state;
• The Friday Food Bag Foundation for technology to help modernize operations and help provide weekend meals to hungry kids in our city;
• LCCC received two grants. The first is to support a STEM robotics program aimed at students in 3rd to 12th grades, and a greenhouse program to teach students how to grow microgreens that will later be harvested to support their school food bank;
• LCSD #1 for an immersive virtual reality classroom to let kids reimagine what is possible in the world;
• Trout Unlimited for the Trout in the Classroom program that provides fish tanks to classrooms where trout eggs are raised and eventually released into local waters, allowing kids to learn about habitat and fish anatomy; and
• The Wyoming Hunger Initiative for beef sticks for the Friday Food Bag to provide stable protein to kids in their weekend meals.

I appreciate Meta. They are not just building facilities, they are helping to build our community. I especially appreciate the agencies receiving the grants – they are doing the work every day and turning the grants into real outcomes. What great partnerships.