The Mayor’s Minute from Mayor Patrick Collins – April 17, 2026

Published on April 17, 2026

I am always amazed by how individuals and small groups of people make a difference in our community. They see a need and step up to meet it. Ed is a veteran and a supporter of all things military. He loves the Cheyenne National Cemetery but thinks it needs a memorial to honor the veterans who served our country and are laid to rest there. I love his passion and hope his dream to build a memorial comes true. He is one of those that makes a difference.

City Council set a goal to develop part of the Belvoir Ranch to help fund future quality of life projects. This week, President Segrave and I met with two different companies to discuss potential development ideas. I keep thinking about the winter months and our need for more indoor recreation venues for families. Our challenge is to find ways to fund the new facilities and maintain them. Leveraging assets like the Belvoir is one way City Council can make a quality of life difference for our community. Hopefully, more to come.

Forty years ago, a group of Cheyenne businesspeople looked around our community and realized if we were going to succeed economically as a community, someone needed to do something about it. Someone needed to help create jobs so our kids would have an opportunity to choose Cheyenne. They decided to go all in and founded Cheyenne LEADS. Since then, the private sector memberships have funded the most successful economic development agency in our state. Today, LEADS’ enduring impact can be seen everywhere, and our future looks even brighter. Friday night, over 600 people came together to celebrate the 40th anniversary of LEADS and set the stage for the future. I want to thank the founders who saw the vision and those who followed and nurtured it. Cheyenne and Wyoming have been the beneficiaries.

I am proud of the work our teams do in the city. One of my concerns is how to communicate what’s going on when everyone is so busy with their lives. I met with an external communication expert to ask for advice on how we can improve our delivery of information and keep you informed. I learned just how challenging this can be. We will keep learning and working to find ways to better inform you about actions taken by the City and City Council.

We observe Child Abuse Awareness Month every April. Child abuse and neglect can have life-long impacts that affect physical health, mental well-being, education, and future relationships. We gathered at Head Start to honor those combating child abuse and to proclaim April as Child Abuse Awareness Month. The setting with 120 kids from birth to 5 years old at Head Start really brought home why the work of preventing abuse is so important. The kids there are so precious. Take the time to learn the signs of abuse, and report concerns if you suspect a child is being abused or neglected.

I enjoy being a part of the Wyoming Association of Municipalities. It is a chance to get together with other community elected officials and learn from each other. Cheyenne is part of WAM Region 1, and we met this week along with the economic development professionals from Albany, Laramie, Goshen, and Platte Counties. Learning about the economic development efforts across the southeastern part of our state was interesting and informative. Seeing WAM and the Wyoming Economic Development Association collaborating to help our communities grow and prosper was so refreshing.

I have written so much about housing over the years. The challenge of building a workforce is directly related to the housing available for them to live in. This week we met with the developer who is going to build a 184-unit housing project and Related Digital who so generously pledged $3.5 million to help bridge the funding gap that made the project financially possible. The groundbreaking is scheduled for June or July, with the first 24 apartments available 11 months later. They will bring another 24-unit apartment online monthly for the next seven months thereafter. It’s unfortunate we were not awarded SLIB grant funding to expand the project to more than 400 units, but meeting with people who understand our housing challenge and are doing something about it is gratifying.

This week, Microsoft announced their intent to expand their investment in Cheyenne, and we had the public hearing for annexation of a portion of the Cox ranch for a future business park. I appreciate the concerns being expressed about the addition of more data centers in Cheyenne. Water consumption and electricity rates are among the fears being shared with me. I have spent a lot of time looking at best practices and I believe we are regulating data centers responsibly.

Understanding our drought situation, we require data centers looking to develop in Cheyenne to use technology rather than water to cool their servers. Cheyenne’s weather is one of the advantages of locating data centers here. The cool days and nights allow cooling without any water on most days, and closed loop systems cool the servers on hotter days without any additional water usage. Our Board of Public Utilities has tracked water use for all our large data centers, and they report combined usage is less than 2% of all the water used in their system. The newest data centers being built today are even more water efficient.

That brings us to electricity. Around 2010, Black Hills Energy worked with the Public Service Commission to create a tariff. A tariff is a document that spells out how a utility company can charge customers for electricity and sets the rules that apply for receiving services. The data center tariff is called the Large Contract Service. It requires a large electricity user like a data center to pay 100% of the cost for their electric infrastructure. It prohibits BHE from paying for anything related to the data centers that could be passed on to their residential and small business customers. That vision to create a tariff has protected our residents for 14 years since the opening of our first large data center.

Thursday morning started with emergency evacuation notices near F.E. Warren Air Force Base due to a suspicious package at Gate 1. By 11:30 we learned the package was no longer a threat and we got the all-clear notice. I want to thank the first responders from the community and members of the Air Force who responded to the threat and worked to keep the community safe. It shows that when an emergency happens, all our public safety teams come together to meet the challenge. I am so proud of their effort.

Our free music series continues tonight, April 17, with the rock band WAR coming to the Civic Center. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the free concert starts at 7:30. I can’t wait to hear them sing “Low Rider” and “Why Can’t We Be Friends.” Hope to see you there!