The Mayor’s Minute from Mayor Patrick Collins – March 15, 2024
Published on March 15, 2024
It is my birthday as I sit at the kitchen table to write this week’s Minute. The only part of getting older that I hate is that we start to lose the older generations. That hit home on Thursday when Tom Segrave and I attended Floyd Lopez’s funeral. We loved serving on City Council with Floyd. I appreciate his service to our community and wish his family peace as they mourn their father.
I was able to get some time with Summer who leads our city’s Technology Advisory Council. We needed to do some administrative paperwork and then discuss how the council can help educate our community on the threat of cybercrime. So many criminals are trying to penetrate our computers to steal our personal information and money. I appreciate their expertise and willingness to share it with all of us.
We have been having conversations about creating a law enforcement memorial for a while now. The challenge is raising money if you don’t have a specific location selected. We toured the Civic Commons Park this week to see if it would be appropriate for this kind of memorial. Good news, a corner of the park could be perfect. We are going look at other city locations but I hope we can pick one very soon so we can get the money raised and the memorial built. It is important for families and our communities to have a place to honor those law enforcement members who gave their lives protecting us.
It was another learning experience for me on Friday night. Judy and I attended the Zonta Club’s Cancel Out Human Trafficking dinner. I think we have all watched a movie or TV show where human trafficking is shown in a stereotypical way. We learned that today it is happening in all our communities and in subtle ways we would not immediately recognize. Terri Markham from UPRISING shared the information and Charlie Falkis shared how he was trafficked as a very young man. It was a very emotional event for me as I can’t imagine people and especially young children being placed in these situations. Helping the folks being trafficked is one goal, but the biggest goal is prevention. I was surprised to hear the best strategy for prevention is combating demand. No demand, no trafficking necessary. I was especially pleased to hear our Cheyenne police department has embraced the training given by UPRISING and help them with other law enforcement agencies.
I was invited to speak about our city goals and projects to the Laramie County Republicans at their county gathering. I had a 10-minute time limit and it was hard to fit all we are working on it that limited time. My main goal for the morning was to thank the voters of Laramie County for all their support of our local governments. I told them we are the envy of the state as our voters approved $128 million dollars of projects on our last 6th penny sales tax election. We have decades of support of the 5th penny sales tax, and the volunteerism is unbelievable. We will be cutting the ribbon on our new Converse Avenue fire station on March 21 at 1 p.m. I would love to show all of you what your support of our 6th penny has built.
LEADS has a new teammate who is charged with directing the property and real estate activities. Daunte Rushton comes to us from Texas and is so excited to come to an area with such a diverse outdoor lifestyle. Please welcome him when you get a chance.
The local team from the proposed Thunder Plains horse racing track stopped by the office to update us on the progress being made. I was impressed by the experts they brought into the project to help with the track design and animal welfare. Wednesday they will be making their pitch to the Wyoming Gaming Commission to get the necessary license with the hope they can be racing this fall. This track will be located east of Cheyenne by the TA Truckstop. Wishing the locals luck in their application.
Judy and I enjoy the Cheyenne Symphony. We don’t go as often as we should, but we are always amazed at the quality of the musicians and the experience. This week, the conductor William Intriligator and Lindsey Reynolds were the first group to present their budget request. The Symphony uses the budget request to put on a Symphony performance for the kids in LCSD1. I have watched the kids look on in amazement at the musicians as they play. I hope it is a lifetime memory and maybe encourages some to play an instrument.
I’ve shared I think the affordable housing solution will take understanding the math. I got a really good math lesson this week from Andy Seed with McDermott Properties in Colorado. They have successfully built many large affordable housing projects by understanding the math and finding the funding sources to make them work. There is much more I need to learn, but I am convinced we can emulate their success here in Wyoming.
The Metropolitan Planning Organization met this week and we got updates on passenger rail, the Southwest Drive plan, started the effort to plan an overpass at High Plains Road, talked about the efforts to upgrade US30/Whitney Road/Dell Range Boulevard. I am shocked by how expensive these necessary projects have become.
I spent all of Thursday with a few council members at the all-day BOPU water summit. It was so interesting I took 35 pages of notes. One of the main topics was an explanation of our water system, threats to our system, and things we need to do in the future to ensure our continued prosperity. We have an amazingly complicated system of water supply and treatment that is managed by a team of real professionals. They spent the day guiding us through all the lessons and I left even more impressed by our team. My biggest takeaway is we need so much collaboration to conserve the water we have and look for new resources to ensure we have a bright future. I hope we will continue these meetings and start to answer some of the questions that came from our discussions. I am praying for lots of moisture so our systems stay vibrant.
I don’t know about you, but my energy level is way up this week with the extra sunlight we get in the evenings due to daylight savings time.