Article Contributed on: 10/13/2009 12:18:29 PM
Members of the Colorado Municipal League met last week in Golden to update members on what's going on in their respective municipalities.
Michael Penny, executive president of the CML board and town manager of Frisco, said, "We rotate our fall and spring meeting updates. Our assistance is primarily focused on lobbying in the capital five months a year, but we have a committee that meets and sets recommendations that are adopted by the board and members. Right now we are focusing on education and resources."
CML is a nonprofit that provides members with updates on legislative activity, and offers training sessions on leadership in local government.
It partners with Colorado cities and towns and offers information about legislative issues.
In an update from Arvada, city councilor Marc Williams told the audience that the grande dame of Arvada government, Lorraine Anderson was recently chosen as elected official of the year by the Jefferson Economic Council.
On budget matters, Williams said, "We are fortunate to have $30 million in reserves that, through diligent and spartan financial planning, we have been able to preserve. Now it's time to dip into that rainy-day fund. We are eliminating some job positions, but for reasons of efficiency, such as police department record keeping that can be done by outsourcing more efficiently," he said.
Williams said Arvada's tax receipts were down by 4 to 4.5 percent, but the city remained optimistic that things will get better.
Diane Allen, a Lakewood councilor, said the big issues in the city are the Light Rail and St. Anthony's Hospital.
"Lakewood has been getting light rail built. There are some people who love it and are excited and a lot of people who are not real excited about it," Allen said. She said the process of rewriting the city's code would take 18 months.
Karen Oxman, Golden mayor pro tem, said with a little over $1 million worth of work on energy efficiency in Golden and a matching $500,000 grant, the city expects to recoup expenses in the next seven to eight years. She said the money spent on a solar-heated boiler for the community pool was something citizens were appreciating.
Oxman said by partnering with FasTracks, the city got $1 million worth of dirt, which has been used to build noise mitigation berms along U.S. 6 and Colorado 93.
Representatives from Federal Heights, Littleton, Commerce City and Westminster among others, updated the group on the recent activities in their towns.
For more information about the Colorado Municipal League, visit cml@cml.org.