Both the Jeffco Public Schools and the School of Mines are on Spring Break this week.
The Library’s DIY Lab is featuring Wine Cork Creations this afternoon from 4:30-6:30. Tinker, invent and re-imagine things in our DIY space. Get creative and use extra wine corks to complete a variety of decorative DIY projects, perfect for gift giving or home display. All supplies and materials provided. Suitable for: Everyone.
The Golden Investment Forum Task Force will meet tonight at 6PM in City Council Chambers. This group is charged with identifying which (if any) of the items on our “wish list” should be funded and how we should fund them–taking on debt (bonds) or increasing taxes.
The Task Force has a big, amorphous job, and they’re struggling to find ways to accomplish it. They held an open house on March 14th with posters on several topics, including Open Space, Community Housing, Sustainability Improvement, Neighborhood Parks, Clear Creek Corridor, Recreational Facilities, Downtown Improvements, Complete Streets & Traffic Calming, US6 & Highway 93, and Cultural Facilities. Attendees were offered a survey that asked them to rank each of the topics as “Essential, Very Important, Not that Important, or Not at all important.”
I wasn’t sure how my answers would be interpreted. In many cases, I think that maintaining what we have is “essential,” but that doesn’t mean that I think we need more of the same.
City staff thought that too few people attended the open house, so they’re considering cancelling the remain two, and focusing instead on visiting certain stakeholder groups and finishing up with a “statistically valid survey.”
There is also an online exercise on 2021-2030 Capital Investment Options. With that, we’re given $15 Million to spend and asked where we want to spend it. The options were:
Build a new history museum: $12 million
Expand the community center aquatics area: $7.7 million
Improve Grampsas Facilities: $12.4 million
Expand Splash: $2.1 million
Improve Lions Park: $5.2 million
Improve Parfet Park: $.9 million
Build a Pedestrian Bridge over Clear Creek: $.7 million
Improve Bachman Park: $3.6 million
Build DeLong Park: $.9 million
Build a longboard course: $.24 million
Build the solar garden: $4.8 million
Add solar to city buildings: $12 million
Buy land for affordable housing: $12 million
Partner in affordable housing projects: $9.6 million
Acquire open space: $12 million
Re-do the downtown streetscape: $6.2 million
Re-do the Heritage Rd & 6th intersection: $7.2 million
Re-do the Hwy 93/Hwy 58 intersection: $36 million
Improve West Colfax: $6 million
Provide broadband “upfront”: $43.2 million
Bury utility lines: $9.6 million
As you can see, choosing almost any 2 of the options will blow your $15 million budget. Once you’ve exceeded the budget, you’re asked whether you want to increase sales tax, lodging tax, or property tax to pay the difference. It’s a tough choice! Those projects all sound lovely, but I’m wary of raising taxes.
The missing piece, as the Task Force knows, is estimating how much we, individually, would have to pay. Most of us don’t customarily think in terms of multi-million dollar price tags. The important question is, how much would it cost my household per year? That’s the question the task force is still grappling with.
In the meantime, take the online survey and see how you want to spend your $15 million!
The CSU Extension Program is offering a class tomorrow from 1-2PM on Planting for Pollinators. Buy tickets online.
