Have you ever had such a busy week that it just flew by, but it did not feel like work because you were having so much fun? That has been my week! However, the best part has been coming home at night to the surprise of my grandson visiting. Such a warm fuzzy feeling it gives me!
Michael Skinner was in the mayor’s office when I was elected. He was our public information officer and did a great job. He was recently promoted to ensure the new enterprise software we are purchasing is successfully implemented. We are spending more than a million dollars in this endeavor to allow the public to do business electronically with the city. Michael gave me an update, and I am happy to report our first module is almost ready to go live. I am confident we will be successful with Michael guiding the team and the hard work of our staff.
Our Downtown Development Authority (DDA) has been housed in the Visit Cheyenne office for the past year. The move was made to give the DDA more opportunities to do events with the increased staffing provided by teaming with Visit Cheyenne. Domenic and Haylee are working so hard to make our downtown successful, and I am so pleased with their progress to date. I met with city staff to discuss internally how our team viewed the combination. There are always things we can work on, but so far, so good.
A year ago, I appointed members to a new Technology Advisory Council to advise me and the city on technology and technological advances. (I know that tech is not a strength in my background). We held a work session where the council shared their concerns, especially with cybersecurity and ways we can get our community ready for innovative city applications. The advisory council has been meeting weekly for a year, and I so appreciate their expertise and willingness to serve our community. I am excited to implement their suggestions.
As mayor, one new experience required of me is negotiating with our fire union and its members. My first year was not fun at all. Last year we rededicated ourselves to communicating, and it was successful and honestly fun. This week we met to discuss a new schedule our firefighters would like to work. It is called the 48/96; they would work two days straight and then get four days off. We must open the contract early and agree to the change to allow the union members to start in the new year. We have scheduled a special governing body meeting on Friday to agree and make the new schedule happen, hopefully. We have a great fire department, and it is our firefighters who make it so great.
I have had so many cool experiences as mayor. None have made me more nervous than last Friday night when I was a judge at the 7th Annual Boys and Girls Club Dancing with the Stars contest. I have two left feet and was nervous as heck. Eight hundred folks showed up to watch six local celebrities amaze us with their talent. I still can’t believe how well they danced. JJ Chen, Kai Schon, Tanya Keller, Senator Affie Ellis, Sam Weinstein, and Amber Nuse spent the past five months practicing their 3-minute dance. The practice showed in their performances. My nervousness left me, and awe took over. So many thousands of dollars were raised for this great program. It was a magical night. I truly would like to thank the professional dancers who spent the past months teaching and choreographing for this great event. I can’t wait to see next year’s show.
We have a vibrant development community. This week, I met with Brad from AVI to get educated on some projects they have in the works. I always have so many questions and appreciate all the time and patience the developers show me when we meet. My dream of diversifying our economy and improving our finances is so dependent on their success.
We have many folks who do business with the city. As the owner of a small business myself, it is important that we are good partners to do business with. It seems that sometimes our processes take so long that we don’t pay our partners in a timely manner. I met with TJ in our purchasing department and John from our legal team to see what we can do to improve our processes. I still need to meet with some of our vendors, but I think we might be on the right track.
Another exciting experience has happened to me in the past few weeks. Taiwan Business Bank is looking to plant 500 trees in Cheyenne, using the University of Wyoming to mint non-fungible tokens (NFT) to give the bank’s customers honorary ownership of the trees. Zoom calls with Taiwan, Hong Kong, and UW have been interesting. I don’t know if this will happen, but it has been educational. Five hundred trees for Kiwanis Park and Cheyenne is something I am willing to spend a few hours working for.
I can’t believe it is almost time for the Christmas Parade again. We met with Dale and Amber from the Chamber, who oversee this fantastic community event. Chief Francisco and Lt. Long are working with the Chamber on the route plan and how to keep the parade safe for everyone involved. I think we have a good plan for this year, and hope everyone will leave November 26th open on their calendars to come downtown and get into the holiday spirit.
Housing is something we have talked a lot about. We had a groundbreaking in Saddle Ridge on a new apartment complex being built by Summit Capital Management. This two-phase project will bring 220 new apartments to our city, and I am so appreciative. During the ceremony, they promised to build 1,000 units by 2030. That is going to make a significant dent in our housing shortage. Thank you, Karl and Andrew, for your optimism and investment in Cheyenne.
I had lunch with Superintendent Crespo from Laramie County School District 1 (LCDS1). I came with five pages of things to discuss, but we spent most of our time discussing issues from a typical day in the school district. The hurtful picture in a classroom and curriculum discussions are dominating her time. While these discussions are essential, I am very concerned with how some teachers are now being treated in our city. One teacher stopped by a local coffee shop wearing her school lanyard and ID and was asked if she was in the Klan. We need to talk about race issues, but we don’t need to attack our teachers in the process. I am asking for kindness and peace while these issues are addressed.
To build affordable housing, we will need some help. Kathy Lenz and Martha Wilson from Senator Lummis’ office stopped by to learn about our needs and to see if there are any federal funds we might qualify for. We shared our vision and needs. Hopefully, there’s funding that can help. I love the support we get from our state and federal partners.
I traveled to Wheatland a few days ago to speak at the Platte County Economic Development annual meeting. It was held in a beautifully renovated building. I enjoyed sharing my perspectives on economic development from the point of view of an elected official. My economic development goal is to diversify our economy, so we have the financial strength to weather any storm. We talked about business retention and expansion of current businesses, getting our development employees professionally trained, and how to work at the speed of business. It is a great time to recruit businesses to Wyoming with the political unrest, pandemic overreach, and social turmoil in many parts of our country. I am constantly reminded of how great we have it here with LEADS and our Chamber.
Snow is coming; enjoy these last few warm days of fall!
If you have a question for me, please send an email to media@cheyennecity.org. I’ll continue to answer your questions or concerns in the following Mayor’s Minute column.
Original source can be found here.
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