The city holds an employee golf tournament every summer. I joined Councilman Segrave and two retired firefighters — Tom Fox and Brent Beeman. I have not played yet this year and was a bit concerned. Our team played incredibly, birdied the first eight holes and ended up finishing in second place. It was such a hot day, and it was a blast.
The golf course was in great shape, thanks to the team that works so hard every day to give our golfers a great place to play. Special thanks to Jennifer in the council office for all her work putting the day together. I had forgotten how much fun golf can be.
Last fall, I heard that the Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival might be open to move their event to Cheyenne. We got the folks from the festival together with Visit Cheyenne and Little America to make the pitch. I got to visit the festival last Saturday, and it was so much more than what I expected.
Sixty-two cigar vendors, 17 lifestyle vendors, 22 drink vendors and nine other vendors set up tents that completely filled the entire Little America parking area. Live music played all day, and the crowd loved the new venue. The vendors filled over 500 hotel rooms and shared with me how much they enjoyed our local restaurants. I heard so many complements on how clean our city is — thank you, everyone. I was blown away by the entire event and can’t wait until next year. Thank you for choosing Cheyenne and bringing so many people to visit for the first time.
I remember back to my early days on City Council and meeting Paul Lowham. Paul and his partners were buying property for housing and future industrial development. This week, I met with Paul’s son, Mark, and we continued the discussion on the same property and the potential for the future. I’m looking forward to learning how they eventually decide to develop the property.
I am a part of the Legislative Leadership Committee of the Wyoming Association of Municipalities. We met this week to look at all the proposed legislation coming from the interim committees of the Legislature.
I can tell you the committees are working hard, as there are so many diverse bills to read and understand. The committees work in the summer and fall to prepare legislation for introduction when the Legislature reconvenes this coming January. It gives them extra time to research issues and come up with legislative solutions. I find the process fascinating.
Voters are currently voting on the sixth-penny sales tax, with early voting available at the county building. All the agencies and communities that have projects on the ballot gathered in the library Monday to give residents an opportunity to get information before heading to the polls. I was impressed with the number of people coming to learn about the 14 different propositions they get to vote on, and with the informational tables that showed what the projects are and why they are important to their communities.
You can go to cheyennecity.org/6thpenny to learn about city projects, or the entire ballot at laramiecountywy.gov.
Microsoft started planning its Bison Data Center campus in 2017. The company recently applied for a building permit for the fifth and last building for this campus. While Microsoft has shifted to closed-loop cooling, which uses no additional water after the initial filling, this campus uses a previous design that only uses water on the hottest days. Thankfully, we are blessed with a moderate climate here in Cheyenne, and these facilities will use water for cooling about 10% of the year.
Microsoft wanted to talk about its work with the Board of Public Utilities to make more water available or to save water we use. I look forward to seeing what projects BOPU and Microsoft decide will make the most difference for our community.
I was on City Council in 2003 when we purchased the Belvoir Ranch. During our ribbon-cutting for the new trail system, I was invited by Christy Hefley from the Gross Ranch, who leases the Belvoir Ranch to graze their cattle, to tour their operation. It was my first time riding a four-wheeler, and it gave me a much different view of the ranch. We saw their spayed angus heifers, elk, antelope, tepee rings, homestead cabin ruins and so much beautiful country. Because of the drought, the ranch was really dry and the grass was limited. Christy gave me a history of the Gross-Wilkinson ranch, and it tells the story of how their ancestors came to the Cheyenne area in 1867 with the railroad.
It was exciting to see six vehicles parked at the trailhead to use our new trails. Thanks, Pat and Luke, for the tour.
The Select Water Committee of the Legislature was in town this week to work on water issues during the summer interim. During the meeting, the state engineer gave an update on the status of the Colorado River. With the historic drought we have endured over the past decade and more, the river system is in bad shape. Lake Powell is currently 23% full, and Lake Mead is barely better at 27%. One million acre feet of water from Flaming Gorge is being released to help stabilize them. That is 325,851,000,000 gallons.
The agreement between the seven states in the Colorado River basin is expiring soon, and the government has notified everyone that they will implement new operating guidelines to distribute the water left in the river. I hope this is good news for Cheyenne, as we receive two-thirds of our water from the Colorado River basin.
The city passed a surface water drainage ordinance 18 months ago to help manage the maintenance of our drainage system. It included a fee for every property in the city that adds stormwater to our system. Unfortunately, there are two places in state law that regulate how cities and towns can handle stormwater mitigation, and they conflict. The Select Water Committee introduced new legislation that would clear up the conflict during the meeting. The legislation was drafted by a diverse working group to make sure points of view were included. I really appreciate the hard work of the committee, their working group and everyone who helped draft this compromise legislation. Giving cities and towns the tools to maintain our stormwater drainage system is critical to public safety.
I received a complaint from a resident that their trash and recycling had not been picked up. Our sanitation trucks are equipped with a camera that is time stamped to let us know if we missed the can or if it was not on the curb when the truck drove past. I want to remind everyone that your container must be on the street by 6 a.m. on the morning of your pickup day, but no earlier than 4 p.m. the night before. Please place the container with the arrows on the lid facing the street and make sure you have at least 2 feet of clearance on all sides of the container. We would appreciate having the containers put away within 12 hours after pickup. I hate that we have residents who are disappointed in our service and hope this reminder may help prevent future disappointment.