City councilors approve biennium budget with a few notable amendments

Final additions to the budget aim to address community concerns around parking, foster public outreach, and take early steps to pave the way for new housing and business development along Bill Nye.

The Laramie City Council has approved a roughly $107 million budget, detailing how government funds will be raised and spent in Laramie in the next two fiscal years.

The budget was crafted by city staff and presented to the council over several work sessions. Councilors amended the budget during their May 22 meeting — calling up cash reserves to evaluate possible parking additions downtown and setting aside funds to match hoped-for traffic safety and road construction grants, among other final alterations.

The councilors then approved the budget, amendments included, during their meeting this week. The budget passed with a 6-0 vote, as three councilors — Micah Richardson, Andi Summerville and Vice-Mayor Sharon Cumbie — were absent.

“We’ve spent around 15 hours together reviewing the biennium budget, listening to your amendments [and] seeing you vote on those amendments,” Administrative Services Director Jenn Wade said before the vote. “And I hope this has been a process that has been informative for you and members of the public.”

As this publication highlighted previously, the new budget details how a significant percentage of local government operations are made possible by the 5th and 6th cent sales taxes approved by voters and how the taxes paid by new wind farms are bringing in millions and making road repairs possible.

The Laramie Rec Center, supported through the pandemic by a large subsidy from the city’s general fund, will return to its pre-pandemic model of paying (most of) its bills with revenue raised through user fees.

And though a relatively small line item, the budget also includes $64,000 for the Laramie Police Department’s planned purchase of 50 new rifles.

As in recent years, city leaders aimed to keep the budget both balanced and bolstered by healthy reserves; the budget itself does not treat direct distributions from the state as a particularly reliable source of revenue.

The city council approved most of the $107 million budget as city staff presented it, but councilors offered and passed four amendments during their May 22 meeting. Those included:

… reducing the general fund budget by $15,000 that had been set aside for parklet construction downtown.

Councilor Brandon Newman introduced the amendment, arguing that new parklets, which take up a parking space, should not be built until there is “adequate” parking downtown.

“This keeps all the current [parklets] that we have,” he said. “It doesn’t get rid of any of those, so Laradise Lanes and the other one will still be in operation and be used.”

Several councilors, including Erin O’Doherty and Joe Shumway defended the funding, saying parklets “bring a lot of joy” to downtown and have proven popular.

“I would like to have that money available so we don’t have to come back and do a budget amendment,” Shumway said. “The $15,000 is not going to go anywhere if we don’t spend it.”

But city staff have not identified a location for the next parklet and Newman said he hated having money tied up “if we’re not going to use it.”

The amendment passed on a 5-4 vote.

… setting aside $75,000 in the capital construction fund to evaluate downtown parking development along First Street.

Councilor Micah Richardson introduced the amendment, arguing on the motion worksheet and to her fellow councilors that concerns about parking were hindering the city’s affordable housing goals. This was a reference to the heated debate that recently crushed a development proposal which would have added 88 housing units downtown at the expense of about 60-80 public parking spaces.

“Developing parking on First Street will help address these concerns, can support future housing in the downtown area, and will provide additional access to those wishing to enjoy and spend money in Laramie's downtown,” Richardson writes in the rationale for her amendment.

As Laramie debated the recent downtown housing proposal, downtown business owners railed against the parking reduction it would entail. Councilors tried to assuage concerned residents that parking was on the council’s agenda this summer and that more parking spaces were likely to be added soon. Residents were not assuaged.

An aerial view of the Bolton parking lot shared by Laramie Main Street Alliance. Councilors voted to uphold the agreement that secures much of this lot for public parking, effectively blocking the apartment building that could have taken its place.

“I’d love to make this concrete so that if we do have something come forward again with housing, we can show the public that there is going to be more availability,” Richardson said.

The $75,000 will not add new parking downtown. Rather it will enable city staff to assess the feasibility of parking improvements along First Street — an assessment that will need to consider stormwater runoff and traffic flow among other considerations before any plan is proposed.

The amendment passed on a unanimous 9-0 vote.

… setting aside $18,500 annually to support the community outreach efforts of Laramie’s boards and commissions.

Councilor Pat Gabriel brought the amendment and City Manager Janine Jordan explained it.

“The suggestion here is to cede some small amounts of money to boards and commissions of the city that have within their mission and purpose public education, information and outreach,” Jordan said. “With this, they could engage in public information, they could raise awareness about the issues they work on, and they could raise awareness about city efforts in the areas they work. For instance, the Traffic Safety Commission could talk about traffic safety issues, publish advertisements, host a public forum, or things of that nature.”

The amendment passed with a unanimous 9-0 vote.

… altering various amounts across both fiscal years, as recommended by city staff.

Finally, city staff brought some recommended changes to the budget they presented. Some of these were fixing clerical errors, while others reflected new grant opportunities that had opened up since the original recommended budget was proposed.

Notably, the staff recommended changes include establishing a city council reserve of $100,000, earmarking $160,000 to match a federal traffic safety grant the city is pursuing, and earmarking another $2.7 million in the capital construction fund to match a different federal grant the city is also pursuing. The $2.7 million would provide for early stage engineering and design of the long-awaited buildout of the Bill Nye Corridor.

“The Bill Nye Corridor is a part of our major streets and highways plan. It’s always been a planned major arterial that we would build as we were able,” Jordan said. “From a transportation perspective, opening up this road as a major arterial that would parallel East-West Grand Avenue across the community and would create better access for emergency responders, as well as take a lot of traffic pressure off of Grand Avenue.”

But more pressingly, Jordan said, the area could be a great location for housing and business development.

“There’s all kinds of housing that we could develop down there … but no developer will ever be able to bear the cost of building this road and the adjacent infrastructure that will be required from the city,” she said. “So there has to be a public solution, in my opinion, because there’s no way private developments can cash flow this, which means we never get to that housing and we never get to that business development.”

The amendment carrying all of the staff recommended changes passed with a unanimous 9-0 vote.