By Mayor Julie Van Domelen

Redstone Review

LYONS – One of the challenges to a small town is how to tap into resources, both technical and financial, beyond our borders. I’ve had my eyes opened in the meeting I attend at the Denver Regional Council of Governments, DRCOG, for example. DRCOG is the main conduit for federal transportation monies. This comes in the form of grants, usually 80 percent with the rest as local match. Millions and millions of infrastructure dollars for roads, pedestrian walkways, bike paths and transit programs get handed out each year.  The big cities and counties have transportation departments and technical staff that are able to quickly develop proposals as funding windows open, and deeper pockets to come up with matching funds. They also tend to score more points on their proposals by virtue of having more traffic and being in urban centers. While the odds are against us, we were successful in getting money for the Main Street project.

The town is currently preparing a proposal to DRCOG for continuing the downtown improvements to the section between Third Street and the Black Bear Hole, including sidewalks, better parking, signage, lighting, and so on. Colorado State University, CSU, and the State’s Department of Local Affairs, DOLA, are supporting low-cost design services to Lyons to develop the streetscape concepts that will underpin the grant proposal. They will be consulting with businesses and citizens during August, so stay tuned. And, Boulder County has offered the help of its technical staff in reviewing the proposal and helping us make sure it meets technical standards.

The CSU/DOLA team is also wrapping up their work on possible Lyons Depot Library designs. There will be a community open house at 6 p.m. on July 14 in town hall to get final input on designs. Again, we have benefited from external support that has helped us move the process forward. We may not yet have the money for such an endeavor, but without defining what you want (and costing it out), you can’t take the next steps. Even though it may seem like some designs and studies sit on the shelf, in many cases they are just waiting for the right opportunity to come along. Last month at DRCOG, there was an announcement of some $50 million in immediate funding available for transportation projects, but they had to be presented within a week or two and had to be already engineered, priced out and ready to go to bid. We had nothing at that stage of development – the bigger cities and counties cashed in quickly.

The BOT also just received the first draft of the proposals developed by Honeywell, a well known engineering firm, to improve the water and energy efficiency of town services. Honeywell has done the preliminary work without charge. They will be working with town in the coming weeks to see if there is an economically viable project that could be packaged as a performance contract where they would commit to guaranteeing a certain level of savings (on energy) and increased revenue (on reducing system losses) – kind of like a guaranteed return on investment. In this time of financial difficulties, we will need to find every possible way of increasing the efficiency of our services. This will also have a downward pressure on utility rates, or at the least forestall rate increases to a certain extent. Again, this preliminary work required a level of technical expertise that we were able to attract to help Lyons because of us reaching out to others.

One thing I have learned in the last year as Mayor, you can’t wait for these resources to come to your town, you have to go get them. Town Administrator Victoria Simonsen and I just got back from three days in Breckenridge at the annual Colorado Municipal League conference. We came back loaded with contacts, ideas and commitments to support Lyons in many ways – everything from USDA doing an assessment of our water infrastructure in order to identify a five-year capital improvement plan (which will be done over the next few weeks) to possible support to carry out a financial check-up and sales tax audit to help us figure a way through the fiscal challenges we are having. We also may have found help in removing the decommissioned water tank on the hill in town, how to possibly finance web casting the BOT meetings so people can watch from the comfort of their homes, and technical support in developing a river corridor master plan for the St Vrain, to name just a few.

While all of these may not pan out or could take time to materialize, the seeds are planted.

Julie Van Domelen was elected mayor of Lyons in 2009 in a special election. She was re-elected mayor in April 2010. Mayor Van Domelen works part time as an economist for the World Bank. She lives with her family in Lyons and can be reached at juliev@townoflyons.com.

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