City council hosts a jam packed April 5th meeting discussing aspects of the One Grand Junction Plan.
By Collin McKenna, Outdoor Rec Editor
Grand Junction’s city council oversees zoning permits, budgets, business licensing, and much more. They can establish tax rates and borrow funds, and they oversee the performance of local public employees.
As a city council is a government entity, each position is an elected position. City councils are typically made up of six members, though they can range in size anywhere from five to 51 members.
Grand Junction’s city council is made up of six members; Mayor Anna Stout, who serves as council president, District-at-Large representatives Chuck McDaniel and Randall Reitz, Council President Pro-Tem Abe Herman, District B representative Phillip Pe’a, and District D representative Dennis Simpson.
They meet on the first and third Wednesdays of every month, and their meetings are always open for the public to attend. They publish an agenda before every meeting, ensuring that anyone who wishes to come knows what issues are being discussed at any given meeting.
Much was covered during the meeting that took place on April 5, 2023.
The meeting began with a presentation of election results for city council positions; the new appointees will take their seats at the May 3 meeting.
Next, the Grand Junction City Council announced their proclamation of March 31 as César Chávez day in Grand Junction. April was proclaimed as Water Conservation Month and as Mesa County RSVP (Retired and Seniors Volunteer Program) Volunteer Month.
The council then entered the public hearings section of the meeting, where council members could nominate legislation for individual consideration, but otherwise the hearings for this section of legislation would be set for April 19.
Councilmember Simpson made a motion to consider an ordinance adopting the city’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan as an element of the 2020 One Grand Junction Comprehensive Plan. This motion was seconded by Councilmember Pe’a.
The council decided to reconsider this ordinance on April 19, electing to determine on that date when to set the hearing date for this ordinance.
“When you look at all the things that we’ve taken our time on that have turned out well for us…they’re [the Planning Committee] asking for the time to do due diligence, and respectfully, I think we should give it to them,” said Councilmember Pe’a during the discussion.
Later in the meeting, the council approved an ordinance to re-zone almost 4 acres of land in the Brookdale subdivision, located along D ½ Rd. between 31 Rd. and 32 Rd.
The council then spent a lot of time discussing what to do with a proposed contract bid for an expansion project on a riverfront trail stretching from Leach Creek to Redlands Parkway. A heated debate about whether to approve a contract tonight or save the decision for the next council.
“I’m not comfortable sitting here and telling taxpayers that we approved a bid tonight when there is a chance for us to save over $200,000 on this project,” said Mayor Stout.
For context, bids to complete this project had been submitted by both local contractors and a contracting company based in Colorado Springs, with the lowest of those bids coming it at around $650,000.
However, the city of Grand Junction’s bid, which was labeled as ‘withdrawn’ in the chart showing the totals of each bid that was received, totaled at around only $450,000. The exact bid totals can be found on the city council’s website under the posted agenda for this meeting.
Mayor Stout proposed that this discussion be re-tabled until the council meeting on May 3, but some current councilmembers opposed this because the May 3 meeting will be the first meeting for the newly elected councilmembers.
A motion to approve the lowest outsourced bit was made, but the motion failed 2-4 and no decision was made at this time.
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