9NEWS.com | Colorado taxpayers send city leaders to Vail resort

9NEWS.com | Colorado's Online News Leader | Colorado taxpayers send city leaders to Vail resort

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This unbalanced article and report about the Colorado Municipal League conference made me embarrassed that Sheridan was held up as an example. If we were not in such a budget crunch, several of us would have gladly attended. In Sheridan's budget, several thousand dollars is a big savings. To malign Denver and other large metro-area cities for sending folks to this conference is unfair - several thousand dollars to them is small change. This conference is a valuable learning opportunity, and what the city council members and city staff who attend from those cities bring back is well worth the expenditure. I think Sheridan suffers in this case because your councillors are less informed, meaning you get somewhat less capable representation. At least that is how I feel, since I've only ever attended a single two-day training session on how to be a municipal leader - it's not like it's a skill a person is born with! The interaction with other city leaders is an amazing source of inspirational ideas to bring home.

In addition, most city councillors or trustees earn very little for their service, so paying for such training out of their own pocket is not possible,and not to forget that a person with a day job has to take time off to attend this.

"Play in the Park" Event

A “Play in the Park” event is scheduled for Saturday, June 20th from 3:00-9:00 p.m at Sheridan Community Park. The schedule is as follows:

3:00 - History Fun Walk – Cliff Mueller
3:00-5:00 – Games and other free-form activities
5:00-6:30 – Bar-be-que (Hot dogs, chips) Firefighter volunteers will grill and high school students will help serve
7:00- Movie (Sand Lot) in the High School auditorium

Proposed Sheridan cost-saving measures

The City of Sheridan, like many communities today, has seen our revenues decrease markedly this year due to the recession. The city manager and employees have done an amazing job of managing this so far, already reducing expenditures by almost 23% through April 30th. Unfortunately, revenues are down over 33% for the same period, and we do not expect to see any recovery in the near term.

On Tuesday, the city manager proposed five cost-cutting measures to help fill our budget gap for the rest of the 2009. Briefly, the options are:
1) Discontinue ambulance service and switch to 3-person fire shifts
2) Outsource dispatch services
3) General government and supervisory furloughs up to 48 hours
4) All employee furloughs up to 48 hours
5) Outsource fire services
6) Discontinue city contributions to health and dental insurance for employees

City council is considering this list of options now.

I believe it is in the City's best interest to explore and better understand all of the costs and benefits associated with each cost-saving suggestion. I'm looking forward to hearing more details from the city manager on each option.

If you are a resident of Sheridan Ward 3 who would like to discuss these suggestions with me or provide some input, please feel free to contact me at tbeiter-fluhr@ci.sheridan.co.us or Jose Tafoya at jtafoya@ci.sheridan.co.us. For other wards, see http://www.ci.sheridan.co.us/City%20Council/ccouncil.htm. I would also like to hear feedback from city employees.