Pope, Horton and Brammer to remain on Council

Upcoming elections, preliminary budget discussions, municipal code codification and an economic incentive application are all agenda topics that drew attention of Town Council members in a recent October meeting. Council members met for a regular monthly meeting on Monday, Oct. 7 at the Haxtun Town Hall.

As the first item of business, the Haxtun Town Council voted to cancel the Nov. 5 municipal election and in doing so, declared three candidates elected for positions on the Council. Those members include incumbents Jon Brammer, Ryan Horton and Tana Pope.

Pope, Horton and Brammer will be sworn into office in December to fill four-year terms. The three are the only interested community members to return petitions to seek a seat on the local town council.

Horton and Pope will return for their second-four year term while Brammer will be appointed to his first four-year term. Brammer is currently serving a vacancy left by a former council member. He was appointed to fill the remainder of that member's term earlier this year.

During action items, the Council also acted to take the first steps in adopting and enacting a new municipal code by means of a first reading.

According to Haxtun Town Clerk Kelsey Harms, Haxtun's municipal code recently underwent a codification process, cleaning up Haxtun's codes from the past 20 years. In doing so, code books were adjusted to take out repeals, line items that are not constitutionally appropriate anymore and other areas that allowed for clean-up. The codification process takes the current municipal code down to five books and will then allow the Town of Haxtun to host the Code online.

The process, through American Legal, also gives the Town the ability to codify and update annually versus waiting every 20 years to do so. Haxtun will now have all municipal codes online, which will be ADA compliant and meet all regulations and requirements. The Codes will also be searchable and employees will have the ability to email and print copies of specific requests.

A public hearing to consider the adoption of the ordinance and the Haxtun Code of Ordinances is set for Nov. 4 at 7 p.m. at the Haxtun Town Hall. A copy of that ordinance can be found inside this week's issue of the Herald.

Before moving onto discussion items, the Council considered an economic incentive application from 4S Feed and owners Brian and Lyanne Santistevan. The local feedmill owners recently removed an old eyesore building along Highway 59 near the railroad tracks and replaced it with a new building.

"To improve the aesthetics of my business property and in turn improving the aesthetics of our town," the application states on how the changes benefit the community.

The application asked for incentives for use tax and the building permit fee refund, in total, $2,400.

According to Mayor Mike Ensminger, the Town of Haxtun budgeted $30,000 for economic incentive applications in 2024 and thus far have used half of those before the 4S Feed application.

"It seems like a pretty obvious investment to me," the Mayor said.

The Council later voted to approve the Santistevan's economic incentive request. The approval leaves the Town with just over $12,000 in budgeted incentive funds for the remainder of 2024.

In discussion items, council members reviewed preliminary 2025 budget figures from Town Superintendent Ron Carpenter. In the draft budget, Carpenter outlined several projects he'd like to accomplish next year including several electrical projects as part of a seven-year plan that is currently in the works, replacing several non-working fire hydrants, installing LED lighting at the ball field, replacing sidewalks and re-installing water at the park and additional street projects including paving the 100 block of North Colorado Avenue in front of the fire hall.

In addition to Carpenter's budget numbers, the Town of Haxtun received requests from Phillips County Economic Development for $7,000 per year and the Haxtun Chamber of Commerce for $8,500 a year.

"She's been doing a great job from what I can tell," Council Member Dave Green said in regards to Chamber Director Jessica Ayala.

At this time, all budget discussions are preliminary. The official 2025 budget will be adopted later this year.

In other business the Council:

• Approved a governmental equipment lease-purchase agreement to purchase a tractor for the public works department. The approval of the purchase came last month, but needs an official approval of an ordinance. Per Carpenter's request, the Town has agreed to purchase a new tractor from Wickham Tractor Company;

• Discussed a Drake Building update from Darcy Garretson. At this time, the project is in the phase of pursuing State and National historical designation. The committee who is working on the project plans to meet later this month to develop a plan to move forward. The application to seek State Historical Designation is due Jan. 17, 2025. Those working with Garretson include Tana Pope, Rick Pope, Theresa Davis-Grogan, James Grogan, Jeff Stroyek, Lori Allphin, Pat Meakins, Jim Helfer and Steve Starkebaum. Next steps also include creating mission and vision statements and a priority list;

• Council members set up employee evaluations to be conducted with department heads Harms, Carpenter and Police Chief Tom Bullard. Evaluations will be conducted by Mayor Ensminger and Council Member Green;

• Carpenter reviewed a letter from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment regarding the Town's wastewater permit. The permit expired in 2019, at which time the Town of Haxtun applied for a renewal, however, due to the COVID pandemic all applications were backlogged. Now, the State has sent a letter with mandates Carpenter is reviewing along with a possible leak study that will need to be conducted on the Town's lagoon system. He plans to come back with more information in the future;

• Bullard said the Corn Festival event at the end of September ran smoothly. He also reported the possible hire of a third officer, who would still need to attend the Academy. He plans to discuss the potential hire more in a work session later in October;

• Clerk Harms said Zip-Trip has received final approval of a liquor permit from the State and now qualifies to sell beer and wine. The Town approved the liquor license request in August.