October 2022

Welcome to City Currents

A lot is happening in the city! City Currents is a wrapup of important and exciting city news. Sign up for News Flashes and Alerts at DurangoGov.org/NotifyMe. And if you haven't already, view the Strategic Plan to learn more about the city's short- and mid-term objectives.

The Durango Community Recreation Center's aquatics facilities have reopened after new equipment was installed in October. The entire recreation center was closed Oct. 16-22 for annual repairs and maintenance.

Durango City Council on Thursday, Oct. 20, appointed Tony Maestas as interim city attorney and directed staff to work with an executive search firm to fill the position permanently.
Maestas was recently hired as assistant city attorney and comes to the City of Durango from the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, where he served as legal counsel in the tribe’s legal department for the past seven years. As interim city attorney, Tony will be filling in for Dirk Nelson, who resigned on Oct. 19.
Durango City Council regular meetings and study sessions can now be viewed live on the city's YouTube channel. City Council meetings are typically the first and third Tuesday of every month at 5:30 p.m. Study sessions are the same day starting at 2:15 p.m.

In October the city of Durango launched "Engage Durango," a webpage that provides details on current topics of high interest to the public, including a potential new fire district-police department facility.
Topics on the page include the study analyzing the look and feel of downtown ("Downtown's Next Steps"); the parking study under way, the potential for using River City Hall as a joint-use facility for the Durango Fire Protection District and the Durango Police Department, and the city's ongoing efforts to address the area's homeless needs.

Once again this October the City of Durango participated in its annual Fall Cleanup. The month-long community cleanup effort allowed residents to dispose of tree trimmings and branches less than 8 feet in length and less than 8 inches in diameter, as well as bagged or boxed loose brush and leaves.

Fall is here and the temperatures are dropping, and that means it’s a great time to think about home energy efficiency. The Four Corners Office of Resource Efficiency is offering free home energy assessments and support on home energy efficiency throughout our region. The EnergySmart Colorado program provides residential energy efficiency services including access to audits, information about upgrades, rebates, financing options, connections to local contractors and more. The City of Durango recently awarded 4CORE $4,650 through the Green Durango Grant program toward increasing capacity to provide this service to our community.

Durango Transit welcomed a new Main Avenue trolley into service during October, thanks to a competitive grant awarded by the Federal Transportation Administration and the Colorado Department of Transportation.
The grant award of $165,000 allows Durango Transit to replace aging vehicles and maintain its high level of safe service and reliability.

The City of Durango, the Durango Fire Protection District, and the Durango Police Department have launched a new website to provide the public with up-to-date information regarding the ongoing River City Hall Project, including the first public meeting on Nov. 10, from 5:30 p.m. to 7p.m. at the Power House Science Center, 1333 Camino Del Rio.

As we look to Durango's past we learn once again that things don't change all that much. In October of 1963 Durango City Councilors finalized a budget that provide funding for a community swimming pool, as seen in the newspaper clipping below. Now, nearly 60 years later, the city took the month of October to upgrade its aquatics canter at the Durango Community Recreation Center.

To read more, search the Public Records Access Portal. Select Minutes - INDEXED SEARCH as your Search Type, selecting City Council Regular Meeting from the dropdown menu for the Meeting Type, and entering the Meeting Date that was mentioned above.

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