LA VETA- The current La Veta Town Board met for the last time in 2009 on Tuesday evening, but there was no reminiscing, just getting on with the Town’s business.
The top item on the agenda was formalizing the Town’s full-time and part-time employee salary scale for 2010 in resolution 9-09. The salaries had been incorrectly stated in the Town’s prior budget resolution.
The next resolution the Board looked at was 4-09, advocated by the Get Real anti-smoking coalition. The resolution is a follow-up on anti-smoking signage the town had created to put in public places.
Mayor Mickey Schmidt read the resolution out loud, which spelled out in detail the harm done by smoking and by second-hand smoke, and the strong discouragement of smoking in general. Although the resolution does not ban smoking in public outright, it would tend to make a smoker feel like a leper.
Several of the Trustees felt the resolution was over the top and went too far. Various paragraphs were either stricken or re-worded to try and make the resolution more palatable, but in the end, the vote to accept it was three to three, and a tie defeats. As Mayor Schmidt said, “It’s okay to nudge people about smoking, but this resolution is full of all sorts of statements we don’t know if they’re true or not…”
In other business, the Town approved the reservation of the Town Park by the Stonewall Century Ride group for August 21, 2010.
Mary Jean Fowler, representing the Historical Society, asked the Board to consider a resolution along with the Colorado State Historical Society about tax credits for buildings being rehabilitated, but a section of the statute would require the town maintain a preservation fund. It was decided this needed more research before it could be acted on to see how it would affect the budget.
Finally the Town opted not to buy terrorism insurance for $200.
