Capital funding to include streets and a covered swimming pool
by Bill Knowles
TRINIDAD — The Trinidad city council, with a 7-0 vote, increased the amount of revenue from the general fund reserves from $2 million to $3 million to meet the community’s needs and wants. The nine projects that will be impacted by the increase will total $9,800,000 under current estimates. The $3 million will go towards the projects.
The transfer of the funds into the capital funds projects and will increase funding for the streets project along with $1 million being added for the Trinidad Fire Department.
The total in excess funds committed amounts to $9.8 million with funds being committed to river walk improvements, exit 14 improvements at Colorado and Commercial Street, a covered swimming pool, improvements at First, Chestnut, and Maple streets, economic development land acquisition, uncompensated absences, the Eaglerock subdivision, and fleet purchases for the fire department.
The city has to commit the funds that have accumulated in the reserve funds along with general fund revenues that have exceeded what was required to meet the annual expenditures of the city in 2021 and past years.
The city council passed the second reading of an ordinance that will authorize the expenditure of American Rescue Plan Act funds with a 7-0 vote. These federal funds are related to the COVID-19 pandemic and require no matching funds from the city.
ARPA funding for the City of Trinidad amounts to just over $2 million, and the city has so far received just over $1 million of the total. They have been waiting on the rules needed to determine how the funds will be used.
The rules support the payment of premium pay to its essential workers who had to report to work to maintain the ongoing operation of vital facilities and services to the residents of the City of Trinidad. The funds will be disbursed to city employees who were working in 2020 and 2021 during the initial surges of the pandemic.
Breaker, breaker
After hearing about the condition of the city’s electrical system during a city council retreat in July of 2021, the city began work in October 2021 on the 4160 breaker and controls and synchronization project, putting out a bid to include the procurement and installation of the breakers, with the final synchronization to be done after installation.
Three bids were submitted, and the council voted 7-0 to award the bid for the 15kV vacuum circuit breaker project to Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc., in the amount of $108,750, based on the recommendation of Cross Canyon Engineering.
The original amount budgeted for the project was $331,000, but due to a sustained breaker failure, the cost grew by another $288,605 to a total of $540,000.
The funds for the breaker project will be allocated from the marijuana cultivation funds collected by the city.
In other “bid’ness
The city council also authorized the expenditure of $267,800 for the purchase of a 2022 model year Komatsu WA 320-8 loader for the land fill. The funds are coming from marijuana sales tax. The authorization passed with a 7-0 vote of the council
The other two bids received by the city came from Titan Machinery bidding $286,798.29 for a Case 721G Loader and 4 Rivers Equipment with a bid of $291,500 for a John Deere 624 P Loader.
The loader will be used by the landfill to place the required daily cover of soil, mulch, and tire shreds over the accumulated debris and to pick up wind-blown trash throughout the landfill. An issue that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment cited the city for last year.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m.
