It was a quiet and quick Durango City Council meeting Tuesday as councilors got good news on the sales- and lodgers-tax fronts, approved an increase in recycling rates for residents outside city limits to go into effect immediately and accepted a generous donation from the Kiwanis Club of Durango.
City Manager Ron LeBlanc announced unaudited tax numbers are in for December, with sales tax up 8.3 percent for December and 5.1 percent year to date. The year end total, $14,138,741, is $89,000 above what city staff predicted for the year, and another $120,000 was discovered during the auditing process.
“Both Councilor (Keith) Brandt and Mayor (Sweetie) Marbury asked us to take a look at paving the parking lots at Brookside Park and the Mason Center if funds came in above projections,” LeBlanc said. “We need to confirm that expenses are still at projected levels, but we may well be giving (street supervisor) Levi Lloyd some new projects.”
Lodgers tax was up 7.7 percent for December and 11.6 percent year to date. Use tax was down 17.6 percent for December and 18 percent for the year to date, LeBlanc said.
“But you don’t build a Mercury Payment Systems or Homewood Suites Hotel every year,” he said, referring to the projects that made the use tax high in 2013. “And on an $805,705 total, it’s not a lot of dollars.”
Business was good in another way in 2014, City Clerk Amy Phillips said. The city issued 3,536 business licenses last year, 2,872 of which were renewals, with 664 new businesses.
“In addition to the 3,536 business licenses,” she said, “we issued 113 liquor licenses, 96 Special Events Permits, seven art gallery permits, eight medical marijuana center licenses, one grow permit and four retail marijuana licenses, for a grand total of 3,764 licenses and permits.”
The council passed without further discussion a proposal that already has been through the public-hearing process, to double the recycling fee for residents living outside city limits, from $1 per 60-gallon container to $2 per 60-gallon container effective Wednesday. The rise in rates is intended to fully cover the costs of the recycling services, which are currently running at a deficit of almost $24,000 annually.
They also passed new ordinances loosening the door-to-door solicitation laws to reflect recent court rulings.
Kiwanis Club of Durango joined the service club tradition of donating to the city’s parks, contributing $20,250, half of the funds needed to build the Kiwanis Pavilion at the Whitewater Park, which is under construction. Councilors voted to pay the other half out of the general fund.
“I’m a member of this Kiwanis Club,” Marbury said, “and we flipped a lot of pancakes and held a lot of golf tournaments to raise this money.”
The club joins the Rotary Club of Durango, which donated the gazebo at Rotary Park, and High Noon Rotary Club, which donated the amphitheater next to the Durango Community Recreation Center, in adding park amenities.
abutler@durangoherald.com
