Durango City Council has advanced the proposed 2026 budget – about $133 million – into public review. Council will take first consideration on Nov. 18 and a final vote on Dec. 2, meetings where residents’ voices will matter.
This budget is more than numbers. It’s a 389-page, 3.5-inch-thick, nearly 5-pound document reflecting months of work by city staff members, who’ve produced an organized plan and a readable – if not entirely intuitive or accessible – website. Grab a cup of tea (or a glass of wine) and start clicking. There’s plenty to learn about our city and the people who steward it.
The plan outlines how Durango hopes to navigate the coming year: maintaining core services, supporting public safety, addressing housing and economic pressures, and finally tackling long-deferred maintenance of basic infrastructure – some more than 100 years old.
Residents’ concerns – business disruptions from construction, parking, child care, housing, and mobility – sit beside bigger choices. The long-studied Camino underpass is now a $15 to $20 million project. And a 2026 strategic deliverable calls for a $200,000 parking-structure study. But is another garage study what we need – or would better way-finding and simple people-movers (think summer rickshaws) serve us better, especially once 188 spaces free up when the new municipal complex and underground parking garage in the former Durango School District administration building – the old 9-R building everyone knows – is completed?
Sustainability remains a guiding principle, even as long-delayed utility realities arrive: proposed 10% water and 20% sewer rate increases reflect decades of postponement.
The full budget is at https://bit.ly/4qV1AUt. Residents should review it and attend Tuesday’s 5:30 p.m. meeting at City Hall to help shape Durango’s priorities for the years ahead.
