After sober reflection, city staff members may have found a way to keep the Buzz Bus running in 2014.
“We’ve had several discussions about the Buzz Bus,” City Manager Ron LeBlanc said at Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting. “We have a proposal we’re presenting next Tuesday to remove the Buzz Bus from the transit budget to the general fund so service can continue.”
A recommendation had been made to scale back the Buzz Bus, which provides bar patrons with rides home from downtown on Friday and Saturday nights, to a few high imbibing nights of the year such as Halloween, New Year’s Eve and Snowdown Parade night.
The other budget issue that inspired significant public comment was the recommended bus-pass increase from $20 to $30 a month.
“Any increase in rates or curtailment of accessibility, and we’re stuck,” Mary Taylor said. “An increase like this is huge for those who are disabled or poor. Please just keep us in mind, we’re on limited, limited income.”
While Councilor Christina Rinderle said that the pass increase was taking the cost up to $1 a day, two other speakers brought in almost 300 signatures from people who would find that increase a hardship.
“We tried to make a reasonable compromise on transit that keeps it reasonably sustainable,” Mayor Dick White said. “But this is an important outpouring of concern. We have another meeting next week to determine how to reconcile the budget. We don’t want to reconcile it on your backs.”
City Council will make its final vote on the 2014 budget on Dec. 3, but Tuesday night’s meeting was the final opportunity for public comment on it.
In other business, the council approved extending a moratorium on issuing medical marijuana dispensary licenses until June 30, 2014. A moratorium that already exists for recreational marijuana licenses. In approving the recreational marijuana amendment in November 2012, voters linked it with the medical dispensaries, giving them the first opportunity for retail licenses.
“We’re trying to be prudent,” Rinderle said. “But we’re also trying to understand what’s happening at the state level, and it’s a moving target.”
And in a vote that was a long time coming, councilors amended the city’s Comprehensive Plan by adding the new La Posta Area Plan.
“The residents and businesses there started working on this in 2005,” said Greg Hoch, the city’s director of planning and community development. “It’s taken eight long years, and they’ve come to a remarkable level of consensus.”
The area plan, which requires city and county approvals, and which was unanimously approved by the planning commissions of both entities, is important, LeBlanc said.
“There’s a huge potential for that area to create jobs, create wealth for our community, but they need some central systems to do that,” he said.
abutler@durangoherald.com
