Durango City Council has advanced the proposed 2026 budget – about $133 million for operations – 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, mobility — sit beside bigger choices. The long-studied Camino underpass has now grown into a $10-plus-million project slated for 2029, with $325,000 in design costs budgeted for 2026. Another 2026 strategic deliverable allocates $50,000 for a parking-structure feasibility study. But is yet another garage study what we truly need? Or could clearer wayfinding and simple people-movers — think summer rickshaws — serve us better, especially once 100 public spaces open 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.
An earlier version of this editorial misstated the timing and budget amounts for the Camino underpass and the parking-structure feasibility study, as well as the number of public parking spaces expected once the municipal complex is complete. The errors stemmed from incorrect information provided by City Councilor Kip Koso to the Herald’s Opinion Editor. All have now been corrected.
