Mayor Bob LeGare was our speaker this week and shared a bit on his goals after taking over after the passing of Mayor Hogan.   He thought he had the mayorial responsibilities dialed in, but was surprised to realize that he only knew of about 40% of the role.  Mayor LeGare's goals were to commit to finishing Mayor Hogan's goals.   Some of those were:

1) Finish Korean War Veterans Memorial

2) New interchange at I-70 and Picadilly Rd 

3) Finding a solution to gap in transportation maintenance funding for the City of Aurora

Many people might not be aware, but the City of Aurora spends 20 million maintaining asphalt and concrete.   This is just maintenance and the city spends 20 million, but should be spending 40 million.  There is a groundswell of support for this effort, the most since Mayor Legare has been on the council during his 16 year tenure.    Another priority for Mayor LeGare is to figure out a solution for affordable housing.   Historically, Aurora has been an affordable housing destination for a number of years, but that is starting to change.   The city is looking at land trusts and other options.   Another area to explore are mobile home parks, which many have begun to disappear due to the land becoming more valuable than the rent obtained by the mobile homes.  Trying to work with owners to have them settle on maintaining the mobile home park not destroying it for high rise or high income building.  Mobile home parks are some of the most affordable housing and right now areas for these communities is dwindling.     Another area that is developing is redistricting.  We are seeing population shifts in the 6 wards.  Roughly 370K people in the 6 wards and some of the wards have become unbalanced.   The redistricting will allow for balancing in the various wards.   City Manager, Jim Fondly is a new hire for the City of Aurora and he comes from Tulsa with a fair amount of experience, which should be great for the City of Aurora.  Also Johnny Watson as a councilman At-Large and has been a great addition.    These are the primary areas that Mayor LeGare has/will be focused on for the remainder of his tenure through 2019.    

Areas addressed during Q&A:

1)  Still considering the potential for a cultural arts center.  Main concerns - where do you place a facility of this kind and can you run it without subsidy. 

2)  Pointe Shopping Center formerly known as Regatta Plaza has taken a bit of time to develop due to issues concerning sale of the property based on 4 owners.   Financing was set and then the development of Amazon buying Whole Foods caused Kroger(King Soopers) to put all development on hold.  Kroger released funding recently for the store and it is beginning moving forward.   Hoping for a high rise office complex along with housing and retail.  

3) Mayor LeGare's term will run until November 2019.   He has decided after finishing this term he wants to step out of public office and become a full time volunteer.  

4) Ballot will have medical marijuna(not currently available in Aurora), probationary hiring of police/fire allowing them to have a longer evaluation period, and red light cameras.  Lot of people don't know that if you go over line in Denver you get a ticket, in Aurora there are many review steps and 50% are thrown out prior to sending out.  You actually have to enter the intersection on a red light to get a ticket in Aurora.   If you choose not to pay the ticket when it is sent to you that is fine, but eventually they will serve you the ticket and it will go from $75 dollars to potentially $500.  No points attached to these tickets.  Secondly, you are also given additional 4 seconds when the yellow shows to either hit the brake or gas.  

5) Income from marijuana tax is about $7M.  A portion of this revenue is used to support the homeless.  Central Recreation Center is being fully supported by marijuana tax. 

 

Thank you Mayor LeGare for providing information about your upcoming term.