During Rifle city council’s regularly scheduled meeting on Feb. 19, purchases, grants and awards of projects were the main themes. 

The Railroad Avenue Bridge needs repair on the bridge overlay and joints. The Colorado Department of Transportation manages the bridge itself and Rifle is responsible for the overlay. 

However, CDOT has deferred multiple times on repairs requested from the city of Rifle to the joints and the bridge overlay repairs were also delayed. 

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Recently Rifle has come to an informal agreement with CDOT that the city will repair the bridge joints while they overlay the surface and will be reimbursed by CDOT. 

Rifle has 90% of responsibility over the project and while there’s risk involved to not get reimbursement while the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) has not been executed yet, the city would like to work on the IGA while repairing the bridge.

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Mayor Sean Strode asked civil engineer Craig Spaulding to explain why the project is so important to the city. 

“There still will be traffic open, at least one lane in each direction, and the longest task is going to be doing the demolition of the existing joints,” Spaulding said. “The existing joints are steel and they have steel studs that protrude into the concrete, so they have to chip those out, but they have to do so, so they’re not getting into the structure. It’s pretty tedious work, it’s not like some demo, where they get to just come out and smash everything and replace it.”

The work will be slow because of how detail-focused workers need to be. The city will also be milling the pavement and then pouring asphalt on it. 

“We will work with CDOT on closing the rest stop for the day,” Spaulding said, referring to Lyon’s Pond. “Other than that closure, traffic will be open, but there will be traffic impacts as with anything on the bridge.”

The project was awarded to GA Western, a company out of Palisade, in the amount of nearly $1.12 million. Spaulding said the project will start in the third week of March and will hopefully complete during mid summer. 

Next were some purchases: the Utilities Department asked for the purchase of a Genie GTH-636 Telehandler from Roaring Fork Rentals in the amount of $112,183 to replace an aging backhoe from 1999. 

“Pretty much its whole entire life, it has been delegated to decidedly un-backhoe-like jobs. It basically jockeys heavy dumpsters and carries heavy stuff, it picks equipment out of tanks and buildings,” Utilities Director Jared Emmert said. “It’s had a super hard life, it’s 26 years old, and on its last life currently.”

Replacing the backhoe with the Genie means it can do the jobs the backhoe was doing, but it’s made for the jobs they’re asking it to do. 

“I’m surprised the backhoe lasted 26 years, doing stuff that looks like this thing does,” said councilor Alicia Gresley. 

Next to buy was a 2024 F-150 Lightning 4×4 Supercrew Truck from Phil Long Ford in Denver for the Parks and Rec. Department in the amount of $60,000. 

“Pat (Patrick Waller) and I have been discussing for about a year, the option of EVs (electric vehicles) in our fleet, currently we don’t have any electric vehicles in our fleet, so we thought it’d be a good time to test an EV without going into a full commitment of switching over a large portion to EVs,” Parks and Recreation Director Austin Rickstrew said. “I think it’s time for us to move in that direction for some of our fleet, not all of it.”

The council agreed to purchase the truck, with Councilor Joe Carpenter remarking that while he’s not a fan of electric vehicles, this case and application was a vote of yes from him. 

The city also agreed to purchase three 2025 Ford Police Interceptor Utility Patrol vehicles in the amount of $151,752 from Phil Long Ford in Denver. 

Two of the Interceptors will replace aging fleet vehicles and are ready for the road, coming with lights, sirens and additional police required equipment. The other vehicle will be a base model police Interceptor. 

Finally, the city is also applying to two grants from the Garfield County Federal Mineral Lease District, one for tiny field-painting robots and one for the Penwell Phase One project. 

This project replaces a deteriorating water transmission line which was replaced in 2019 after a break resulted in Rifle not having water until it was repaired. The water transmission line extends from the water plant to the Deerfield Tank Complex, where Rifle gets its water. 

“The Penwell is a very big project that we’ve been talking about for years,” Strode said. “It’s anticipated to begin this year.”

The grant would be for $1 million and is a 30% match grant, requiring $300,000 from the city, and the submission for the grant was passed. 

Rifle City Council also voted to submit a letter to Gov. Jared Polis, Chairman Dallas May of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission and Director Jeff Davis of Colorado Parks and Wildlife voicing concerns surrounding the release of wolves in western Colorado. 

The request in the letter is to delay additional release of gray wolves in western Colorado until further protections are in place. 

The letter listed key points such as threats to livestock and agriculture, impacts on wildlife populations and hunting and lack of community outreach and transparency. 

Based on these points, the city of Rifle is requesting that further releases of gray wolves be delayed by at least one year while both the wolves and communities in western Colorado adapt to the drastic differences in the landscape.