The city of Rifle bought more vehicles to renew their fleet during their regularly scheduled meeting on March 5, awarded a couple of bids to construction and heard a public comment on public transportation. 

Public transportation

Deb Grizzle, who lives in senior housing in Rifle, thanked the council for looking out for the interests of the city staff, other residents and many visitors to Rifle and since retiring, is voicing her interest in improving public transportation in Rifle. 

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“I do not expect instant results, but rather a gathering of stakeholders and interested community members who have input and ideas to help develop a plan for long term improvements to local transportation,” Grizzle said. “In my neighborhood, there are multiple reasons why not everyone has their own transportation. Being in my senior neighborhood gives me perspective on transportation as it relates to meeting one’s everyday needs and maybe even throwing in a want or two.” 

Grizzle said that when she takes a neighbor shopping, it means getting out of the house and shopping locally instead of online and rather than cooking for one, as recipes can only be cut down so much, eating in a local restaurant is a nice alternative, if one can get there. 

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“We value our privacy, but a regular diet of isolation is not always healthy,” Grizzle said. “Having one van or bus on the street instead of multiple cars would be a good thing, in my opinion. I was a contented passenger for 12 years on the Re-2 School District bus routes and am up for the opportunity to explore mass transit in my future.”

Mayor Sean Strode thanked her for her comment and said that this subject was a conversation between a few councilors earlier. 

Crack sealing, waterline replacement, event funding

After public comments were closed, a contract was presented to council for the annual crack sealing maintenance of Rifle’s streets. 

“It’s what you see when they go and blow out the cracks and then fill them full of what looks like tar and basically what it does is it keeps the water from getting (in),” said civil engineer Craig Spaulding. “Asphalt cracks, basically, no matter what you do, especially in our climate, it’s mainly due to expansion and contraction, so when we have our days that go from zero to 50, the asphalt moves and it makes cracks and those cracks aren’t necessarily structural damage, but if we get water underneath of them, then it turns into failed roads.”

Spaulding said they recommended awarding the crack sealing contract to CKC Operations, LLC, the lowest qualified bidder.

“CKC Operations has performed crack sealing work for Rifle in the past and when they did, we were happy with their performance, they were very timely, I think they did a similar scope (of work) to this last time in about three days,” Spaulding said. “They’re not a local company, so they come in and start as early as possible and just work through the day.”

Spaulding said that for people who are going to be in the affected areas and what to expect is for notices to move cars off the street and after they’re moved, for the street to be cleaned, then the crack sealing, as soon as they’re done, the street will be driveable. 

He also said this year is their catch-up year on crack sealing, which is why the project area is so big this year. 

Councilor Chris Bornholt asked why some areas had never been crack sealed or were missed and not done yet. 

Spaulding replied that some streets were never going to get crack sealed simply because they’re too far gone and the best thing to do would be to replace them. 

The budget for the crack sealing was $150,000 in anticipation of the cost going up from last year, but the cost didn’t change much so the price for crack sealing this year is a little under $48,500. 

The next bid was for the waterline replacement from Clarkson Street to Aspen Street as well as the waterline from Ute Ave. between Third Street and Fifth Street. There will also be a new sewer installed south of Jarrad Ave., new sewer manholes in Fifth Street at two locations and a new sidewalk and roadway. 

The project received $200,000 from the Department of Local Affairs Energy Impact Assistance Fund and $450,000 from the Garfield County Federal Mineral Lease District. The project is highly necessary, said Spaulding, and they’d like to award it to Martinez Western Contractors in the amount of a little more than $1,781,000. 

The crack sealing project was passed unanimously and the street project was awarded to Martinez Western Construction with councilors Alicia Gresley, Joe Carpenter, Michael Clancy, Karen Roberts, Clint Hostettler and Strode in agreement with councilor Bornholdt opposing. 

Next, the Greater Rifle Improvement Team (GRIT) presented on requesting funds for three special events requests that had been presented to them in the total amount of $9,250 from the Visitor Improvement Fund. 

The Bookcliffs Arts Center asked for funding for their summer concert series, the Rifle Summer Baseball Tournament asked for funding the tournament and the Middle Colorado Watershed Council asked for funding their Fire & Water Speaker Series and their Wild & Scenic Film Festival. These funding requests were unanimously approved by the city. 

Vehicle purchases

Then came a long string of vehicle purchases: first was two Ford vehicles for the water department, a F350 4×4 service truck for $65,000 and a 2024 Ford Escape Active for $45,000. The current Ford Ranger in employment is over 20 years old and has high mileage. The budget for both vehicles is $110,000, but together with some extra accoutrements, the vehicles come in a little over $111,000, slightly over budget. 

“Both these trucks are replacing existing trucks, so we’re not adding anything to utilities,” said Jared Emmert, utilities director. “Both trucks have gotten a lot of miles and I’m pretty proud…of my crew, for essentially buying trucks for life…thankful for my employees for taking care of stuff and making them last so long, but at the end of the day, some of them are showing their age and mileage.”

The next truck to be purchased is the 2024 F-150 4×4 SuperCrew XL truck for the wastewater plant. The one it’d be replacing is also high mileage and about 20 years old, so it needs to be replaced due to multiple breakdowns and fixings. This truck costs $50,695 and is only $695 over budget of $50,000.

The last truck to be purchased was for Parks and Recreation and the last vehicle purchase of the year for Parks and Rec, another Ford 2025 Ranger 4×4 Crew Cab XL, which is also replacing another vehicle. This vehicle costs a little over $38,000, under the budgeted $42,000. 

The Rifle Police Department is also purchasing three upfit packages for new police patrol vehicles that were purchased at the previous meeting on Feb. 19 from GreyCO Customs in the amount of a little over $76,500, which is covered from the remaining money in the budget of around $77,000. 

All vehicles and upfit purchases were passed by the council unanimously. 

Public records fees

Lastly, the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) policy fee was updated in accordance with the Colorado General Assembly increasing the fee from $33.58 to a flat rate of $41.00. The maximum hourly fee can be $41.37. 

“The new fees will take effect on April 1, 2025,” said city clerk Alexis Ramirez.