Rifle City Council had a couple of changes to the municipal code and bought a couple of vehicles to help the Parks and Recreation department with their work during their Feb. 5 regular meeting. 

In November 2022, Colorado passed Prop 122, which decriminalized, regulated distribution and set up a therapy program for certain hallucinogenic plants and fungi, like psilocybin. Prop 122 also set the framework for cultivating and distributing natural medicines. 

To accommodate Prop 122 and state statutes, Rifle city staff recommended to the council to input these ordinances into the municipal code. 

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The next amendment to the municipal code is that, with the change of technology over the last several years, the submission of digital documents in lieu of physical copies, instead of requiring 25 paper copies of all materials in an application. Now, just two physical copies and one digital copy will be required. 

Both amendments to the municipal code were unanimously passed. 

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Next, the property at 1500 Dogwood Drive was approved for an offer to be sold. In October 2023, an approval for the removal of old water treatment buildings for $750,000 went through and since then, demolition has finished and the property was graded. 

“We brought this to you in a workshop, to see if council would look at potentially disposing of the property,” said Patrick Waller, Rifle’s city manager. “Staff moved forward with that…since that time, we worked with a local realtor and received five offers on the property.”

The offers range from $370,000 to $425,000. The property itself was evaluated at $380,000.

“Included in any closing documents is the option for the city to repurchase the property,” Waller said. “The way that it’s written, by the end of 2026, the applicant will have needed to install city utilities up the lot lines.”

The city staff recommended to the council to take the offer of $425,000 from Mountain Homes LLC and was approved unanimously by council. 

The city of Rifle then awarded the contract for the building of the second pond inlet for the Rifle Regional Water Purification Plant to Johnson Construction. 

“We have budgeted, in the 2025 budget, $1.5 million for this construction,” said Iris Trevisano, procurement and grant reporting manager for the city of Rifle. “The engineer for the design estimated $1.2 million, and this came in at $1.7 million.”

Johnson Construction submitted the lowest qualified bid at $1.7 million and there’s an urgency to the project as there have been intake issues at the current pond inlet. Due to the quick timeline, the cost of the project has gone up. 

The project will hopefully be completed in June, before high waters come in. The council approved it unanimously. 

Next, the Parks and Rec department purchased two vehicles for the department. 

One was a Toro Workman HDX Utility vehicle, which Austin Rickstrew, director of Parks and Rec, said is similar to a Gator vehicle. 

“It has better towing capacity and bed capacity,” he said. “We already have one and the guys really love it.”

This vehicle was purchased in the amount of $38,384.95, under budget of $40,000. 

The other vehicle was a 2024 Ford F350 one ton truck for $78,000, with whatever was left over in the budget to be put towards upfitting the truck for snow removal. 

“Luckily, after conversations, they were able to offer us the whole package,” Trevisano said. Instead, the truck will be outfitted in two weeks and the whole package will cost $78,509.18. 

Instead of just getting the truck for $78,000, it will now come with a flatbed for putting a salter on the back and a plow on the front, with only $500 over budget. 

The council approved the purchase of both vehicles unanimously.