The Cortez City Council will vote on several new or amended ordinances at its meeting Tuesday night.
Council members will vote on whether to make false reporting to police a crime, whether to approve project bids for the Centennial Park pickleball court project and whether to transfer a liquor license from the recently closed Pepperhead restaurant to a new restaurant.
At the council workshop earlier in the evening, they plan to discuss the formation of a Public Arts Committee, to be led by Library Director Eric Ikenouye. The workshop begins at 6 p.m. The meeting begins at 7:30 p.m.
City Attorney Mike Green broke with the norm at the council’s July 25 meeting by presenting an ordinance that would create a false reporting offense and regulate access to the Conquistador Golf Course, even though the two issues were unrelated. At that meeting, the council voted to table the ordinance and vote later on the false reporting side of it later. The ordinance would add a section to the city code, making it a municipal crime for people to knowingly provide false information about their identity to law enforcement. False reporting is a Class 3 misdemeanor under Colorado law.
The council will also consider an ordinance awarding a construction bid for pickleball courts at Centennial Park to Renner Sports Surfaces. Some of the funding for the courts will come from a $108,000 Great Outdoors Colorado grant awarded to the city earlier this year, but the original budgeted cost for the project was $183,000. On Tuesday, the city will vote on a suggested bid amount that is more than $8,000 over budget.
In a quasi-judicial hearing, the council will vote on whether to transfer a liquor license from Pepperhead, which closed in June, to a new restaurant called Sobre Mesa, which will set up shop in the same building.
In the workshop before the meeting, Ikenouye will present a draft mission statement and list of responsibilities, as well as several potential projects, for the Cortez Public Arts Committee he hopes to form. Local artist Sonja Horoshko has spearheaded the effort to create the committee ever since March, when she and other artists petitioned the council to start paying for public art instead of asking for loans.
Also on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting is a presentation to former Planning and Zoning board member Tim Kline, thanking him for his service. The council will also vote on final readings for two ordinances designed to manage sewer backflow prevention devices in the city and allow alcoholic beverages in the parklet KSJD Radio plans to build outside the Sunflower Theatre.