Lamar City Council meeting of November 24, 2025

Lamar City Council held a regular meeting on November 24, 2025 with all council members present.  Mayor Kirk Crespin began by announcing an executive session would be held following the meeting, in which Council will do a 30-day follow-up with the city’s new administrator Mitch Hammes.  “I just want to say we’ve loved having Mitch Hammes here the last month.  He’s done a wonderful job.  If the community hasn’t had an opportunity to get to meet him yet, I would encourage you to take the time to get to know him.  He’s been a wonderful asset for our community” said Crespin.  He then said that everyone he had talked to has been very impressed with Hammes.  “I’d like to thank him for the past 30 days.  It took a lot off my plate and I just want to thank him again for being here in Lamar and for being part of the team”.

Council member Joe Gonzales said that at the recent PEP meeting, a representative of the Southeast Colorado Regional Housing authority was present and discussed possible future affordable housing in the Lamar area.  Council member Gerri Jenkins deferred to Administrator Hammes to talk about the Public Safety Board meeting the two of them attended.  A traffic engineer with CDOT was present at that meeting and gave the committee members a lot of information about resources for future traffic safety projects, some of them which are very affordable and simple.  They learned about multiple grants the city could apply for to be used for these projects.

City Administrator Hammes listed several upcoming events for the city. City offices will be closed Thursday, November 27 and Friday, November 28 for Thanksgiving.  The Lamar Chamber of Commerce’s “Cocoa Crawl” will be held Saturday, November 29 from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.  People are encouraged to shop locally and check out the many merchant specials that day as well as filling their mugs with cocoa at the Shore Arts Center park downtown.  The annual “Parade of Lights” begins at 6:30 pm on Saturday, November 29 as well.  Common Ground with City Council will be held Wednesday, December 3 at 7:00 a.m. in the Cultural Events Center.  The City of Lamar Christmas party will be held Saturday, December 6 at 6:00 at the Elks Club. City Treasurer Kristin Schwartz said that the city has closed the CPW grants for the archery range as well as for the fishing dock.  Bids have gone out for the upcoming Willow Valley water line project and a decision will be made and the project should start soon.

The first agenda item for the evening was a public hearing for a new hotel/restaurant liquor license for Litzy Perez Valle dba/Los Juniors.  There was no one present at the hearing speaking in opposition to the license but the business owner spoke to council about how having the license will benefit her business, as patrons regularly ask for a margarita or a beer to accompany their meal.  She feels they have lost a significant amount of business without the ability to serve alcohol and hope to use revenue from same to make renovations and improvements to the restaurant.  Mayor Crespin asked if the restaurant has any TIPS certified servers and was told that they have not yet done that but will do as quickly as possible.  The license was granted upon the basis of the servers getting this certification while waiting for the state to issue the actual license.

A presentation by Lamar High School Student Council members was on the agenda but they were not present at the meeting, so Council moved to the third item on the agenda, which was an update on the city’s Public Safety Building progress.  Present to speak about this were Lamar Fire Chief Jeremy Burkhart and Lamar Police Chief Kevin Ridder.  They showed preliminary drawings of the proposed layout for the building, but said they hope to have final drawings for Council very soon.  They said that footprint of the building will remain the same without any additions of square footage.  The front of the building will see most of the large windows removed for security reasons.  The two departments will share a front reception area with administrative offices in the front area as well. The Police Department’s side of the building will feature a holding cell as well as interrogation/interview rooms, an expanded armory, and an evidence room designed to meet CBI standards.  The Fire Department’s side will have 5 bedrooms as well as a training area, workout area, and decontamination room.  Plans are also being made for the property behind the building to be used for extra training and an animal care facility.

Due to a vacancy on the Lamar Housing Authority Board, Council voted to appoint Debbie Widener to fill that position.  She will fill the unexpired five-year term that will expire on June 1, 2027.  Likewise, the Airport Advisory Board had a vacancy.  Of the two applications received, Council voted to appoint Matthew Carrigan to fill the unexpired five-year term that will expire on February 1, 2030.  Jake Specht, the Lamar Community College’s Building Trade instructor, requested extra-territorial water and sewer service for a home the students are building at 3101 Memorial Drive.  Since the residence is located outside city limits, it cannot use city sewer and water.  The request was approved, and the new lines will be connected to existibg City water and sewer lines that extend along Duchess Lane.

To be in compliance with a Colorado mandate that requires all government agencies to make their digital presences ADA-compliant, the City transitioned to a new website using Streamline as the provider in January of 2025. When old documents were transferred to the new site, more than 200 were inaccessible. Many hours were spent trying to fix these files, converting Word documents to pdfs.  Errors were still found using Streamline, so in July of 2025 a Streamline partner, DocAccess, provided the City with a free month of their pdf accessibility service and continued offering it for free through October of 2025. Using DocAccess resulted in a significant difference, allowing the inaccessible documents to be reduced to just 4, raising overall compliance to 97%.  These four remaining files are Excel documents that cannot be made fully accessible.  The cost of paid subscription to DocAccess is $600/year with a 40% discount for a 3-year subscription.  Council voted to approve this subscription and allow the mayor to sign the agreement.

Anthony LaTour, Parks, Recreation and Cemeteries Director was present at the meeting to speak with Council about a proposed agreement with the USDA to help with removing beavers and prairie dogs in certain areas.  The new archery range has had a prairie dog problem and Willow Creek has had beaver problems.  If approved, the agreement would allow USDA to trap and relocate nuisance animals in areas where needed.  The cost of the agreement is $18,921.78 for USDA to “be on call” when needed by the city.  The Sanitation and Water Department was willing to pay 2/3 of the cost if Parks and Recreation would pay the remaining third.  Council approved the request, with the agreement beginning December 1, 2025 and ending December 1, 2026.

Approved was a request for the Lamar Library staff to accept a $6,500 John Henry Eldred, Jr. grant which was awarded to them to support the Lamar Public Library Children’s department.  The grand requires no city match.  City Staff were also approved to apply for the annual Colorado Pet Overpopulation Grant, asking for $11,000 to pay for spaying/neutering all animals prior to adoption, veterinary care and microchips.  Council voted unanimously to cancel the regular December 22 City Council meeting due to its being so close to Christmas.  In doing so, they authorized the Treasurer to pay bills until the January 12, 2026 meeting.

Council voted to approve the ownership change of a current licensing agreement regarding the EV fast charging stations in the visitor’s center parking lot.   Lastly, a discussion was held about 2026 Council liaison positions.  Council members serve on several local community boards as city liaisons and Mayor Crespin asked them all to give some thought as to which boards they would like to serve on in 2026 depending on which they have the most interest in.  This issue will be re-addressed at the December 8 regular Council meeting.  Before adjourning the meeting for the Executive Session, Crespin told Council that word has been received that Galen Burnett has been going through a difficult time with health issues and wanted to offer thoughts and prayers for him and his family.  Burnett is a regular fixture at city council meetings, rarely missing one.  Crespin said Council has always valued and respected his input in opposition to granting liquor licenses.  Council member Brent Bates state that as a recovering alcoholic himself, he thanked Burnett “for caring enough to try, knowing these licenses will likely be approved”.

The meeting then adjourned for the Executive Session. The next Council meeting will be Monday, December 8, 2025 at 7:00 pm.

By: Barbara Crimond