By Rudy Hemmann

The Surveyor

During the Reports section of Tuesday evening’s town board meeting, Town Administrator Chris Kirk announced staff had reached an impasse regarding funding for phase I of Waggener Farm Park.

Kirk stated, “I sent out an email on Friday which in a couple of sentences explains why we did not have the financing package on the agenda tonight as directed by the majority of the board two weeks ago. That financing package being related to Waggener Farm Park phase I.

Just to reiterate, staff has worked with George K. Baum … in order to meet the timeline any kind of financing deal along with an underwriting agreement tonight we had to use George K. Baum in order to do that work.

Two weeks ago we found out they had been acquired by another large, publicly traded, financial firm (Stifel Financial Corporation), and George K. Baum, for all intents and purposes, would cease to exist. So, entering into an underwriting agreement with them would not make sense.”

Kirk went on to explain, Kyle (Baum representative assigned to the town) whom staff had worked with, and established a relationship with, over the past two years chose not to take a position with Stifel, but elected to find employment elsewhere. As a result, staff has no contact or representative with either Baum or with Stifel.

That threw a monkey wrench into the situation in that there was no way for staff to put together an underwritten financing package for the trustees to act on at the meeting. He assured staff will continue to move forward per the board’s direction to find a financial firm capable of doing financing and underwriting.

The trustees unanimously approved a supplemental budget appropriation for the 2019 budget year. The action taken will assure funding for projects which were begun in 2018 but not yet completed.

The trustees unanimously approved a pair of amendments to Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs) with Johnstown.

The first IGA to be amended is regarding the Growth Management Area (GMA) of the two communities. Johnstown requested the IGA between the towns be amended to place a tract currently under Berthoud’s jurisdiction be placed under the jurisdiction of Johnstown.

The second IGA concerned the wastewater treatment facility (located east of the Interstate 25 and Weld County Road (WCR) 44 intersection) and service within Berthoud’s 208 service area.

If approved, this would be the second amendment to a the IGA between the two towns regarding Berthoud’s sewer service area. The amendment requires Johnstown to pay for the costs associated with expansion of the 208 Boundary and to undertake the process to achieve expansion. The expansion requested includes the property requested to be included in Johnstown’s GMA and the property immediately east of it. Both properties are within a short distance east of Berthoud’s regional wastewater treatment facility on WCR 44. The wastewater facility is capable of handling the increase in flow from the Johnstown properties.

Following brief questioning of the applicant, Troy Campbell, the agent for two properties, WWW Properties and Weibel Properties, the applicant requested annexation of both properties into Berthoud.

WWW properties is a 1.87-acre tract located at 2542 North First Street and is accessible from First Street. The tract has a single-family residence and outbuildings on site. The residence is currently vacant.    

The Weibel Properties tract is a vacant lot consisting of a 15.95-acre tract located immediately to the southwest of the WWW Property. It is accessible by way of Clayton Place.

For the WWW Property, a motion approving the annexation was made, seconded and passed unanimously. A similar motion approving the annexation of Weibel Properties was made, seconded and passed unanimously.

For WWW Properties, a motion to approve the request to place the light industrial zoning (M-1) on the 1.87 acres known as WWW Properties, was made, seconded and passed unanimously. A motion approving M-2 zoning for the Weibel Property was made, seconded and passed unanimously.

The trustees appointed Matt Rood and Danielle Trotta to four-year terms on the Berthoud Planning Commission.