By Will Cornelius
The Surveyor

Town Administrator Chris Kirk will be staying in Berthoud, thanks to a new three-year contract approved by the Board of Trustees for the Town of Berthoud. On Tuesday night, the board approved a new contract for Kirk with a 5% pay increase, in addition to cost-of-living adjustments. In April 2022, the board increased Kirk’s salary to $200,000. For comparison, Loveland recently increased the pay for its City Manager — Steve Adams to $230,624. His counterpart in Fort Collins, Kelli DiMartino makes $305,325. South of the county line in Longmont, City Manager Harold Dominguez is set to earn $289,176 in 2023.

All members of the board were in attendance for the regular meeting on May 9 except May Soricelli. In addition to keeping Kirk for another three years, the board also approved a preliminary plat for the Harvest 47 development and got an update on future options for broadband in Berthoud from Walt Elish, the town’s development director.

On a night with a short and narrow agenda, the public participation portion of the meeting offered more insight into town concerns. Herb Hergott raised concerns about removing the pickleball courts at Town Park before new ones are built at Waggener Park. The poor state of Greenlawn Cemetery was brought up by Teresa Rimsky. Other issues raised were related to road signage and the future of flagstone sidewalks in Berthoud.

The consent agenda was approved unanimously. It included another extension of a 180-day oil and gas mortarium in Berthoud and the purchase of three and a half shares of non-potable water from Loveland Lake and Ditch Company for a total of $227,500 from three private sellers.

A preliminary plat hearing for Harvest 47 was next. The six-acre development proposal features 29 single-family home lots, with nine being given to Berthoud Habitat for Humanity — at an $800,000 valuation. On April 27 the preliminary plat was approved by the planning commission. With no public comment, the board unanimously approved the plat.

Broadband was the last agenda item for discussion. Elish introduced the presentation from Loveland Pulse, mentioning that Fort Collins and Longmont also have publicly owned broadband providers. Mark Pfaffinger and Brieana Reed-Harmel gave a presentation promoting Loveland Pulse. The biggest obstacle for any proposed project in Berthoud for Loveland Pulse was capital costs they said.

Kirk said the next step town staff would present to the board would be a request-for-proposal on broadband, but the scope and size still needed to be refined. Hilltop Broadband CEO Eric Ryplewski was able to speak in front of the board next and promoted his Berthoud-based broadband business as an alternative.

“It looks like a lot of government money and other thing are leveraging against my business. But that it is, what it is — right. We’re still here. We’re still going to invest in the communities in Berthoud and around us,” Ryplewski said. He said Hilltop Broadband has 17 Berthoud-based employees and plans to hire another four in the coming weeks. The board was eager to find a solution but took no action.

After official reports, the board moved into executive session where Kirk’s evaluation was finally completed. His evaluation had been scheduled at two previous meetings but repeatedly delayed due to time and attendance concerns.

The next regular meeting of the town board will be held on May 23.