Wrapping up his fifth year as Town Administrator Chris Kirk took time from his busy schedule to sit and answer a few questions from Surveyor staff members about the future of Berthoud.

The first topic discussed was the progress being made on the Spartan Avenue railroad crossing. Kirk responded by stating town staff had just received design drawings and associated information the previous week. When the internal review is completed, the information will be shared with representatives of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) for their input. “We’ve had several meetings with them that have been positive,” said Kirk.

One of the sticking points for BNSF is that the town must give up at least one and possibly two existing crossings. Kirk indicated the crossing south of town (15A) would be the first for consideration to be eliminated. The remaining crossings (10E, Water Avenue, Mountain Avenue, Welch Avenue) are considered too valuable to the town to be let go lightly. “Really the only other crossing we could give up is Welch, and nobody’s going to go for that,” said Kirk.

The next area of discussion was the town recreation center, which is nearing one year of operation. “The big deal was getting it open,” Kirk recalled. The recreation center’s budget was always going to be dependent on subsidies from the Town’s 1 percent fund, but cost recovery is still a key metric for budgeting. “We’re about in the 65 percent cost recovery range, and our goal is for 70 percent next year,” he said. Kirk said that typically a recreation center’s cost recovery will range from 60 to 85 percent. “We did exceed revenue projections this year by about 30 percent. Memberships were much higher than we expected,” he said.

The recreation center currently has nine full-time staff along with many part-time workers who mostly work at the pool. “Our recreation director, Amanda Gustafson, she’s done a great job,” said Kirk. He said keeping a recreation center fully staffed can be a challenge. “It’s kind of a constant turnover industry. We’ve had a good core of full-time staff and we’ve actually had quite a few longer-term part-timers,” Kirk added.

The Town Park and the Richardson Park projects are both going “really well” according to Kirk. “The board set a goal for us to have Town Park complete by April of 2024, and we are on track to do that,” he said. That would complete the first phase of Town Park, with phase two of Town Park commencing after Richardson Park. The designs around Richardson Park are around 30 percent, which is intentional Kirk said as they are still figuring out the scope and scale of the Richardson Park project.

One exciting part of the park plans is the proposal for an outdoor pool and other water features. “Outdoor pools are great because they can be self-sustaining from an expense standpoint if they’re built right. So, what we’re looking at is more of a small water park if I can put it that way,” Kirk explained. It would include a zero-entry pool, a large activity pool, a winding lazy river, an expansive kids play area and up to four water slides. The plan would be to attract people from outside of Berthoud, “with the hope that we can draw kind of sub-regionally. From Loveland, Longmont places like that to help sustain it financially,” he said.

Another area Kirk discussed was the need to expand or renovate Town Hall in the near future. Kirk said he wants to keep town staff in one place and would prefer to add-on to the existing building as opposed to building a new town hall. “I’d rather save that money and spend it on something else,” he said. But they are outgrowing the existing space they have, Kirk said. “We’re going to do a feasibility study next year, that’s in the budget,” he said.

Serving as the Town Administrator of Berthoud in January 2018, Kirk is eager to stay with the town and is hopeful the town board will renew his contract next year. “I’ve always told my wife, I don’t think I would want to work in a bigger city, I like working in a small town,” he said.