Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham focused on the city’s challenges during her first State of the City address, which took place Jan. 25.

The biggest challenge facing the city, Graham said, is finances.

“In 2024, the city of Pueblo submitted 92 grant applications where 44 grants were approved for a total of $48 million dollars in funding, and approximately 62% of the city’s budget came from sales and use tax.

“This year, the city is also facing an $8.6 million dollar shortfall, which is due largely in part to a decrease in revenue and sales tax collection, and it is projected that the total revenue and other sources of funds is approximately $170 million dollars, which is a decrease of approximately 4.2% from the 2024 budget.

Graham said those declines forced her to make some difficult decisions.

“Unfortunately, with this recent decline in revenue, I made the difficult decision to cut back on non-department and nonprofit funding by 49%., along with cutting 18 positions in city staffing, which resulted in half a million dollars in savings,” said Graham.

Another significant issue facing the city is homelessness.

“In Oct. 2024, the city of Pueblo recently took over running the Pueblo Rescue Mission, located at 728 W. 4th St., alongside their partner Safe Side Recovery, which offers daytime programming for residents and outreach individuals, and it was reported that 10 homeless individuals were able to find permanent housing through the help of that recovery program.

“The city has also taken over the Emergency Shelter, located at 710 W. 4th St.., as of December 2024, and every night since October the city has issued emergency declarations.

“It was reported that an upward of 70 individuals were sheltered in the emergency shelter during a cold front last year, which set a record number of individuals for the shelter,” said Graham.

Graham also stressed the need for affordable housing in the community, and she said there has been progress.

She said that in 2024, single-and multi-family units increased from 123 in 2023 to 466 in 2024, the result of 351 new apartment and duplex units that received building permits in 2024.

A major emphasis of the city government, Graham said, is the beautification and clean-up of Pueblo. Among the efforts she cited devoted to that goal was the Team Up to Clean Up Event, which was hosted last year by City Council member Sarah Martinez. Thanks to contributions from several local small business owners and the work of local volunteers, “this event successfully helped remove and dispose of approximately 170 tons of trash, over 1,500 tires, over 11,500 used hypodermic needles, and 1,500 shopping carts,” Graham said.

“The goal of the event was to revitalize the areas along Union Avenue and Northern. These efforts not only beautified these areas, but they also helped foster a sense of pride and unity among the residents and local business owners alike.”

As part of the beautification of Pueblo, the city plans to spruce up its parks and devote significant funding to sports facilities.

“These include, the replacement of older lights in public parks and sports facilities with plans to continue replacing them with new LED lights in areas that include the city park tennis courts and Runyon Field.”

On the economical development front, there was good news regarding the city’s South Side. She cited “the developments of several new businesses for the South Pueblo Boulevard Corridor Project, located along the intersection of I-25 and Pueblo Boulevard with business set to open in late 2025 such as a new Starbucks, Maverick travel center, Whataburger and a Circle K convenience store.

“Additional developments include three new businesses at Pinon Ridge commercial center, located west of I-25 on the north side of Drew Dicks Boulevard, which include a new TA Travel Center, Black Bear Diner and LV petroleum truck service center, along with a new multi-use turf field that will be in the area of Central High School that the city has contributed $250,000 of ARPA funding to.”

Another exciting addition will be “developments to the Waterworks Park, located in the northern area of City Park, which is expected to bring in ample tourism for the city with the project’s goal being to improve safety along the river by creating a passageway to allow users to ride the river unimpeded to Runyon Lake. The park is expected to be populated by river tubers, kayakers, paddle boarders, and surfers by next summer, and it also includes two new bridges, an island beach area and passageways to allow fish to migrate and swarm the area,” Graham said.

But other challenges remain, and Graham acknowledged that more efforts are needed in the area of public safety.

“I would like to acknowledge the Pueblo Fire Department’s rescue efforts for the fires that broke out at Evraz and in Vision Hills, as well as acknowledge that their total response times in 2024 were down 18 seconds, making it the best total response time the department has had since 2018.

“The Pueblo Fire Department also experienced growth this year with increased development of housing and planning. For the future of Pueblo, the fire department welcomed three new assistant chiefs, six lieutenants, and a second 125-foot service truck, known as ‘Truck 52,’ was put into service by the department in Nov. 2024,” Graham said.

Meanwhile, the Pueblo Police Department has struggled with retention, hurt by multiple officers leaving or retiring from the department.

“Like many police departments across the nation. The Pueblo Police Department is continually driving to be innovative in recruiting and retention efforts, which has led to a remarkable 143% increase resulting in 34 new hires in 2024. Of those new hires the department has retained 30, which is more than double the 14 new hires retained in 2023.

“Though there has been growth in the department, unfortunately over the last three years we have seen a massive increase in crime in the city regardless of our advances in policing. Which I believe stems from a lack of accountability and consequences when it comes to the crimes we deal with at our municipal level,” said Graham.

“It is my strong belief that the ability to jail these offenders at the time of their criminal behavior will help us address the sense of lawlessness in our community and change or reduce these behaviors.”