COLORADO SPRINGS • As events for the Tri-Lakes region’s institutions continue to reappear following many months of pandemic-related cancellations, the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce was pleased to host its annual State of the Tri-Lakes Region luncheon last week.

The Feb. 18 luncheon, held at Great Wolf Lodge in Colorado Springs, featured its traditional lineup of Palmer Lake and Monument elected leaders and the district’s representatives from the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners as speakers for the program. Terri Hayes, President and CEO of Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce, wrapped up the program with her assessment of the chamber’s efforts over the past year and expectations for it in the coming year.

Among the chamber’s statistics in 2021, it had 4.5 million member website exposures, 525 members and 12,000-plus attendees at more than 50 events. It totaled 7,400 followers among its social media followers between Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram.

First speaker in the program was Bill Bass, mayor of Palmer Lake. Bass spoke of how the Town of Palmer Lake has been able to return to its traditional events. He also noted the community has developed a resident- and business-driven economic development group called the Palmer Lake Economic Development Group, or PLEDG for short.

Efforts to update Palmer Lake’s Master Plan began last year with volunteers going door to door to collect input from residents and a community survey going out late in the year. Bass said the community survey is presently being completed for the next leg of drafting a new Master Plan for the town.

The renovations of Town Hall in Palmer Lake are near completion, the mayor also said, while the library, museum and home to the Palmer Lake Historical Society are close to reopening.

Bass mentioned the town’s efforts to upgrade its water delivery system and redrilling of its Denver basin well and noted the development of an Intergovernmental Agreement with the Town of Monument for an emergency water connection. Lastly, he noted how the Palmer Lake Police Department has been working with neighboring enforcement agencies like the Monument Police Department for ongoing public safety training.

Next up was Monument Mayor Don Wilson, who noted the success of Monument voters passing the town’s ability to continue to opt out of the TABOR Act, “De-Brucing,” as it is informally called. The creation of the Home Rule Charter Commission was also passed. That entity is presently working on the creation of a Town Charter with an elected group of commissioners separate from the town’s board of trustees. The mayor also mentioned the passing of Ballot Measure 2F, which raised sales taxes in the town 0.5% to create additional funding for the Monument Police Department, for which the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce was instrumental in educating voters on the measure and its passing in November.

“Despite this sales tax increase, Monument still has the lowest tax rate in the area,” Wilson said.

Another success the town had last year was building its reserves, he said. Due to miscellaneous issues, the town’s financial reserves were struggling and the Board of Trustees agreed to make rebuilding the reserves a priority. Town staff came back to the board with a five-year plan to build town reserves back up to 20%. Wilson said with the town staff’s execution and streamlining, and the community’s willingness to shop locally, the town reached its five-year goal in one year.

Wilson also updated attendees on the town’s efforts to fund its water infrastructure projects using its Certificate of Participation bonds from last year as well as working with other municipalities in the El Paso County Loop Project, which is a project that will bring the town’s reusable water assets from the southern part of the county up to the northern part.

While El Paso County Commissioner Stan VanderWerf (District 3) traditionally is in the lineup of speakers for the annual event, it was announced he had a family emergency which made him unavailable for this year’s event.

County Commissioner Holly Williams (District 1), also a usual speaker for the event, took extra time to go over all the successes of El Paso County from the past year and challenges it is expected to face in the coming year. Williams noted that with the results of the latest census, El Paso County has now become the most populous county in the State of Colorado with 737,000 residents, which includes 100,000 military veterans and their families. From a standpoint of political importance, Williams said El Paso County has become its own congressional district for the first time in 100 years.

Among financial struggles expected over the coming year, Williams shared that due to federal decision making, the county will be responsible for providing healthcare for all its jail inmates starting this October when Medicare, Medicaid, VA and other federal health benefits for inmates are cut off to the county.

While Williams has been a large proponent for road maintenance and failure prevention, she said the county commissioners years ago decided to base its funding more on a sales tax base instead of a mil levy base, and during recession it had to cut funding to its roads budget.

“Municipalities have other means for maintaining their roads,” Williams said. “We’re really proud of our fiscal restraint.”

She noted the presence of “guardrails” to check and recheck any spending at the county level, and said an increase in employee pay doesn’t happen without about seven signatures from its system within the finance department. With these guardrails, the county had a $70 million increase to its budget but expects that to go back down this year.

However, among successes, in 2016, $13.1 million was put toward roads in an ongoing fund. In 2022, an additional one-time funding of $13 million was put toward roads as well. Since it was decided to educate residents of the county’s road needs and funding of them, a newsletter called “The Roadway” was recently started, which Williams says has become so popular, copies of each edition cannot be printed fast enough to feed residents’ interest in it.

Last up in the program was Terri Hayes and her account of the Tri-Lakes Chamber of Commerce’s year and its future expectations. Hayes said the chamber is developing a lot of new programs for the coming year, based on desires expressed by its members, including leadership training, CEO roundtables, business spotlights and more.

She promised members would see and hear more communication from the chamber and with a new age of business it was important to tap into the knowledge of the young entrepreneurs of the region and hear their ideas.

Hayes said existing memberships and grant funding from El Paso County have helped the chamber not only meet its budget expectations last year despite the effects on businesses during the pandemic, but helped the chamber exceed them.

“Our main goal is to provide value to our members and the community as a whole,” Hayes said. “We are going to communicate more things other businesses care about and not just our events.”

While only 30-40% of the chamber’s membership attends its events, Hayes said providing value and reaching the other 60-70% would be a priority this year and would be the focus of its communication efforts.

“This is what we are planning, but we are also planning on doing more listening,” she said. “Listening is the No. 1 way we can learn what our businesses need and how they need us.”

Another upcoming informational feature Hayes said was in the chamber’s near future was the development of a podcast.

Hayes said flexibility will also be key for the chamber’s coming years as businesses learn to adapt from the past two years and protect themselves from similar issues in the coming years as well. She said at the end of the effects of the pandemic, businesses will not be the same, and the chamber wants to know how things have changed so it can adapt as well, based on members’ needs and ideas.

With the passing of 2F last November, Hayes also noted how proud the chamber was to support the measure, educating voters and helping the Monument police department get the proper funding it needed.

“Monument has a wonderful reputation for being a safe place, and we can’t lose that,” Hayes said.