TOW: Good Lights? Bad Lights?
Main Street Storefronts and the Rodeo Arena

by Sentinel Staff
The latest Town of Westcliffe Trustees meeting had no shortage of lively discussion, ranging from holiday lights on Main Street and the lights at the rodeo arena to the budget. The Town of Westcliffe Trustees meeting started off with the Main Street holiday committee report. A business round table meets every other Monday with good energy and idea sharing. Bianca Trenker, who was representing the business committee, asked about the status of possible micro grants for holiday decoration of the Main Street corridor. Last meeting, the committee requested $5,000 from the Board and another $937 for wreaths. This month, they asked the Board to approve the wreath funds so that these could be ordered. Later in the discussion the Board decided to add a short meeting before the September 24 workshop to vote on the disbursement. The Board will have to decide if this is a prudent use of taxpayer dollars.
The Main Street Business committee is coordinating business decorating for a cohesive and festive appearance of the high traffic downtown area to be highlighted during the holiday season. By creating cohesiveness and collaboration between businesses they want to make the town aesthetically pleasing with the goal of encouraging more visitors and guests to patronize local shops. Trenker believes higher foot traffic will increase tax revenue to the town. Whether the hoped for tax revenue will replace the $5,937 of tax dollars that will potentially be spent on decorations remains to
be seen.
The committee’s plan as presented, would offer each business that participates in the holiday decorating, a $200 micro grant to decorate with reusable decorations. There is hope that 25 downtown businesses will participate, 12 have already agreed. The committee would like to have a wreath contest with the public voting for the winner. Trenker says the committee thinks the contest would be another incentive to increase foot traffic and sales.
The business committee also believes that a return of Santa to the park and the huge Christmas tree at 3rd and Main Street would incentivize people to come to town or stop and stay if they are just passing through. (TOW has not committed yet to doing the Christmas tree and believes the lights and decorations are in storage.) The committee proposes that the tree be placed on 3rd Street closing the south side of 3rd from Main Street. The committee hopes to have everything in place by November 8th and would like to leave the decorations up through the New Year. The Board of Trustees put the town holiday lighting funding on the agenda for next month and scheduled a special meeting before the next workshop (Wednesday, September 24th) to vote on wreath money disbursement.
In other business, the Board denied a request to pay a facade grant from 2023 because the work was just finished. The Trustees noted that the grant application says funds must be spent in the year awarded and therefore denied the request to now fund the 2023 award. They did approve ordinance 3-2025 setting new fees for parking violations.
Following a lengthy discussion the Trustees agreed to apply for a DOLA grant for which they would have to provide a $20k match with the town of Silver Cliff offering to provide $5k. (These were the amounts previously pledged when Barry Keene applied for the same grant. The grant was denied and is still available through DOLA.) The funds would come from next year’s budget. If awarded, then the town would be competitive for another $50k grant related to Prop 123 with no matching funds. The DOLA grant can be used for anything related to housing and would be used to help hire planning consultants and mapping services and all the things that have to be done to make a housing project “shovel ready”. (This staff would like to have a dollar for every time the phrase “shovel ready” has been used in the last few months in regards to the affordable housing projects.) The pilot location for the housing project is in Silver Cliff so there was much discussion about why Westcliffe would pay the bigger matching dollar amount. Ultimately the Board of Trustees decided to pay the larger amount of the matching funds and continue with the DOLA grant application. (Westcliffe’s housing related endeavor, thus far, has included water and sewer infrastructure to town lots that could then be offered for housing. That project is currently being accomplished.)
Bob Wolf, a member of the Dark Skies did a presentation on the lights at the Stampede Rodeo Arena. (As background, members of Dark Skies have voiced complaints to the Town Trustees concerning no actions on noncompliance. At the last monthly meeting, a board member and Mayor Paul Wenke said that the town’s lighting ordinance as written is problematic and therefore probably not enforceable, and that the Board needs to have a workshop on the Ordinance language. Trustee Christy Patterson has also been working on charting other community light trespass ordinances and language. Mr. Wenke said if Dark Skies would like to present they could do it at the next meeting. Thus, the presentation.)

Wolf presented pictures and data on the design and performance of the lighting systems at both the Stampede Rodeo grounds and the Custer County High School Football Field, saying that light“trespass” was the main issue. According to Wolf, the football field lighting system is acceptable and is also being used by other rodeo arenas. The Saddle Club’s rodeo lighting system, he says, trespasses more than 2,000 feet. According to Dark Skies this light escape negatively impacts the Smokey Jack Observatory programs to the point that no programs can be held when the rodeo arena is lit. (The WMV Saddle club holds approximately 15 nights of events with arena lights per year.)
Wolf argued that the light trespass is preventable and fixable but would not speculate or reveal the costs of the current lighting
system or proposed lighting changes. He went on to say that the health of both humans and animals are negatively impacted by artificial light in the night. He noted the increased risk of diabetes for humans exposed to artificial light at night. (Since the presentation focus was outdoor light trespass, the computer screen and artificial light nearly all humans are exposed to daily wasn’t mentioned.)
In summary, the local dark skies group has no issue with the light being directed to the ground of the
Saddle Club’s arena; they take issue with the light trespass that affects Smokey Jack, 2000 feet beyond the rodeo grounds. Dark Skies maintains that the rodeo lights violate TOW’s 2014 lighting ordinance which requires a special use permit for trespass. Wolf said, ”we need to find a way for the Stampede Rodeo and Smokey Jack to co-exist.” He says the Smokey Jack Observatory cannot hold programs when the arena is being used. He maintains that the special use permit for lighting the arena with the current system should be limited to the rodeo in July. He went on to say, yet again, that the Board of Trustees should enforce
the ordinance.
Note: in past meetings, it has been made clear the Stampede (dating back to 1946) generates significant revenue from the tourist and overall traffic into the county for their events.
The SJO has been on the Bluff since 2015. One board member did ask the presenter if the SJO has thought about moving to another location if town growth makes it more difficult to view the night sky. Wolf indicated that moving the SJO was not being considered.
The Board of Trustees then entered into a budget hearing. There was no discussion by the trustees other than to say the budget amendment reflects the realities of what was spent this year. When asked about the specific changes, the Westcliffe Town staff replied, “on the capital side the changes are for grants that dried up with the state. For the general side of the budget; employees received raises, ADA accessibility requirements caused more expense for IT to get into compliance; legal costs increased with two lawsuits and new attorneys with different fee structures.” Line items were adjusted
for those things. A resolution to adopt the amended
budget was approved unanimously.
Trustees were presented with copies of the audit and the only public comment was an ask about what is on the books in regards to zoning to protect the historical nature of downtown. The Trustees referred the issue to planning and zoning. The meeting ended with Mayor Pro-Tem Mark Dembosky letting everyone know that he could no longer serve due to health issues. The meeting was adjourned.

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