Broomfield mayor gives State of the City address at annual chamber m…

Broomfield Mayor Guyleen Castriotta focused on the city and county’s goals and celebrated recent growth in the community during her State of the City address Thursday morning at the annual Broomfield Area Chamber meeting.

Broomfield remains one of the fastest-growing cities and counties in the state, seeing the largest percentage of population growth of all Colorado counties at more than 32%, quickly approaching a population of 77,000, Castriotta said.

With this continuing growth, Castriotta highlighted some of the city’s main focuses from the past year that will continue into 2023, such as income-aligned housing, economic vitality, sustainability, public health, and diversity, equity, access and inclusion.

2022 saw the launch of the Broomfield Housing Alliance, which Castriotta said is “already successful” by providing $3 million in startup and project funding. The Crosswinds and Northwest Apartments housing developments received critical gap financing of $2.3 million, which will provide affordable and safe housing for nearly 200 families or as many as 400 employees for Broomfield businesses.

Enhance Broomfield, an economic vitality program, was awarded $325,000 in addition to the approximately $1.5 million in private funding last year that was used to assist businesses and organizations in their growth.

“​​These awards will create more than 25 direct jobs, and lead to increased sales and economic opportunity,” Castriotta said. “As an example, we are providing funds to grow child care opportunities – which improves family life and increases employment choices for parents.”

In the sustainability focus, the city has created a Solar Co-op with Solar United Neighbors to push residents to move to solar energy in the coming year. The city is also considering a Universal Collection Initiative “as a way to help further our aggressive waste diversion goals,” Castriotta said. She urged residents to visit the Broomfield Voice page on Universal Collection to provide comments and learn more.

The city is also launching a new resident-led Board of Health, which will begin working with the Public Health Director and department this spring. The city will also be tackling the opioid epidemic this year with the Broomfield Opioids Response Plan providing $201,000 to implement new strategies.

Castriotta highlighted three key points for looking ahead in the city and county.

“As we look ahead, we all know how critical financial sustainability and resiliency are, and that is what the City and County of Broomfield strive for as well,” Castriotta said. “It means maintaining our excellent bond rating, diversifying our tax base, and maintaining and building our reserve balance. As we talked about earlier, we have seen our population double over the last 10 years, but our infrastructure to support that community has not kept up. So, shoring up Broomfield’s infrastructure is a priority as well.”

The chamber meeting also heard from President and CEO of the Chamber Patrick Monacelli for the State of the Chamber and a speech from Richard Wobbekind, associate dean of business and government relations and senior economist at the University of Colorado Boulder, on economic development.