The Yuma City Council received some feedback on the city’s new food truck permit.
There were several food trucks around Yuma until the new permit was passed, raising the fee to $50 per month, and requiring written permission from landowners to be on their property.
Now one hardly ever sees any food trucks in town.
BJ Wall and Terri Wall both addressed the council during public comment at last week’s regular meeting. Council members Mayor Tim McClung, Mayor Pro-tem Jerome Benish, Dan Baucke, Terri Frame, Marc Shay and Vanessa Dischner were in attendance. Zach Diaz was absent.
BJ Wall prefaced his comments by stating he thought he was going to be on the agenda so he could get feedback from the council. He said he had been out of commission recently and was wanting to get his food truck started again. He said he had never received notice about the food truck ordinance, though letters were supposed to be delivered to all known food truck operators.
He questioned why the permit fee went from $10 to $50, noting other municipalities do not charge nearly that much or even none at all.
“It just seems kind of ridiculous,” Wall said. “We don’t get any service from you guys.”
He added that if need be, he will just set up outside of town, and the city will miss out on the sales tax funds.
McClung told him that he and city administration can set up a meeting to discuss it further, adding that the city had spent quite a bit of time on the new food truck ordinance.
Terri Wall said she will have to raise her prices to meet the $50 fee. She sells flavored ice treats, noting she is not open all the time, and her products are $2 to $5, so would have to sell quite a bit just to meet the permit fee. She said she also did not receive notification about the ordinance before it was passed She questioned why food trucks are forbidden to park on city streets.
The council briefly discussed the topic at the end of the meeting. One area addressed is if there would be a way to differentiate between a real food truck and an operation like Terri Wall’s.
City Manager discussion
The council spent some time discussing criteria and the process for the city manager candidate search.
Council members were in consensus that it would be helpful to hire an outside firm to help with the process.
There was discussion about level of experience, knowledge of finances, community minded, and having good relationships with previous employers. McClung also went over a list of standard qualifications provided by the Colorado Municipal League.
More meeting
The council briefly visited with City Attorney Kathryn Sellars about the draft ordinance that would give some regulation about “natural medicine” facilities, which involves the legal, supervised use of mushrooms. The council decided on the hours of operation being 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The ordinance will be presented to the council for first reading in the near future.
Keriann Josh with the Yuma Ambulance Service visited with the council about creating a Community Paramedic Program, along with a possible grant for it, and an intergovernmental agreement with Yuma District Hospital.
Josh said the program is growing in rural areas. She explained it entails providing care in people’s homes after being discharged from a health care facility, increasing access and outreach. It fills the gap for those who do not qualify for Home Health Care.
The Consent Agenda included the purchase of an ambulance, security cameras at at the Yuma Ambulance Service building, and power load and power cots for the ambulance service.
The council approved a $70,000 2025 Road to Zero Community Traffic Safety Grant, as well as an $8,000 Colorado Pet Overpopulation Fund 2024-25 License Plate Grant, and a CDPHE Emergency Medical and Trauma Systems Provider Grant for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The latter is for two cardiac monitors for the ambulance service for $103,674.80.
The council unanimously approved the posting places for public meetings in 2025 to be the front window at City Hall and the city’s website.
A resolution for a contract to have a firm do rate studies for Water, Wastewater and Electric was approved. The total cost of the studies is $15,000.
The council briefly discussed the new procurement policy, addressing questions about there are some companies that always provide a certain service, such as working on the city’s SCADA system.