Cortez council to set food-truck licensing rules Tuesday

Cortez City Council meets Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall, 123 Roger Smith Ave., with a public hearing and a final vote on how the city licenses mobile food vendors.

Ordinance No. 1371, Series 2026, rewrites Chapter 15, Article IX of the city code. Council passed it on first reading on October 13 and set the public hearing and second reading for Tuesday. The staff memo in the agenda packet says the ordinance “clarifies the current Code and outlines a clear process for licensing Mobile Food Vendors.”

Under it, a vendor would apply for a Mobile Food Vendor License and show proof of a city sales tax license, good standing with the state, an inspection by the Montezuma County Health Department, and — if food is cooked in the vehicle — an inspection by the fire inspector. The license would run through the calendar year and have to be renewed after January 1, and vendors would have to display it. The ordinance also adds rules for operating in the right-of-way and on private property, and sets out violations. There is no fee for calendar year 2026; staff say they intend to propose a basic processing fee on the 2027 fee schedule, and the packet does not give an amount.

Three airport items

Council is asked to accept the bid for the 2026 Airport Asbestos Abatement Project. Three bids came in and two were incomplete, according to the staff memo, leaving one qualified bid: $74,811.55 from Eco Safe Abatement LLC of Durango, which bid $12,549.17 for the terminal and Hertz buildings and $62,262.38 for the FBO building. The grant estimate had budgeted $103,000. The work is paid for by an EPA Brownfield Cleanup Grant, and the memo says the grant did not require a local match. The motion would authorize the city manager to negotiate and sign the contract.

Council is also asked to extend the Transportation Security Administration’s lease of terminal space by five years, through June 30, 2031, and to approve a five-year airport engineering services agreement running from December 1, 2026 to November 30, 2031, with the city manager authorized to negotiate it on the strength of a qualifications review and interviews. The packet does not name the engineering firms that responded or give a figure for either item.

Two other decisions are on the agenda: appointments to the Planning & Zoning Commission and the Library Advisory Board.

Before that, the work session

The work session starts at 6 p.m., and the item likely to draw the most attention is a “Parks and Recreation Master Plan: Community Engagement Update and City Council Listening Session.” That plan is where the city has said the outdoor pool’s long-term future will be worked out, three days after it reversed its decision to close the pool in 2027.

The session also carries interviews with four applicants for the two boards council appoints to later the same evening — Robert Bright for Planning & Zoning, and Tasha Schiedel, Jacque Garner and Margaret Ransom for the Library Advisory Board — a general council discussion at 7:15 p.m., and a for-your-information item on the Montezuma County commissioners’ October 6 and 13 minutes.

The rest of the agenda

The consent agenda, which passes in a single motion unless a councilmember pulls an item, carries the October 13 minutes, the October 27 expenditure list, and a hotel and restaurant liquor license renewal for New Hong Kong of Cortez, Inc., trading as New Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant at 332 West Main Street.

Two presentations are scheduled: the results of additional documentation of the Cortez Civilian Conservation Corps Camp, and a proclamation recognizing Greenlight A Vet, sponsored by Councilmembers Clarisa Osborn and Kathleen Swope and co-sponsored by Mayor Dennis Spruell, Mayor Pro-Tem Bill Lewis and Councilmember April Randle.

The agenda lists an executive session “as needed” and states no topic for it.

How to take part

There are two public participation periods, one near the start of the meeting and one near the end. Speakers fill in an “Intent to Speak” card, available outside the council chambers and collected at the start of the meeting, and get three minutes each; the first period is capped at 30 minutes in total. Comments on a specific agenda item are taken during that item rather than in general public participation.

Written comment can be emailed to councilcomments@cortezco.gov by 3 p.m. on the day of the meeting, which the city says gets it to council that day and into the minutes, or mailed to City Council, 123 Roger Smith Ave., Cortez, CO 81321. Both meetings are streamed on the city’s website.

The regular meeting agenda, the work session agenda and the agenda packet are on the city’s agenda site.