Be Well, Be Fruita Campaign

After it looked as if local governments in Colorado under 500,000 populations would not receive any allocations from the CARES Act, at the end of May 2020, we found out Mesa County would receive funding and need to work with local cities and towns to determine how to distribute. Guidance and eligibility criteria were not yet fully available and continues to be updated. On July 6, 2020, Fruita City Council approved a memorandum of understanding with Mesa County clarifying the allocation to the City. Much of the month of July City staff spent much time learning from and following newly released guidance on what expenses would be eligible. Staff presented ideas and brainstormed with City Council at their public workshop on July 28.  

Now that guidance was clearer and staff had City Council support to focus on operations, economic, educational and community assistance projects, time was of the essence. Staff began working with the Fruita Area Chamber of Commerce, local businesses to solidify eligible projects to assist the community. The City worked with an architectural design firm, Studio Seed who had already worked for Downtown Colorado, Inc. on relief fund projects to begin designing outdoor spaces around town and at Fruita schools. On August 4, City Council amended the relief funds into the 2020 budget. On August 11, Planning & Development Director Dan Caris joined Mesa county Public Health Director Jeff Kuhr on a webinar provided to the Fruita businesses and placed on YouTube to discuss the projects the City was working on. On August 18, Mayor Joel Kincaid and City Manager Mike Bennett presented how the City was planning to spend relief funds to the State of the Grand Valley event streamed live throughout Mesa County. Updates were provided to City Council at nearly every Council meeting and in the City Manager’s weekly updates found on the City’s website or available via email subscription. The City began highlighting the downtown spaces and other projects on social media on August 24.  

At the onset of the pandemic in early March 2020, the City immediately implemented its emergency operation plan, strategically cut expenses, and issued a Declaration of Local Disaster Emergency. The City anticipated decreases in revenues due to the pandemic. The City relies most heavily on sales tax revenue to provide cores services. Since 2017, each year has been a record year for the City regarding highest City sales tax collections due to the success of local businesses. Even during the pandemic, it turns out 2020 is trending 28.49% above 2019 through July collections. This does not mean every business is doing better, but many are. The categories of restaurants and lodging saw the largest decreases in revenues. The Fruita Community Center and recreation programs also saw a significant decline due to forced closures and restrictions. Fortunately, the City entered the pandemic with healthy reserves and fund balances, and a great start to 2020. Combined with the targeted cuts to expenses and healthy local economy, the City is in sound financial shape. This enabled the City to look beyond eligible operational expenses and to economic, educational and community assistance.  You can view the monthly financial reports on this webpage.

It has become evident during the pandemic that health and safety restrictions have created a lack of dining seating and outside is a safe area to social distance and enjoy Fruita’s amazing local establishments. Even though Fruita sales tax is trending higher than any year in history, not all businesses are doing great and food establishments as a category have taken a hit due to capacity limitations. We hope this temporary space helps more residents and guests frequent local businesses by finding space to remain in town and frequent retail establishments in addition to restaurants, coffee shops and breweries.  

Yes, these are public spaces, so anyone is welcome who is following the rules and the law. The City strongly encourages people using the space to shop local as the purpose of the spaces is to provide additional areas for people to safely enjoy the City and be customers to Fruita businesses.