{"id":23703,"date":"2025-02-05T20:31:30","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T03:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-mayor-attends-mayors-summit-in-denver\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:41:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:41:05","slug":"cortez-mayor-attends-mayors-summit-in-denver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-mayor-attends-mayors-summit-in-denver\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Mayor attends Mayors\u2019 Summit in Denver"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cortez
Cortez City Attorney Patrick Coleman and Mayor Rachel Medina at the Western Stock Show in Denver. (Rachel Medina\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The 2025 Mayors\u2019 Summit was held Jan. 22 to coincide with the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo. Cortez Mayor Rachel Medina attended.<\/p>\n

Medina said that the summit is an annual event and was 1\u00bd days long.<\/p>\n

The roughly 50 mayors from across the state had a daylong workshop and attended the rodeo in that window, which Medina said was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was also a good reminder of how blessed we are in our community, and how well things are going here,\u201d Medina said.<\/p>\n

A major takeaway, she said, concerned strategic plans.<\/p>\n

Essentially, a strategic plan would lay out how Cortez can meet its priorities the next few years in a detailed, pointed kind of way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a goal of hopefully our council or future councils,\u201d Medina said. \u201cIt\u2019s a vision for our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it stands, the Cortez City Council has an annual retreat where they set priorities, goals and outlines action items and projects to make it all happen. A strategic plan would not only \u201cformalize that process,\u201d it would foster transparency and offer a clear, set path in moving forward.<\/p>\n

\"Cortez
Cortez Mayor Rachel Medina recently attended the Mayors\u2019 Summit in Denver. (Rachel Medina\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

For example, Medina said, if affordable housing is important, what does that mean? What does the city need to do to support such an initiative?<\/p>\n

Medina also said that Golden, 30 minutes west of Denver, does an annual state of the city address. It\u2019s a summary of the year, presented by the mayor and city manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey present everything they\u2019ve done in the past year and reflect on their strategic plan,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the city manager gets into the nitty-gritty details.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medina said she\u2019d like to do something similar in Cortez.<\/p>\n

This month, when she attends a legislative workshop, Medina plans to invite our state legislators to present to Cortez\u2019s city council annually, \u201cso they can build a relationship with council and not just with their party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus, such a visit would allow our representatives to \u201chear our plans\u201d and give the community a chance to \u201cshare their concerns,\u201d said Medina.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s important, since Cortez is \u201cthe farthest town from Denver in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mayors\u2019 Summit is put on by the Colorado Municipal League. That group has been around for over 100 years and gives municipalities a voice, as they\u2019re able to oppose, amend or take a neutral stance on state laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of influence in the governor\u2019s office,\u201d said Medina.<\/p>\n

Medina is a member on that board, and made plans with Councilors Bill Lewis and Matt Keefauver at their latest council meeting to attend the Municipal League\u2019s annual conference in Breckenridge in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

50 mayors from across Colorado were there <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,1429,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-city-council","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78224,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23703\/revisions\/78224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23703"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}