April and May Metro District Board Meeting Recap
New management company, board officers, and firefighter work in the community
The Pleasant View Metro District held its regular monthly board meetings on April and May 19. Keep scrolling to find out more about what happened!
The next board meeting is June 16 at 4 p.m.! Please join us at 955 Moss Street OR you can now join us on Zoom!! Email staff@pleasantviewmetro.org to get the virtual meeting information.
If you’re new here, I’m Laura! I’m a board member for the Pleasant View Metro District. This newsletter reflects my own opinions and experiences and is not an official district communication. You can find out more about me and this newsletter here.
The Short Version
The board hired Public Alliance temporarily to manage the district and maintain the parks. So far they have done a fantastic job of modernizing district operations, finding cost efficiencies, and solving legal liability issues.
The board elected new officers. I stepped down as Vice President due to personal issues that have given me way less capacity for the board (as you may have noticed given my lack of newsletters). I recommended Dariusz Piwko to fill my position and he was approved by the rest of the board.
The fire department is considering different volunteer benefits to better retain the volunteer firefighters it depends on to respond to calls for help. The new meeting structure also gives the paid and volunteer firefighters much more input to the board which I’m excited about.
The Long Version
Management Company Update
Dominique and Madison from Public Alliance have been doing a fantastic job so far. They’ve accomplished a lot in just a few months, including:
Moving facility reservations online (coming soon, the board just approved this in the May meeting)
Moving all bill payments online for the district. This will allow the process to be much less labor intensive, which will result in significant cost savings for the taxpayers and more timely bill payment.
Getting rid of unnecessary costs, like a social media archive app that cost nearly $5,000 per year but the district did not need. The district also will have a new social media policy for the board to review to make sure we’re appropriately communicating with the community.
Identifying legal liability issues. The playgrounds at Wolf and Orchard Park should have been getting inspected annually but have not been. I did have to leave early from the May meeting so I do not have the results of the inspections.
Identifying the most cost-efficient way to rebuild the Pleasant View Metro District website so that it is actually a resource of timely information for residents. The current website also does not meet ADA accessibility requirements which will be changed as well. This is not only the right thing to do but a significant legal liability for the district, so I’m very relieved to have this project underway.
Making virtual meetings an easy and high-quality option. Board members and the public can now attend meetings virtually. I still hope to move it to a more convenient time in the future, but this feels like a quick and easy improvement.
Overall, this has been great progress in a short amount of time. I think the district and the board are functioning much better to best serve the community. The financial sustainability discussions I pushed forward over the winter are appropriately sidelined while we build a strong, functional foundation for the disrict.
The board meetings are also now professional, amicable, and we accomplish a lot in each meeting with Public Alliance’s guidance. We don’t all agree, but all can respectfully discuss our differences in opinion and come to a productive decision that has the community in mind which I really appreciate. It’s honestly a really lovely change.
I’m curious what your experience has been as a “customer” of the district, whether that is trying to reserve a field or just getting a question answered. Reach out and let me now! I now have a district email that you can use: lcardon@pleasantviewmetro.org
Fire Department Update
I’m really excited that the firefighters, both paid and volunteer, are a bigger part of board meetings now.
The union president (represents paid firefighters) has been highlighting calls of the month, which I think is really helpful for board members to appreciate what they are doing for our community.
It’s also been interesting to notice that the majority of Pleasant View responses are within the City of Golden, which is something the board is asked the fire chief to collect more data on so we can better evaluate the response agreement between Golden and Pleasant View.
The volunteer firefighters also have their own agenda item now. They’ve discussed the change in volunteer culture as Pleasant View increased the time of service for its volunteer pension qualifications. This led to a great discussion about the decrease in volunteerism nationwide, but also what’s happening specifically at Pleasant View and what we might be able to do to impact that. More to come as the volunteers and chief do some outreach and brainstorm.
Thank you and see you in June!
Please let me know if I missed anything or if you have questions or concerns. Email me at lcardon@pleasantviewmetro.org any time!