December Board Meeting Recap
Happy New Year! Let's catch up on Pleasant View
The Pleasant View Metro District held its regular monthly board meeting on December 9. Keep scrolling to find out more about what happened!
The next board meeting is January 20 at 4 p.m.! Please join us at 955 Moss Street.
If you’re new here, I’m Laura! I’m the Vice President of the Pleasant View Metro District board of directors. 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
This meeting focused on wrapping up the 2025 budget and adopting the final 2026 budget. Mostly admin-type things that you don’t see in person — not parks projects or more fire department events, but still important work!
My biggest challenge on the board currently is being treated with basic dignity and professionalism. I don’t expect us all to agree or even get along, but I do expect everyone to treat each other with kindness. I am continually interrupted and accused of being combative for simply trying to have a discussion or add items to the agenda.
Related to that, I was not able to discuss my concerns with our accounting vendor. I made a motion to add a discussion to the agenda, but the board was split 2-2 and it was tabled until the January meeting.
The board adopted a budget amendment for 2025 to pay for two projects with capital reserves: new self-contained breathing apparatus for the firefighters and a parks maintenance building in Camp George.
Work is moving forward on that maintenance building, so you may notice that construction by the parking lot in Camp George starting soon.
The Long Version
Professionalism
When I joined the board, I knew we would disagree and not always get along. That comes with the territory and I think having many opinions is a valuable way to get to better outcomes. However, I have been really disappointed with the lack of professionalism and respect at meetings more recently. All I expect is to be allowed to finish a thought, to discuss differing opinions or concerns, and for us to all act like grown-ups.
I believe public servants are elected to serve the public, not to shut down any new ideas and attempt to maintain a status quo that the people of Pleasant View clearly weren’t happy with prior to the last election. As a community, we deserve a board that operates effectively and transparently to serve the people of our district. Public trust is earned not given, and you deserve a board that is genuinely trying to do things better to serve the people of Pleasant View.
As difficult as it is to try to push for us to do better in an environment of so little professionalism, I’ll continue to use my voice on the board to try to continue to improve things in a respectful but insistent way, because it’s the right thing to do.
Please keep sharing your concerns with me, and as you’re able, I would love to see more people from the community attend board meetings to share what you want to see from the board with the board and district staff.
2025 and 2026 Budget Follow-up
Last month, I referenced a few questions I had about this year and next year’s budget. Here’s the quick follow-up:
$12,000 in miscellaneous income was an error. The $651 we have received so far is the only miscellaneous income the district will receive. This was budgeted correctly for 2026.
The district has received approximately $136,000 in interest income instead of the budgeted $2,820. The budgeted amount was an error and the $136,000 is the normal expected amount. This was budgeted correctly for 2026.
The 2026 final budget did not differ from the draft in November. The district staff did a great job of budgeting below the initial numbers provided by the county assessor. When the final valuation came in, it was slightly lower, but the budget was already reflective of that.
You can view the December financial reports here.
I’ll share a final version of the adopted 2026 budget once I have it, but it hasn’t changed from the November version here.
Pleasant View’s Financial Sustainability
As I’ve addressed in previous newsletters, Pleasant View’s expenses are outpacing its property tax income. I’d like to have a better idea of what this actually means, and I asked for the district’s accounting firm to provide a financial forecast. I haven’t received that forecast and didn’t have the votes to discuss that at the board meeting.
Our district and community are in uncertain times, and it’s more important than ever to have responsible and transparent leadership on the board. I attempted to put an item on the agenda to discuss why we don’t have a financial forecast of our revenues and expenses to help us figure out the best path forward for the district and to communicate that to the community. But that agenda item was not added because the vote to approve it was 2-2.
I genuinely cannot understand why we wouldn’t want to work with our accounting firm to better understand our financial future, and frankly I think it’s irresponsible and negligent of the board not to at least be working toward that.
The board has requested study sessions (basically a meeting without any voting, just discussing) with West Metro Fire and Golden Fire.
I also want to consider other services outside of just fire - Pleasant View has been proudly independent for decades, but I hear more and more from neighbors that they want more services. The biggest complaint I hear against being part of a city is that residents would not get more services with higher property taxes. I don’t think that’s true, but it would be useful to understand, for our available options, what the difference in property taxes would actually be.
Prospect Parks and Recreation District is our neighboring parks district in Applewood on the east side of South Table Mountain. The board has also asked the district staff to explore that option. Camp George, Westblade, and Orchard Park are all owned by the county, so that could complicate merging into another parks district. But we’re looking into it.
I know Pleasant View has gone through a tremendous amount of change just in the last five years, and this is another big, possibly scary-sounding, change. I want to hear from you what your concerns are, what your priorities are, and if there’s anything we’re missing. Reach out any time!
This discussion will be a focus of the January and February 2026 board meetings. I know 4 p.m. on a weekday is a tough time to come, but if you can, please do!