This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
During the Sept. 12th city council meeting, City Manager Harold Dominguez brought up locating a carousel in Longmont that would cost about $1.3M (new location and building) along with a $47K per year cost.
It was originally brought to the city's attention by Councilmember Christensen, who had been approached by the owner to see if Longmont was interested in having it donated to the city.
Dominguez wanted to know if actually getting the carousel should be an item for discussion on a future agenda. Christensen thought, "it would be a nice addition but that cost was high."
Councilmember Christensen wanted to hear the owner's presentation on it. Mayor Coombs said, "he didn't mind seeing the presentation but we have other problems like affordable housing that really need our attention now." Councilmember Finley said, "she loved carousels but we can't afford it at this time."
A non-profit or for-profit company should do this, not the City of Longmont. Councilmember Moore thought, "it would be good but that it fell outside of what a city does and they should find someone else to do it, like a private enterprise. It's outside the scope of city services." Bagley, who also liked carousels, would not like it brought to Longmont because of projects like the Windy Gap project that need to be funded much more.
Harold Dominguez, City Manager, suggested going back to the donor and creating a grass roots group to make it happen and see if they could develop that. Christensen , who originally brought it to the city, said, "it was represented as being donated, but it sounds like that's no longer the case and she's not really interested in purchasing it from them."
Christensen was not inclined to do it if it "cost us money." She suggested that, "we should get the historical society, a private entity and the town's residents interested in it and see where it goes." She felt, "it could be a great tourist attraction in the future, but we needed to fix the flood mitigation first."
Dominguez said they'd, "reach out and talk about a grass roots effort to make it happen and update the council in the future."
