PURA offers to staff Pueblo County’s new CRA; commissioners seek guarantees on autonomy

Cherish Deeg, Executive Director of the Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority, told the county commission the urban renewal authority can help staff and manage a newly created county Community Revitalization Authority under a management agreement. “I’m Cherish Deeg, I’m the Executive Director of the Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority,” she said, and described PURA’s long experience with tax-increment financing and revenue bonds dating to 1959.

Deeg proposed a joint management arrangement in which urban renewal staff would “staff the CRA” and report to a CRA board while the county would retain decision authority. “So we would basically just be additional staff that you would not necessarily have to bring forward and staff through the county,” she said, positioning PURA as a facilitator rather than a final decision-maker.

Commissioners welcomed the idea but raised governance questions. Miles Lucero said, “I think this has a lot of potential,” and asked whether PURA had discussed the approach with the city’s PURA board; Deeg said the urban renewal board had given direction to pursue the conversation. Several commissioners emphasized the county’s need to keep “autonomy” over CRA priorities and recommended that the BOCC review a drafted intergovernmental management agreement and consider whether the BOCC should initially serve as the CRA board.

The board did not take formal action; commissioners asked staff to work with PURA to draft a proposed agreement that would define roles, insurance and operational responsibilities and return for future review and possible resolution.