Cheyenne Chamber Leader: City Planning Dept. Is A Problem
Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Dale Steenbergen says the city Planning Department has been a problem "for a long, long time."
Steenbergen has been a long-time critic of what he feels is an overabundance of regulations governing business in Cheyenne, as well as what he considers over-zealous enforcement of those regulations by some city staffers.
He repeatedly clashed with former Cheyenne Mayor Rick Kaysen over those issues during Kaysen's eight years as mayor.
The chamber at one point got behind a proposal to create a new position of city administrator to handle many of the day-to-day decisions of city government, removing most of those duties from the mayor. But Cheyenne voters overwhelmingly rejected that proposal in a 2015 special election.
In regard to the Planning Department, Steenbergen says ''We have fought for business on those issues again and again and again because it's been a struggle."
He says Cheyenne has lost out on millions of dollars worth of new businesses because business owners did not want to deal with the issues he says such ventures face in trying to locate in the city.
Steenbergen says in many cases the businesses have decided "It's better to go to Casper."
But Steenbergen says he is hoping things will change under current Mayor Marian Orr, who assumed office in January, as well as the new members of the Cheyenne City Council.