Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr says August 2020 sales  and use tax collections in the city were up by two percent compared to August 2019.

And in a statement, she posted on her ''Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr Facebook page," the mayor said  "when some candidates spew my administration has been in an economic and budgetary mess - I say, do your homework! It’s simply not true!''

The mayor did not say which specific candidates she was referring to. Mayor Orr finished third in the Aug. 19 Primary Election, behind Patrick Collins and Rick Coppinger. Collins and Coppinger will vie for Mayor of Cheyenne in the Nov. 3 General Election.

The August numbers followed July 2020 sales tax collections that were only down by 1.3 percent in a year-over-year comparison to July of 2019, despite the cancellation of Cheyenne Frontier Days this year for the first time in its history.

CFD has long been considered a major contributor to the local economy. Its impact has been estimated at between $25 million and $27 million annually. The event was cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Cheyenne City Councilman Rocky Case has suggested that the July 2020 sales tax numbers to which the mayor referred did not represent a complete or final tally of sales tax collections when all factors were considered.

Case said recently on the ''Weekend in Wyoming" program on KGAB radio that the final numbers, when completed, would show that the local economy took a much bigger hit this summer from the loss of CFD than the numbers cited by the mayor in regard to city revenues.

Here is the full statement on the mayor's Facebook page:

"FANTASTIC news today regarding the economic health of Cheyenne! We were UP 2% in sales and use tax revenue for August 2020 compared to August 2019!! Full economic analysis as to how this happened, in a pandemic, to follow in the next few days! And in this political campaign season when some candidates spew my administration has been in an economic and budgetary mess - I say, do your homework! It’s simply not true!"

 

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