The Rifle City Council had some changes and big decisions throughout 2024, looking to improve the city one step at a time. 

In March, there were two memorable events, the first being the decision to commit $100,000 to the purchase of the Shoshone Water Rights. Currently, the Shoshone Water Hydro Power Plant is owned by the Public Service Company of Colorado, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy and they are willing to sell to the Colorado River District. Amy Moyer, the Director of Strategic Partnerships for the Colorado River District asked the city of Rifle for the $100,000, that this amount would contribute to the $98.5 million purchase price. They were asking all the municipalities in the area for a contribution to the total. 

The Colorado River District is contributing $20 million to the purchase and are hoping to gather around another $20 million from the municipalities and counties along the Colorado River to then go and ask the federal government for the other $49 million. The amount of $100,000 from Rifle would help immensely for when the Colorado River District needs it in 2027. Councilor Clint Hostettler said this purchase would be historic and he’s glad they’re partnering with the Colorado River District. 

Another big event in March for Rifle was city manager Tommy Klein leaving for Florida. Klein’s wife, Kimberly, was taking trips down to Florida every few weeks to take care of her parents and it became unsustainable for the couple to keep doing so – they eventually made the decision to move down to Florida. 

Klein lived in Raleigh, North Carolina before coming to Rifle and was a police officer there, being an officer, a detective and finally a sergeant. Then when he and Kimberly were on vacation in New Mexico, they came up to western Colorado and Kimberly told him they were moving there. They came out and Klein became the police chief of Rifle. After four years of being the police chief, Klein became the city manager. 

Klein hadn’t had any aspirations to be a city manager and he found out running a city was quite hard, but he did his best to become a great city manager. Mayor Sean Strode and Lieutenant Kuper of the Rifle PD said many great things about Klein, noting his work ethic, his passion for the community of Rifle and motorcycling. Klein said he hoped to come back to Rifle eventually.

Following Klein’s departure, Patrick Waller, the city planner for Rifle, became the interim city manager in Klein’s stead until they found a replacement. Waller was interim city manager for three months, originally supposed to be in that position for six months before the city made a decision about it. However, due to the council’s confidence in Waller and how he’d been doing the city planner job alongside being interim city manager, they didn’t want to ask him to do that for much longer as it was difficult. 

Councilor Chris Bornholdt did vote no on moving Waller up to be the full time city manager and he explained that it wasn’t anything against Waller; he just felt it was happening too soon. He wanted to make sure Waller felt ready and wanted him to be successful. Waller did become city manager and so far, since his takeover of the position in August, hasn’t had any trouble and successfully run the city and helped city council with their decisions. 

Another big change the city of Rifle saw was the departure of council member Brian Condie, who left in September without a lot of warning, leaving Rifle only a month to elect another candidate in his stead. There were two applicants, Michael Clancy from the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and Rick Steffan from the Planning and Zoning Commission. Both are business owners in Rifle and had been there for 40 years. They were both asked questions and eventually Clancy was elected in a four to two decision. 

Clancy grew up in Rifle and has a background in environmental science. He watched the land change as he got older and after meeting his wife, Kirsten, at the University of Idaho and having children, they moved back to Rifle and started his business, EcoPoint. They work on regenerating the land and making the land more inhabitable around Garfield County. They also work in Texas, Montana and other states.