We have all heard it, the old saying about lemons and lemonade. Well, the city of Pueblo just made lemonade. And it was a stretch of the iconic Arkansas River, at least the part that bisects the city, that it metaphorically turned to this sweet summer drink. 

For as long as Pueblo has been around, there has been a section of the Arkansas that has created a conundrum for the city. Locals always knew it had possibilities, but no one knew exactly how to thoughtfully exploit them. Until now.

The city, with a big helping hand from the Pueblo Water Works, finally tamed an often-dangerous part of the river, turning it into what may now be southern Colorado’s most inviting surfing, boogie boarding and watersports venue. But that’s just the bait. There’s a ton of more reasons to check things out.

The river’s redesign, said Pueblo Conservancy District’s Corinne Koehler, has now made it safe for Puebloans and anyone else to dip their toes into the water. For years, the spot where Pueblo’s new water park now sits was an invitation for disaster. “Several (drowning) deaths,” tragedies that are almost predictable, occur each year, said the past Conservancy president. That, along with a desire to turn a chronic life-threatening issue into something positive, she said, “necessitated the reconfiguration.”

Most rivers have spots like this where swimmers can often get trapped in churning waters, where a strong flow creates aerated circulating currents. So dangerous are these spots that even the strongest swimmers can’t escape. Boaters, kayakers, swimmers and anglers have all been casualties.  

The river’s flow can be both placid and unpredictable, said Koehler. But thanks to an $11 million effort by the city’s water works, “they just did it,” transformed an often-unforgiving stretch of river into the proverbial ‘lemonade.’  

Earlier this summer, the water park was christened and opened to the public. Success came almost immediately. “It’s eleven acres,” Koehler said, and “a whole new way to enjoy the river and areas for surfing, tubing, for little kids. It’s created a new amenity for the community to enjoy.”  

The new venue, for which the water park is but a single element, complements the city’s Riverwalk that cuts a line across Union Avenue. Over the last few years, said the Wisconsin ex-pat, new hiking and biking trails and two pedestrian bridges have been added. “People can walk for miles.”

While the city’s ready to entertain locals and, ideally, lure out of town visitors to ‘dip their toes,’ Koehler said there remains one big challenge that, when complete, will make it perfect for a visit. “It’s still in the stage where the city is a little behind on getting decent parking…we’re working on a master plan.”

The location where the river’s evolution has taken place, said Koehler, has been nothing short of amazing. “Over the years, going back to the thirties, when you needed to dump something, you just dumped it on the banks of the river. It was not a ‘recreation thing.’ But today, “people are now realizing that it’s a gem.”

The new ‘gem,’ said Koehler, was on full display in mid-July with SCARF, the first-ever Steel City Arkansas River Festival. It included something for everyone. “It was just one day,” she recalled. “At least 1,500 people came.” She estimated that close to half of those taking part in the inaugural event were from outside Pueblo. 

But the new water park is just one link in the city’s stretch of the river. “I think it would be 22-30 miles” of things to do along the river, Koehler estimated. “There are trails from Lake Pueblo where you can ride from there all the way to the University.” 

There is also the lure of ‘catching the big one,’ for anglers curious about fishing this part of the Arkansas. The region is also a gold mine “for birding and enjoying nature.” 

One extra bonus that will certainly entice just about everyone, said Koehler. Not only is everything free, but “it’s a whole new way of seeing the city of Pueblo.”   

The era of ‘business as usual,’ may have come to an end on our birthday—the nation’s birthday. The candles may have blown out on July 4th when President Trump, with a backdrop of Republican congressmembers, signed legislation he’d nicknamed his ‘big, beautiful bill.’ 

The legislation—900-plus pages in length—signaled a change in the way the country works, most especially for states and cities who are the overseers charged with keeping ‘the trains running on time.’

With the president’s signature, a surreal form of cursive that by now everyone knows, but few can precisely interpret, rechanneled the way federal money will be dispersed. 

For states dependent on a set amount of federal money to fund schools, build and maintain roads and bridges, handle public health and, otherwise, maintain a degree of predictability in everyday life, the ‘big, beautiful bill’ was a wake-up call. 

The legislation slashed anticipated money for a slew of things, from SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), the program designed to lend a hand to low-income families for food assistance, to Medicare and Medicaid, decades-old programs that address senior health and low-income families. 

Cuts to social service programs, including SNAP, WIC (Women, Infants and Children), and Medicare and Medicaid, may be devastating to millions of Americans who rely on them for basic survival. Combined cuts to these programs equal an estimated $1.75 trillion. Cities are now left wondering just how they’re going to adjust to this new and ‘stream-lined’ way of doing business.

Steve Nawrocki, Executive Director of Pueblo’s Senior Resource Development Agency, says passage of the new legislation has his organization—one already facing daunting fiscal challenges—scrambling to move into this new era of austerity.

“Last year we cut a half million dollars,” from its operating budget, Nawrocki said. Trump’s pet legislation, the BBB, means once again trimming programs, including Meals on Wheels, a program that delivers meals to low-income seniors who often are homebound or have no other means of getting out to do their own food shopping. 

In the last few years, the former Pueblo City Council president said, Meals on Wheels had already been pared down. “We had seven days a week (delivery)…and three to four hundred stops.” Today that number, he said, is half. 

But it’s not just delivering meals that makes the program a lifeline. “That delivery could be the only person they have contact with,” While drivers are told to keep a schedule, “we’ve always encouraged them to stop and speak. Sometimes people are desperate to speak to another person.” 

Even before passage of the president’s July 4th legislative passage, a ton of American cities were facing their own fiscal challenges. In Pueblo, Mayor Heather Graham recently forewarned that the city was looking at a $25 million-dollar budgetary shortfall. She floated the idea of a one percent tax increase voters may decide in November. 

While the shortfall is serious and needs to be addressed, Pueblo City Council’s Dennis Flores said, the BBB is a compounding factor. The loss of SNAP funds, cutbacks in Medicare and Medicaid and the need to deal with the day-to-day business of the city, which depends on federal grants to cover the costs of so many of these things, “You don’t really know the impact.” 

But while the impact may be unknown, said Flores, there are some very real guesses that not only Pueblo, but cities across the country are already bracing themselves for. 

Medicare and Medicaid “have been propping up hospitals for a long time,” said the retired insurance man. With announced funding cutbacks, “you will be seeing outlying hospitals shutting down.” With existing medical options disappearing in smaller communities, hub cities, like Pueblo, will be obvious landing places for people seeking medical attention. “We’ll be seeing an influx” at Pueblo hospitals, including emergency room visits “which are more expensive.”

Another tax being considered is one that has been on Pueblo’s books for 40 years. It is a half-cent sales tax that funds the Pueblo Economic Development Corporation’s efforts aimed at attracting and bringing new businesses to Pueblo. 

Flores says he does not like the mayor’s proposal to hike the sales tax. But maintaining the half-cent sales tax, he said, has proved its worth in bringing economic growth to the city.