“Bicycle Guy” Pat Collins is too busy looking down on the rest of us to be a good mayor for Cheyenne

BY RICHARD JOHNSON

Why do we hate The Bicycle Guy? I’m talking about Patrick Collins, owner of the Bicycle Station, former City Council member and now candidate for mayor.You should post the whole story, please. Lots of us haven’t lived here our whole lives.

OK. 30 years. So you are letting a grudge from your teenage years color your seemingly adult perception? Honestly, as thoughtful and introspective as you can be, I would have thought better of you.

Like me or hate me, I’m basically who I am due to Collins. 

In 1989, Fort Collins, Colo., was holding skateboard contests for their area sponsored through their local skate shop.

Businessman Patrick Collins is just one of the “good ole boys”

Being 15 years old, we thought this was the normal course of action. So we asked our local shop if they would hold a contest. 

Collins was the manager at the time, and he told us he would do it.  He'd tell us it would happen on Memorial Day, then the Fourth of July, then back-to-school, then Labor Day. Nothing ever happened. In our 15-year-old minds, four months seemed like an eternity of push-backed dates or lies. 

So we did it ourselves. We called all the kids with ramps and slider bars and told them to bring them to Holiday Park on Saturday. We had about 150 attendees and about 36 who entered. 

Since we had no sponsors, we charged $3 entry fee, and first place took all. Everything seemed fine until an 8-year-old kid's mom called the shop and yelled at Collins for the way the judges rated her kid.  

Our friend who worked at the shop told us, “Pat is so pissed at you guys for holding a contest.” When we went into the shop, he blew up at us. Who gave us the right to do this? You guys didn’t pull a permit or get insurance or anything. Fine, you want a contest, there is one this weekend. And there was. We attended both since that’s all we really wanted. 

I had never trusted adults or people in authority. I always felt like I was being talked down to, so I always seemed to rebel. When Clay Sturman died and his family donated money to the skatepark, I wrote a scathing review in a letter to the editor, chastising the city for ineptness for failing to give kids what they wanted. 

It was the first public meeting where I was literally yelled at by city staff. When my friend Delo nominated me as chairman for the skatepark oversight committee, I can still see city staff saying, “Oh yeah, who is Richard Johnson?” I raised my hand and got full-tilt, purple-faced blowout about what I didn’t know, what was I was talking about and how I shouldn’t write things like that to the paper. 

After the meeting, Collins was talking to the Sturman family, and Clay’s mom hugged me. She told me that she appreciated my letter and said I was the person who was going to make sure her son’s legacy was done right. 

I remember Collins telling me in front of her that if I was going to raise so much money, I should go on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” I told him I’d rather do “Jeopardy,” to which he replied with a laugh to Clay’s mom, “I’m not smart enough for Jeopardy.” I replied, “I am.” 

As you can see, our relationship is downright petty and juvenile, but that’s how it ha been for 30 years. 

In 2015 I was asked by the Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce to meet with head Dale Steenburgen, Collins and Tara Nethercott to talk about what I termed the “overthrow the mayor meeting.” The email invite had weird language. 

Why did the Chamber need their CEO, a community leader and an attorney to talk to me? I told them I’d only meet them if I could bring guests of my own. They finally said I could, but they added that didn’t see the point. I told them I wouldn’t announce my guests until breakfast. 

I called reporter Lucas High at the local paper and asked if he wanted an exclusive to my meeting. I was beastly hungover, and he recorded the whole charade. In hindsight, I am now supportive of a city manager, and Collins is running for an office he wanted to make obsolete. 

So why does any of this matter? 

One text I received stated the following: “Dude, I'm not sure why you think Patrick Collins is such a political powerhouse. I mean, yeah, he's in good with the Chamber, but he has all the charisma of a worn-out bar rag. Nobody really likes the dude, except maybe some members of the good old boy network. He might beat Mayor Marian Orr, but he's hardly loved by all.”

Some candidates that I hoped would run have already backed out. You see, several people had talked about Orr’s winning chances in 2020. But after her spat with the governor, some big-money people were looking for their Trojan Horse to take her out. Tons of money was going to fill the coffers of what was deemed a sound, politically safe, boring candidate. A person who would keep things status quo. 

They couldn’t have asked for better with Collins (who, by the way, reportedly backed Orr in 2016). When council members are whispering endorsements already, we're in trouble.

“Good ole boy" is thrown around a lot lately, but Collins’ resume shows how this is going to get thrown down. He's already been on City Council, he has served on bank boards, he is an elite member of the Chamber of Commerce, and he was appointed by the state involving military affairs. 

You can already see from the young bucks and the old guard that they are championing this candidate. You can even see a change in local paper’s editorial coverage in lambasting Orr the same week their Golden Child announced his bid. 

He will even be praised on this blog for his “vision” for the city. He will be endorsed everywhere as the person who will conduct the city’s business in a competent fashion. 

I see it as him looking down from his crow’s nest at all the serfs, just like when you go into his business to ask for help. He is the lord, and we are the peasants. 

I’m already getting texts about weird things that went on in council during his tenure. 

Not that I put much stock in Bill Henderson's Canoe Club conspiracy theory. But this mayoral race just got a little more white collar. 

All Hail Mayor Collins. He's here to fix the pothole known as the Orr regime, or is it “The Orr Dynasty?” 

Richard Johnson is a former City Council member from Cheyenne’s east side