In 2018, the City of Cheyenne was awarded $100,000 from Bloomberg Philanthropies through their “Mayors Challenge Champion City.” The application from Cheyenne for the funding included how the city was working to develop an idea and a plan to revitalize downtown and blighted commercial buildings.

City Council President Rocky Case looked into the charges on the account and says that although there are some components for advertising for the downtown area that are consistent with the application, he’s concerned about some of the spending.

“How do bar tabs in Honolulu relate back to downtown development in Cheyenne, Wyoming,” said Rocky Case, City Council President, Ward III. “There’s hotel charges, there’s flight charges, there’s a multitude of charges against this account.”

Mayor Orr’s office released a statement in response to Councilman Case’s questions:

CHEYENNE – City of Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr has released the following statement: “Councilman Case has questioned some of the expenditures from the Bloomberg national challenge grant. The Councilman is mistaken. The expenditures are all appropriate and were used only as authorized under the Bloomberg grant. The Bloomberg grant has been very helpful to the City as it allowed significant activities to occur on behalf of the City without having to use taxpayer funds. In keeping with my long-standing promise of transparency, I have instructed my staff to assemble all of the data and receipts from the expenditures. This will take several days. Once completed, I will be releasing a full accounting of the Bloomberg funds.”