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<P><A
href="http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14303473">http://www.denverpo<WBR>st.com/news/<WBR>ci_14303473</A><BR><BR><SPAN
id=redesign_default>
<DIV id=articleOverline class=articleOverline>loss of city services</DIV>
<H1 id=articleTitle class=articleTitle>Colorado Springs cuts into services
considered basic by many</H1>
<DIV id=articleByline class=articleByline><A class=articleByline
href="mailto:mbooth@denverpost.com?subject=The%20Denver%20Post:%20Colorado%20Springs%20cuts%20into%20services%20considered%20basic%20by%20many"><B>By
Michael Booth</B><BR><I>The Denver Post</I></A></DIV>
<DIV id=articleDate class=articleDate>Posted: 01/31/<WBR>2010 01:00:00 AM
MST</DIV>
<DIV id=articleDate class=articleSecondaryDate>Updated: 01/31/<WBR>2010
09:17:44 AM MST</DIV><BR><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN>
<DIV id=articleBody class=articleBody>
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class=articleEmbeddedViewerBox></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN></DIV><SPAN></SPAN>
<P>COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and
feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the
urban fabric.</P>
<P>More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark
Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping
firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of
police and fire positions will go unfilled.</P>
<P>The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs
urging users to pack out their own litter.</P>
<P>Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green
spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If
that.</P>
<P>Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower
and fertilizer budget is zero.</P>
<P>City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums
will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open.
Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street
paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10
percent of the need.</P>
<P>"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people,"
said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force
brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."</P>
<P>Some residents are less sanguine, arguing that cuts to bus services, drug
enforcement and treatment and job development are attacks on basic needs for the
working class.</P>
<P>"How are people supposed to live? We're not a 'Mayberry R.F.D.' anymore,"
said Addy Hansen, a criminal justice student who has spoken out about safety
cuts. "We're the second-largest city, and growing, in Colorado. We're in
trouble. We're in big trouble."</P>
<P><B>Mayor flinches at revenue</B></P>
<P>Colorado Springs' woes are more visceral versions of local and state cuts
across the nation. Denver has cut salaries and human services workers, trimmed
library hours and raised fees; Aurora shuttered four libraries; the state budget
has seen round after round of wholesale cuts in education and personnel.</P>
<P>The deep recession bit into Colorado Springs sales-tax collections, while
pension and health care costs for city employees continued to soar. Sales-tax
updates have become a regular exercise in flinching for Mayor Lionel Rivera.</P>
<P>"Every month I open it up, and I look for a plus in front of the numbers
instead of a minus," he said. The 2010 sales-tax forecast is almost $22 million
less than 2007.</P>
<P>Voters in November said an emphatic no to a tripling of property tax that
would have restored $27.6 million to the city's $212 million general fund
budget. Fowler and many other residents say voters don't trust city government
to wisely spend a general tax increase and don't believe the current cuts are
the only way to balance a budget.</P>
<P><B>Dead grass, dark streets</B></P>
<P>But the 2010 spending choices are complete, and local residents and
businesses are preparing for a slew of changes:</P>
<P>• The steep parks and recreation cuts mean a radical reshifting of resources
from more than 100 neighborhood parks to a few popular regional parks. The city
cut watering drastically in 2009 but "got lucky" with weekly summer rains, said
parks maintenance manager Kurt Schroeder.</P>
<P>With even more watering cuts, "if we repeat the weather of 2008, we're at
risk of losing every bit of turf we have in our neighborhood parks," Schroeder
said. Six city greenhouses are shut down. The city spent $19.6 million on parks
in 2007; this year it will spend $3.1 million.</P>
<P>"If a playground burns down, I can't replace it," Schroeder said. Park fans'
only hope is the possibility of a new ballot tax pledged to recreation spending
that might win over skeptical voters.</P>
<P>• Community center and pool closures have parents worried about day-care
costs, idle teenagers and shut-in grandparents with nowhere to go.</P>
<P>Hillside Community Center, on the southeastern edge of downtown Colorado
Springs in a low- to moderate-income neighborhood, is scrambling to find private
partners to stay open. Moms such as Kirsten Williams doubt they can replace
Hillside's dedicated staff and preschool rates of $200 for six-week
sessions.</P>
<P>"It's affordable, the program is phenomenal, and the staff all grew up here,"
Williams said. "You can't re-create that kind of magic." </P>
<P>Shutting down youth services is shortsighted, she argues. "You're going to
pay now, or you're going to pay later. There's trouble if kids don't have things
to do."</P>
<P>• Though officials and citizens put public safety above all in the budget,
police and firefighting still lost more than $5.5 million this year. Positions
that will go empty range from a domestic violence specialist to a deputy chief
to juvenile offender officers. Fire squad 108 loses three firefighters. Putting
the helicopters up for sale and eliminating the officers and a mechanic banked
$877,000.</P>
<P>• Tourism outlets have attacked budget choices that hit them precisely as
they're struggling to draw choosy visitors to the West.</P>
<P>The city cut three economic-developmen<WBR>t positions, land-use planning,
long-range strategic planning and zoning and neighborhood inspectors. It also
repossessed a large portion of a dedicated lodgers and car rental tax rather
than transfer it to the visitors' bureau.</P>
<P>"It's going to hurt. If they don't at least market Colorado Springs, it
doesn't get the people here," said Nancy Stovall, owner of Pine Creek Art
Gallery on the tourism strip of Old Colorado City. Other states, such as New
Mexico and Wyoming, will continue to market, and tourism losses will further
erode city sales-tax revenue, merchants say.</P>
<P>• Turning out the lights, literally, is one of the high-profile trims
aggravating some residents. The city-run Colorado Springs Utilities will shut
down 8,000 to 10,000 of more than 24,000 streetlights, to save $1.2 million in
energy and bulb replacement.</P>
<P>Hansen, the criminal-justice student, grows especially exasperated when
recalling a scary incident a few years ago as she waited for a bus. She said a
carload of drunken men approached her until the police helicopter that had been
trailing them turned a spotlight on the men and chased them off. Now the
helicopter is gone, and the streetlight she was waiting under is threatened as
well.</P>
<P>"I don't know a person in this city who doesn't think that's just the
stupidest thing on the planet," Hansen said. "Colorado Springs leaders put
patches on problems and hope that will handle it."</P>
<P><B>Employee pay criticized</B></P>
<P>Community business leaders have jumped into the budget debate, some
questioning city spending on what they see as "Ferrari"-level benefits for
employees and high salaries in middle management. Broadmoor luxury resort chief
executive Steve Bartolin wrote an open letter asking why the city spends $89,000
per employee, when his enterprise has a similar number of workers and spends
only $24,000 on each.</P>
<P>Businessman Fowler, saying he is now speaking for the task force Bartolin
supports, said the city should study the Broadmoor's use of seasonal employees
and realistic manager pay.</P>
<P>"I don't know if people are convinced that the water needed to be turned off
in the parks, or the trash cans need to come out, or the lights need to go off,"
Fowler said. "I think we'll have a big turnover in City Council a year from
April. Until we get a new group in there, people aren't really going to believe
much of anything."</P>
<P>Mayor and council are part-time jobs in Colorado Springs, points out Mayor
Rivera, that pay $6,250 a year ($250 extra for the mayor). "We have jobs, we pay
taxes, we use services, just like they do," Rivera said, acknowledging there is
a "level of distrust" of public officials at many levels.</P>
<P>Rivera said he welcomes help from Bartolin, the private task force and any
other source volunteering to rethink government. He is slightly encouraged, for
now, that his monthly sales-tax reports are just ahead of budget
predictions.</P>
<P>Officials across the city know their phone lines will light up as parks go
brown, trash gathers in the weeds, and streets and alleys go dark.</P>
<P>"There's a lot of anger, a lot of frustration about how governments spend
their money," Rivera said. "It's not unique to Colorado Springs."</P>
<P><I>Michael Booth: 303-954-1686 or <A
href="mailto:mbooth@denverpost.com">mbooth@denverpost.<WBR>com</A></I></P></DIV></SPAN><BR>Read
more: <A
href="http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14303473#ixzz0eUT628ka">http://www.denverpo<WBR>st.com/news/<WBR>ci_14303473#<WBR>ixzz0eUT628ka</A><BR><BR>
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