So if a suggested citizen would like to increase funding in the area, they should suggest an area for the decrease of funding as well.

I will now call the names from those signed up, starting with Derek Wheeler.

And make sure the green button is on so that we can hear you and state your name for the record, and you have three minutes.

Derek Wheeler.

President Crow Iverson, President Pro Tem Risley, distinguished members of City Council.

My name is Derek Wheeler.

I'm a Carol Springs resident, and I have proudly served with Color Springs Fire Department for over 30 years, the last 13 as a battalion chief.

Of our 18 chief officers, only Chief Royal has been in tenure longer than me.

I tell you that because three decades with the CSFD have given me not only experience and perspective, but also a deep personal investment in the well-being of both this city and the fire department.

The last time I stood at this podium and addressed city council was during the recession in October of 2008.

As the newly promoted captain, I said publicly it's wrong to ask those who deliver city services to pay more than those who receive them.

17 years later, that statement still holds true.

In 2026, CSFD firefighters of all ranks will be 10 to 18% below their market.

That means firefighters will make 14,000 less than their peers.

Paramedics, 11,000 less.

Driver engineers, 19,000 less.

Lieutenants, 14,000.

Captains, 16,000.

And battalion chiefs will make 25,000 less than their front-range peers.

To simply reach market would require an additional 10 million dollars, raising the 2026 fire department budget from 109 million to 119 million.

In other words, the citizens are getting 119 million dollar fire department, but firefighters are having to pick up the tab for the last 10 million.

That's not support for public safety, as we so frequently hear from elected officials and city leadership.

That's balancing the budget on the backs of your employees.

Here's some additional perspective on the inequities experienced by firefighters.

The average Collar Springs resident pays 112 in property taxes for city services.

Using a CSFD driver engineer as an example, in 2026, they will pay $19,000 more than their neighbors through below market wages to receive the exact same city services.

That is neither sustainable nor is it an ethical business model.

During your 2026 budget work session, Councilman Linewerber asked Chief Royal how firefighters feel about their low pay.

His response, hmm.

You know, hmm.

Let me state clearly for the record.

Chief Royal's response in no way reflects the sentiments of your firefighters.

The truth is we feel undervalued, and we want the practice of subsidizing city services through lost income to end.

I don't expect you to fix this in the 2026 budget, but please acknowledge that Colorado Springs has serious and dire structural revenue problems.

Have the courage to stop talking and start doing something about it.

Make it so that every time you say you support public safety, you can do so knowing your firefighters are paid fairly and that we truly feel supported.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I don't see me at this time.

Next up we have Kurt Crum.

Hello, Kurt Crum, Color Springs Fire Department, Local Five.

Council President Crow Iverson, President Risley, President Pro Tem Risley, and honorable members of Council.

I'm Kurt Crum, President of Colorado Springs Professional Firefighters Local Five.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today about the proposed 2026 budget and the future of public safety in our city.

Fire Chief represented his budget and addressed your questions prior.

I stand before you today to share the concerns of men and women of the Colorado Springs Fire Department.

Concerns that not only affect our firefighters, but the safety of our entire community.

The chief has spoken about the growth our department needs or will need to meet the city's expanding demands.

That growth is essential.

But how can we talk about growth when we can't fully fund what we already have?

Let me share a few examples.

Current funding is inadequate for fire truck and engine replacement.

Some of our apparatus are over 25 years old and are still operating on the front lines.

Nationally, departments replace trucks every 12 to 15 years.

Here in Colorado Springs, we're on a 17-year replacement plan, and we're falling behind.

Old apparatus become unreliable and they will fail.

That puts lives at risk.

Fire stations.

A large portion of our stations are in disrepair.

Some are so outdated they most likely will need to be rebuilt entirely.

Yet there's no funding identified, even though the cost will reach into the tens of millions of dollars.

SCBAs are self-contained breathing apparatus are nearing the end of their lifespan.

The manufacturer no longer supports them.

They will need to be replaced in the next couple of years.

That replacement cost will be around $5 million.

There is no designated funding for this.

Salaries, as Chief Wheeler just spoke to, our firefighters are highly trained professionals, yet they earn 10 to 18% below the median in comparable cities.

To keep the best people and recruit the best people, we must pay fairly and competitively.

Well, an increase to the public safety sales tax, if voted on and passed and earmarking the sales tax revenue from marijuana sales to fund a needed training and academy in 2026 will be a huge help.

Neither are stable long-term solutions.

They rise and fall with the economy, and during downtime, downturns, essential funding disappears.

That's why I urge the council to consider proposing a modest property increase dedicated to public property tax increase dedicated to public safety.

Even 100 per property per year makes a meaningful difference.

Unlike sales tax, property tax provides consistent, predictable funding and the stability we need to maintain, replace, and grow our services over time.

I understand that raising taxes is never easy, but continuing the same path will only make these challenges worse.

We owe it to our citizens and to the men and women who protect them to find a sustainable solution.

Thank you.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, from your position, what is the top priority that requires funding?

Any of the four that I just listed, obviously employees being paid to that median market, which is something the city has said that that's what their stated goal is to always do.

We continue to fall behind on that.

The farther we fall, we'll never catch up.

We have too many just things against us, table ratcheting, things like that.

So if we don't manage that first, we're gonna start losing people, and that's just a fact, or we won't have people come here to fill spots as they open.

There are gonna be other departments that pay better that offer things that we just can't based on that.

Second would be apparatus.

Our apparatus are woefully short in some places.

We have some nice apparatus, but some of it, I ride a truck that is 28 years old.

That is a frontline apparatus that we only have six in service every day in the city.

It's 28 years old.

There's an engine company in service right now that's 29 years old.

That is too old.

It is obsolete, it is unreliable.

You can't find parts, it is expensive to maintain.

And our SCBAs, that is a significant problem.

Without SCBAs, we cannot do our jobs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

RC Smith.

Hi, my name's RC Smith.

I've had the chance to address counsel before.

I know several of you from talking about evacuation routes and things like that.

But I started on the department in February of 1974.

So I've been through a few budget hearings like this.

Things go up and down and things are good.

But the thing that I'm looking at now being what's called an old higher retiree because I started before 1980.

And I'm not gonna try to hide this fact at all.

But if the active people don't get any raise, the retirees don't get any raise.

But our costs continue to go up just like everybody else.

So I'm a retired battalion chief.

Um, like I said, started before all these young men and women were even born on the department.

And that 25,000 that Chief Wheeler talked about, if you retire at half pay, that's 12,000.

That's a thousand dollars a month.

That's pretty significant.

Now let's pare that down a little more.

On the old hire plan that I retired on, there aren't a lot of us left.

So we'll be gone pretty soon, so we won't be dragging the pension fund down.

But in those days, all the firefighters were men, and a lot of those widows are still alive.

The firefighter retires at half pay.

He passes away, the widow is still alive, she gets 70% of that.

So now, if we're using the battalion chief number, it's 70% of that $12,000.

So that's like 7500.

But that's a significant amount of money for an 80-year-old woman that may not or may or may not be Social Security eligible.

So all this stuff has a real personal impact on not a large group of people, but a people that worked really hard to serve the city and worked.

I worked for 38 and a half years.

The thing that I'd like to build on what some of the people before me said, and Chief Wheeler said it perfectly, in my mind.

And I think uh council president you said some but if you want something funded, where should that money come from?

The the fire department pay money should come from the fire department.

We're talking about taking a five million dollar hit, and just two months ago I got an email they're opening a new station by the New Life Church and staffing it, and staffing a fire companies, roughly two million a year.

Well, that math just doesn't work for me.

And it doesn't work for me having been an operations officer on the department.

You can't be spending money you don't have.

You cross-staff something or you move things around or you reduce staffing.

I don't, there's a lot of different solutions.

None of them really good.

You know, obviously getting more money is better, but that's not gonna happen in the next month.

But we can reallocate money the way it is, and the department can reallocate some of those resources because basically they they build a department they can't afford to staff.

That that's nonsensical.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next we have Carol Beckman.

Okay.

Carol Beckman, new topic, parks.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak on the city budget.

Please restore funding for parks and make the cuts proportionate and fair.

The budget overview has a table of total general fund money per department with the absolute change from 2025 to 2026, but not the percentage change.

I copied the numbers into a spreadsheet to calculate the percentage change and emailed that to you.

Looking down the percentage change column is telling.

Other than capital projects, parks is the only line with a cut in double digits.

Parks is being cut 10.5%, while the general fund as a whole is down 2.5%.

Once again, parks is bearing a disproportionate share of budget cuts.

In 2008, parks received 8.4% of the general fund, but 4.4% in 2025.

In the proposed budget for 2026, parks is down to 4.0%.

That's so low as it has been since 2009 and 2010 when parks funding was severely cut because of the recession.

Those cuts were never restored, so parks has a huge maintenance backlog.

Another cut puts parks even farther behind.

Please don't cut parks more than other departments.

I also want to take some a moment to remember Merv Bennett, who loved the city.

I was reminded that at a meeting for parks and parks uh meeting for boards and commissions, he gave me this city flag pin, and he commented that the city flag is a best kept secret.

The card inside reads Cairo Springs municipal flag.

The plan for the flag was submitted to Cairo Springs City Council in the summer of 1912 by Dr.

Caroline Spencer on behalf of the civic league.

The official resolution adopting the flag contained this description.

The white field is intended to represent the cleanliness and health of the city.

The blue border are blue skies.

The shield carries the sun, of which you are justly proud.

The mountain stand for Pikes Peak, and on it are pictured the gold ingots of our mining industries.

The green band around the shield represents the park system surrounding the city.

How many cities represent their parks on its flag?

Thank you.

Next up we have Brittany Lancer.

Hello there.

Um I'm here, and as a representative for my company, High Roots Wellness.

Um, my biggest concern that I like city council to consider, I guess, what this is.

I noticed that the Meadows Park Community Center was recently closed.

I know that there are talks currently about what other options there can be, but that does bring up at least to me a concerning trend of if it doesn't have another if there isn't something else.

What's going to stop the city from the budget from being you know going after the other community centers in our community as we talk about having a healthy uh basically community?

I apologize, I'm a rep.

Um I also just wanted this just to sit in and kind of get more understanding of um what are we going to do to support other community services as the budget is being cut.

Um other than that, I do not have anything else to say, and thank you for your time.

Up next, we have Joyce Salazar.

Good evening.

My name is Joyce Salazar.

I'm the executive director of Resilient Inspired Strong Engaged or Rise Southeast.

We're a community-based organization dedicated to strengthening Southeast Colorado Springs and like neighborhoods, such as Stratton Meadows and Hillside.

Through um resident-led change, we have accomplished much in Southeast Colorado Springs.

And when our neighbor neighbors from Stratton Meadows called, we answered.

I've lived and worked in Southeast Colorado Springs for over 40 years.

And so I've seen firsthand how vital our community spaces are for families, youth, and neighborhood stability.

I'm here tonight to speak about the proposed 2026 budget and the closure of Meadows Park Community Center, and a statement that was in the Gazette Telegraph on September 18th of this year that said that department leaders have spent months looking at looking for expenses to cut heading into the next year, and that the parks director identified the city's four community centers as options to the cut.

So we have seen reduced programming in our centers, out of school programming, summer programming that our youth have been very involved in, and now to hear the potential closing closing of other community centers is devastating.

For years, Meadows Park has been more than a building.

It's been a safe, trusted place where children learn, grow, and connect when school is out and parents are working.

When those programs disappear, our kids lose more than activities.

They lose mentors, structure, and a sense of belonging.

I recognize the city is focusing on serious budget constraints and difficult decision decisions, but cuts like these don't just trim expensive, they shift burdens.

When reductions happen here first in these places, it sends an unintended message that some neighborhoods matter less than others.

That's not the kind of balanced or inclusive community that we strive to be.

Thank you.

Emily Tameo.

Um here shortly, um, being sworn in in November.

I stand before you because I'm a long-term Colorado Springs resident.

I moved here when I was uh 12 years old, um, right before 9-11.

Um I've lived in the north side.

I'm a graduate of Pine Creek High School and UCCS.

Um, grew up in the north side of District 20, um, lived in um Glen Eagle for the majority of my life, but have since moved down here to the southeast part of Colorado Springs for the past three years now.

I stand before you because we are here, all of us are here in this room, wishing that there had been more conversation, more outreach to the community, more outreach to the people being impacted by these incredible sweeping cuts.

Fire, police, safety, public safety.

Meadows Park Community Center.

We may talk about the numbers of Meadows Park Community Seminar.

We may talk about um, you know, where are we gonna balance the budget?

What else are we gonna cut next?

But I stand here to tell you and plead with you that if these types of cuts are made to the community to our safety without any conversation except in the very midnight last hour when we know this is gonna go through.

Firefighters are here, police folk are here, community centered folk are here because we here have to say something.

We don't know how where else to cut when you're cutting either the future of children or the future of our safety of the fires or the future of people's lives, whether it be death on the roads, shivering in the street at night because of lack of homeless outreach, or the fact that we have climate change with multiple fires and possible drought in 2027-2028.

You turn to us to for solutions when you make sweeping cuts, months of planning, when we are sitting here with weeks to think about the future of our lives.

I have seen in living in the north side of Carlos Springs, now living to the south side, the discrepancy and disparity in the resources that are offered here.

Don't tell me that our city exists in equality.

Don't tell me that this money cannot be rethought with more input from nonprofits who are going to be bearing the burden of these cuts.

Please take this into consideration.

Now and for the future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lonnie Mira.

Yes, Councilmember and everybody.

My name is Lonnie Mira, and I lived here for a long time since I was a kid.

And I believe in Carl Springs.

I believed in a lot of respect for council people and mayors and whoever runs a city.

But this year and whatever, since you guys I don't know what happened here.

But you know, it shows that you guys jump in the gun and not really think about the people.

You're thinking about the council.

Well, shall we cut back?

We'll share back.

Just like you about to come in about the part, the centers.

Yes, I heard about this thing too.

The closed ours.

Our center's been there almost 43 years for or more.

We never had any problems with the council.

In fact, all the council members, Bob I called them, Leon Young, Make Peace, were always there to support us.

See what we needed help with.

Not once since you guys come down there.

You came down last week because we're close.

If you didn't close those doors, you wouldn't have been there.

Our council member for our area did show up at our meeting.

So that tells you right there.

If you're gonna be a council member and support the neighborhood, then support us.

Listen to what we have to say.

Don't cut us off.

We need that center open.

Because you got people not just for kids, you got seniors, you got people who have disabilities and stuff with countless are it's not all taxes stuff.

If they walk go in that door, they're welcome.

The people listen to them, talk to them and stuff.

Wherever they need help, they find the finding help for them.

Close the door, you're hurting them and you're hurting your police department and the fire parking.

You just could have people's gonna be just riding, making trouble, sleeping in the park, please sleep in all the place.

People should call.

Well, I guess we may are.

I guess somebody doing this.

Why?

Because you guys didn't wasn't kind of leave the door open before we could help them.

You close them out.

And that's not right.

No, as council members or whatever you want to call yourselves.

You know, your lecture time is coming up, and I try to let everybody know.

Lunch is coming up.

Remember what these council members did to you.

They closed your doors, they closed their funding, they did all that.

The others didn't do that much.

Why are you guys doing it?

Why are you guys doing all this?

Do you have an answer?

Has anyone else come to us and say, well, we're doing this because we don't feel like you need it?

Or we're doing it because we don't care for your neighborhood.

Exactly what you guys did to us.

You close those doors on saying we don't bother with us.

We got a lot of sponsors of the fire department.

They're there every time we need to have funding up.

Police department are always there.

And the neighborhood or is comfortable with them because they know who their fire department was and who the police officers were.

You close the door, you took that away from the fosters, plus the people.

So you guys sit on your desk, sit where you want, but think about what you're doing.

These people need those centers, not just our center, all of them.

Those centers are built for a reason.

You guys were just probably new in town.

You guys wrote in resident resident rights here.

Well, that's people were.

So just think about the next election.

Thank you.

Trish Anderson.

Good evening, Council.

This is Trish Sanders.

Some of the stuff that I have to talk about has already been talked about, but I'm gonna reiterate on some of it, I guess.

Um things that have been brought to my attention from people in the neighborhood and stuff that need to be discussed.

One of the big points that some of the people in the neighborhood have brought to me is um, besides having the place reopened, um is there's a friend of mine who has a grocery store, and um he's willing to come down here and bring his store down here.

It's a bargain mart, and they're their funding and stuff is um I don't know how to say it.

Bar bargain prices, I guess to say this good food and stuff like that.

Also, with having him down here, his place down here.

Um, that would be a place also to help bring in the uh food bank and stuff to help with that with the neighbors.

This is a desperate area for for to get rid of food bags.

Um, another thing that they brought to my attention was the police department.

Um we have a problem.

We the police department come there and they're very busy.

Um, but the the concern was is if there was a place to open the community center again, if at least to have an office there to have one or two officers there during the daytime to where it would help in the community down there.

We have such a problem with crime and gangs in our neighborhood anymore, and I'm sure that there's problems and stuff in other neighborhoods too.

But we have problems, a big problem right now of teen gangs from the rage, the ages of 13 to 18 years old, they're going around robbing stores, stabbing people with knives when they try to stop them.

They go around and they were chasing a guy.

This has all been on the news, uh, and killed a 19-year-old kid in the parking lot.

We need more help with the police department down there, and this is from the people in the community, because it's not feeling safe.

Um, the big problem down there is what everybody has brought to my attention, and there's other people here that can uh to to verify it.

The big big problem there is safety in that neighborhood, and people are not feeling safe in that neighborhood anymore.

We need more police protection down there.

Um, and um the the big problem besides the seniors, the the uh food banks is a big problem with the kids, they have no place to go now, and that's really disgusting because these were places uh safe places for the kids to get go to when they get out of school, uh, and to be there uh when they get out of school before their their folks get off of work.

They need safety there.

We really need your help.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Karen Fleming.

Hi.

Hi, everybody.

My name is Karen Fleming.

I thank you for the other night of coming to Meadows Park Community Center.

I think we're talking about safety, security, and savings.

I think the police department, the fire department, and uh community centers are all about those things too.

They're about saving people, they're about taking care of, and we're all about that for our community and this city to be a place that people will love to come to.

We have to be inviting, and we have to take care of our own to begin with.

And I think Meadows Park Community Center is one of those places, and I know for a fact, because I worked there for 17 years until the door shut was not my choice to leave.

It wouldn't still be my choice to go.

I would like in any way to help the community because I believe that's the heart of all of us is every time we take care of somebody, we are also helping and taking care of ourselves.

Is every time we take care of somebody, we are also helping and taking care of ourselves.

We need to take care of our fire department and our police department too, because we all are joined together, and we work for the same things for safety, security, and saving.

And I would like to hope that that's what we're going to do.

And we're going to stand up for our people, and we stand for and about our people and with them through everything that they're enduring.

And believe me, we are all enduring an awful lot because of a budget, because of a number.

And I know budgets can be moved and changed.

And because we became a victim of it.

We don't want to be a victim.

We want to be a hero.

We want to continue to be the community's hero and show that we can and will take care of everybody at any time.

But you've got to give us the door to open and have that door remain open and allow and trust us.

And it becomes a partnership and has been felt like it hasn't been that partnership.

So I would like that we would get that back and stand in front of you many times and thank you all for many things.

I appreciate your time.

I appreciate you came and talked with us.

And I hope that we get to be on that committee.

I, for one, would love to, because I've been there a long time, and they are a heart.

My heart too.

They are a piece of me.

So I appreciate your time, attention, and I wish you the best in this.

My heart's yours.

Thank you.

At this time, we have no one else signed up for public comment tonight.

If there are no other questions or comments from the dais, then this special meeting is adjourned.

Can I make a quick comment on that?

Of course.

Councilman Williams.

I just wanted to state for the record that when Meadows Park was slated to be closed, and yes, that is in my district.

Councilmember Hen came to me and asked if she could essentially step in my place and lead the effort.

For those of you who don't know, I've been um medically out and not been able to do as much as my normally overly busy self undertakes.

But I would really appreciate it if you would understand that she has agreed to help me with this process.

I promise I wasn't abandoning you all.

And Councilmember Hunjam has done an excellent job keeping me abreast of things that are going on.

And I'm sure you all know, even for us, it feels like it happened overnight.

So we're working with the information that we have, and we'll figure out how to get from here to there.

But I just wanted to make that the public aware of that situation.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Hinjamin.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Um, I want to say that first of all, um, I'm really grateful for how many people are here in chambers right now.

Clearly, we had a lot of local five here supporting a fire, and uh, and we heard from fire.

Um, but since I've been on council, this is my fifth public hearing on the budget, and I'm pretty sure it's the most people we've had in chambers for a budget conversation from the public.

Um, I think 15 was the maximum who have ever signed up to speak to us about the city budget.

Um, and it's really important that you're here.

And um uh Karen, I I love safety, security, and saving.

Um, thank you for that frame and way of thinking about what we're dealing with.

And I heard someone else say, uh, I think it was actually uh maybe Kurt uh said uh we don't expect you to deal with this in this budget year, but we have to do something.

And essentially what what I hear, and what the conversation we must be having as a council, um, but much more importantly as a city and as um taxpayers, is what are we willing to pay for the level of service that we expect and deserve?

And we have not had a public safety sales tax increase since 2001.

Um, I love the idea, by the way, of looking at property tax um as a way of addressing some of these things because perhaps it's a bit more stable.

Um, but the bottom line is that we are cutting critical services, and the cutting of a community center absolutely is going to impact safety and security.

Um, we don't necessarily um I don't think agree on this council about if that's government's responsibility or not.

I certainly do.

I'd love to see a community center, at least one in every single district and a senior center as well, because I think when a community is engaged and we help provide those structures to um help support each other, which is what I saw, by the way.

And uh, and I um thank you, uh Councilmember Williams, for your for your comments.

It was a beautiful turnout at that community center.

Um, people really wanting to be engaged and be a part of the solution.

Um it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Um, and I think our job as the city is to help provide that structure for people to be able to come and serve one another.

We all have to be a part of this as a city.

Um and I do believe there is real concern, specifically about fire and and police.

I'll talk for fire about fire for just a minute because you all are here.

Um your fire chief did present to us at our request um an email uh just last week with um you know the long-term forestation needs at almost 80 million dollars that we need to be building, and and we don't we don't even have the plan for how we're gonna fund that right now.

Um apparatus and and one-time cost at almost 70 million dollars, not to mention salaries and ensuring that we can retain um staff.

So I've been saying this for a long time.

I think my colleagues are probably sick of me saying it, but we are not gonna grow our way out of this problem.

We just aren't.

And so we have to have start having some really important and tough conversations about what is most important to us as a city and how are we going to pay for it.

Um we we are cutting 38 staff, they're they're gone actually already.

Our staff are taking furloughs, minus our first responders, but you know, it's it's we're taking very drastic measures.

We're we're closing a community center, um, we're not doing a fire training next year.

Um I I trust our fire chief that we can get by one year without that.

It's not ideal, but what about the next year and the next year and the next year?

And so um I'm glad you're here.

It's really important that our taxpayers come and talk to us about the city budget.

Um it is one of the key things that city council does is to approve the budget.

But we also we don't, you know, we can help generate the revenue, and that means referring things to the ballot to say, hey, City of Colorado Springs, do you want to pay for the services that that we need?

And again, that's really tough because everybody's having a hard time, right?

We're paying more at the grocery store, we're paying more for insurance, we're paying more for everything.

And it's only getting worse as SNAP benefits are disappearing, housing prices are going up.

Um I could go on and on.

I mean, it is it is getting really hard.

But I really do believe that when we decide what is important to us, and we want something to happen, that we can make it happen.

Those needs are not going to be taken care of in this budget year.

But in the next two, five, ten years with really thoughtful planning, um, we can start addressing the needs of our fire department, the needs of our police department, really determine what does our parks department need?

How does it continue?

Carol, to get um disport disproportionate cuts from the rest of the city.

So I I just want to say thank you all for coming.

Um I will also say that there are some members of this council who actually are considering and and would like for the city to budget flat revenue as opposed to the modest increase of what is it, Share, one point 1.4%.

That would be another three some million dollars in cuts.

Where's that gonna come from if that's what this council decides to do?

So your being here tonight is really important in saying what matters to you as taxpayers and as citizens, and what I hear is it is safety, it's security, it's saving one another.

So thank you for being here tonight.

I appreciate you being here.

I hear you, I take it very seriously, and um and talk to your neighbors and uh and and get other people to pay attention to what is happening with your city and your city budget.

Thank you.

You can clap, it's okay.