Good morning.

Welcome to the City of Colorado Springs City Council meeting for Tuesday, April 14th, 2026.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Casey.

Here.

Councilmember Crow Iverson.

Here.

Councilmember Donaldson.

Here.

Councilmember Gold.

Excused.

Councilmember Henjam.

Present.

Councilmember Lineweber.

Here.

Councilmember Rainey.

Excused.

Councilmember Risley.

Here.

Councilmember Williams.

Here.

Excuse me, seven present to excuse.

Please join us for the invocation in the Pledge of Allegiance this morning.

Today we're joined by Reverend Amy Strader from the First United Methodist Church.

Good morning.

Good morning, President Crow Iverson and all of the other most excellent members of the City Council and staff of the city.

I want to start this morning just by saying that I know all of us come into this space in a hectic kind of mood.

We've been navigating our morning, whatever that looks like.

And I'm a part of a Facebook group of all female United Methodist pastor moms.

And the other day somebody posted to their colleagues that had older children, maybe grown children, and they said, Will I ever grow out of this time in my life where I get into my car and I think to myself, is there anything I can do to check off something off my list of things to do while I'm driving?

I'm sure they always use talk to text when they're doing things in their car, but it's just an indication of how busy our world can be.

So today I'm gonna invite us into a space of offering just some silence for the past, for the present, and for the future.

Let us now go into a time of thoughtful prayer, of thoughtful attitude, of thoughtful intention.

These silences will help us transition from the pace of our individual lives to the shared purpose of this room.

And all that they have done to acknowledge the foundation that they they built for us and for the history that now allows us to stand here.

Second, a moment for those of us in this room right now.

May we find the clarity to listen well, the patience to debate fairly, and the wisdom to act for those that are not in this room.

May the decisions made in this room today serve the generations who will wake up time and time again to the work long after we are gone.

Amen.

And to the Republic for which stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Moving on to the consent calendar, we will now consider the consent calendar.

These items are acted on as a whole unless a specific item is called off by member of the public or a council member.

Is there anyone wishes wishing to pull anything off of consent calendar?

I need a plan.

And a second, I can't see my screen from Councilman Donaldson.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed.

Moving on to item 5A, will the clerk please read item 5A into the record?

A resolution of appreciation designating April 19th through the 25th, 2026 as National Volunteer Week.

Councilman Lineweber.

Thank you.

Um I'm pretty excited to kind of read this.

I was kind of looking into some details that I'll be sharing, but um the in this resolution, we've got a lot of um uh components that are exciting to share.

So I felt like it was appropriate to first read this, and then we're gonna have Kim King come up and talk.

Um, and she's got a few things to share, and then and then I've got a couple other things to kind of add.

So let's start off.

So a resolution of appreciation designated April 19th through the 25th 2026 as National Volunteer Week.

Whereas April 19th through the 25th is designated as National Volunteer Week to celebrate ordinary people doing ordinary things to improve communities across the nation, and whereas the city of Colorado Springs benefits from thousands of citizens, volunteers who support a wide variety of programs, including Colorado Springs Airport Ambassador Program, the Community Advancing Public Safety Program, CAPS, the many programs offered through the parks, recreation, and cultural services department, and the adopt a waterway program, including Creek Week.

And whereas in 2025, the Colorado Springs Airport had 50 volunteers contribute 2,770 hours of service to the community.

And whereas in public safety community advancing public safety programs, CAPS volunteers provided 440,000 hours of civil engagement to advance public safety.

And whereas in the Stormwater Enterprise Waterways Program, 455 volunteers removed over 7.5 tons of litter from our community waterways to improve water quality and beautify our neighborhoods.

And whereas in the parks, recreation, and cultural services department, over 3,229 volunteers contributed more than 135,936 hours of service to the community.

And whereas the city has appointed over a hundred volunteers to serve on city council appointment boards, commissions, and committees.

These board members dedicate thousands of hours annually advising council on matters of importance, such as land use, public safety, sales tax allocation, parks, and whereas this level of effort calculated at the latest state volunteers rate of $38.74 per hour equates to $6.9 million in service to the community in 2025.

I'm just gonna say that again.

Support and commend those who already volunteer and help many in our community, which is an amazing place to live, work, and play.

Dated at Colorado Springs this 14th of April 2026.

This is really great news.

And Kim, if you can come forward, um, you know, our our city has a heart for volunteerism.

Is that not correct?

Tell us about it, Kim.

That is definitely the case, both from a uh city perspective as well as the entire community.

So thank you very much for the opportunity to recognize this particular resolution.

Again, my name is Kim King.

I'm the acting director for Parks Recreation and Cultural Services.

We always come forward on an annual basis for this recognition and to highlight some of the great work that occurs throughout the city and the community.

National Volunteer Week was actually established in 1974.

This week it really highlights individuals who are taking action, encouraging others as well as our communities to be at the center of positive change.

Again, it's also an opportunity to recognize and thank volunteers who give their time, skills, talents, and passion to causes they care about in Colorado Springs.

Their stories serve to inspire others to take action and discover their collective power to unite in making a difference.

The City of Colorado Springs, as noted in the resolution, has a wide variety of volunteer opportunities with nearly 4,000 individuals volunteering almost 180,000 hours throughout 2025, just one year alone.

In highlighting a couple of those, we definitely wanted to recognize the airport.

Those 50 volunteers actively enhance the customer service experience, especially as we had the recent construction and remodeling.

So they really helped to get people to where they needed to go and thank them along the way, as well as offering comfort and support to travelers and also highlighting all of the beautiful places and spaces if they were coming into town that they could experience.

In 2025, speaking from my department, parks, recreation and cultural services, we had nearly 4,000 volunteers alone contribute almost 136,000 hours of service.

That includes our adopt a park and adopt a trail program, where they removed over 2,400 bags of trash from our parks and trails.

Volunteers help serve almost 104,000 pounds of food to over 2,000 families through our food pantries that we have available.

We also had volunteers lead 148 field trips, sharing Colorado Springs history and culture with almost 6,000 students through the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.

And then finally, our volunteer coaches gave over 68,000 hours.

Without them, our youth programs wouldn't occur.

Coaches are huge for us.

In coordination from that department, I did want to recognize Vera Morrison who's here today.

She is our volunteer coordinator and really helps guide these thousands of people to get them to where they want to be and how they can help.

Within public safety, the CAPS program, as mentioned, had 170 volunteers contribute over 34,000 hours of service and truly Corral Springs Police and Fire Departments and Pike Speak Office of Emergency Management are grateful for these loyal volunteers who love our city and our public safety personnel.

To hear more about that program, I'd like to invite the chiefs to come forward and speak.

Good morning, Randy Royal Fire Chief.

And I really appreciate what you shared there, have a tremendous impact on the fire department in our city.

Great program.

They work with our community outreach doing fire prevention for the community.

We have chaplains, which have a really positive impact on our citizens when they have a tragic event.

But they also work with our firefighters, which is which is just an awesome uh relationship.

Uh we also have our couriers, and our couriers deliver the mail between stations, but also uh critical equipment like our SCBAs, heart monitors, and things like that.

And uh that part has really had a uh straight line impact on a response because we used to, if you go back a couple decades, we used to have to take a firefighter off of our engines to do that task.

So that keeps us in a in a response mode.

And we had one just retire here that did it for over a decade, and he was a uh veteran and was special forces and then worked as a businessman after that, but still wanted to contribute to the community and serve.

So uh we're very thankful for our our uh the thousands of hours that they put in, the financial impact that's a positive impact to us and the city and the the job that they do every day for us.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, Council Adrian Vasquez uh Chief of Police.

I appreciate you being here, Councilmember Lineweber.

The numbers that you shared um are really just stark.

That's a lot of money.

And when we think about the 170 volunteers uh for public uh safety, 34,000 hours, that was about 1.3 million of that money here at the police department.

Everything from our victim advocacy program to help our victim advocates ensure that the administrative tasks are done so that they can get out there and really respond on scene to the victims of crimes, and that's a tremendous help uh to our victim advocacy program.

But we've got disabled parking folks that are out there volunteering their time.

We have VIN verification, really every uh investigative unit that we have uh really benefits from our volunteer program because there's a lot of administrative tasks that detectives might be doing or crime scene investigators might be doing, but we were able to bring those volunteers in and take all that administrative load off of them.

So the amount of work that they do truly is freeing up public servants to get out there and and ensure that our our city is safe.

And I'm I'm greatly appreciative of them and all the work that they do.

Thank you all for uh for showing up on this.

Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming forward.

You know, it's amazing how much our city um really um leans on volunteerism.

It's so so important.

I grew up, you know, every uh at least annually and in the on Sunday morning, we'd get that message on tithing.

And um the ones that the ones that sunk home for me were the ones that really focus on the idea of giving time, talent, and treasure.

And that that's equal value.

That treasure is not really the main thing.

So um the idea of giving your time is incredible, and there's such value.

We just I just read six point nine million dollars.

This is just from what we just talked about here.

So I had staff just kind of curiosity kind of look up a few things.

We have other organizations, and this isn't even by far, and this is such a good news story about Colorado Springs.

2025, 3,487 volunteers, 10,274 hours.

Pikes Peak United Way, 2,105 volunteers, 9,418 hours.

Silver Key, 549 volunteers, 56,899 hours.

That's dedication.

Uh care and share, 4,78 volunteers, 45,000 hours.

Catholic charities, 2,085 volunteers, 66,005 and 36 hours.

Humane society, 1,168 volunteers.

That's 137,397 hours.

1,508 volunteers.

That's 22,001 hours.

Now, just from that short list, that's 15,680 out uh volunteers, 347,666 hours at a value of 13.468 million dollars.

And that's just seven additional organizations, let alone our churches.

All the other groups I didn't mention.

I I left out the YMCA.

I mean, we just quickly thought about what's what's even more community gives back.

And I just can't, we should relish in that a moment and just go, that's amazing.

So many different I'm looking at it several other organizations that are sitting out here right now.

Um that's just an amazing feature.

So anyway, I just wanted to kind of highlight that volunteers.

It's it's not only good for the community, it's good for the soul.

And I encourage everyone to consider giving back.

Thank you, President.

So bring it back to the dice for any comments.

A motion, um, Councilman Henjam.

Uh thank you, madam president, and uh thank you, Councilmember Lineweber, uh, for for really delving into the incredible benefit of uh volunteers in our city.

I just simply would add, um, and and there's there's so much to celebrate here, but um I think volunteering is fundamentally uh a way of just being connected with other people, and it is in giving that we receive, and then and when receiving we give.

So thank you for the highlight for that, council member.

I have a motion from Councilman Henchum and a second from Councilman Um Risley.

And the motion passes seven to zero.

So the Chiefs and the parks will meet us down front for celebratory picture.

We can conclude this resolution.

Moving on to item five B.

Will the clerk please read item five B into the record?

City Council appointments to boards, commissions, committees.

So this morning we have stormwater advisory committee.

Councilman liaison Line Weber and Councilman Henjam recommended reappointment for Kelly Bull, Doug Conlin to the Stormwater Advisory Committee.

Do either council members have comments?

I mean, when someone does a good job, well, I mean, you just say okay.

So there you go.

Yeah.

City County Drainage Board is Council Lea is on.

I recommended the reappointment of Bret Luke.

Um the IRC committee, it's the initial initiative review committee.

A vacancy occurred on the initiative review committee due to a resignation of a current council.

Um to a current member.

Council liaison, Brian Risley and I recommended eval uh elevateing Stacey Gotto, who has served as an alternate member since August of twenty twenty-four to a voting member position.

Additionally, we recommended to reappoint um Chip Frazier.

If there are no additional comments, can I get a motion?

Motion passes seven to zero.

We'll move on to uh mayor's business.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

Travis Easton Mayor's Office.

I have several uh nominations before you today.

Um I'll just read um go ahead, sir.

Sorry, I was anxious.

I need to read the first one in.

Um six A nomination to reappoint Gary Pfeffer to a five-year term on the Colorado Exervant Renewal Authority Board expiring on April first, twenty thirty-one.

With that, sir did such a great job.

There's your first one.

Um Councilman Hinchum and a second from Councilman Um Risley.

Let's vote.

The motion passes seven to zero.

The clerk please read item six B into the record.

Nomination to reappoint Commissioner Laura Nelson for a second term on the Colorado Springs Housing Authority Board of Trustees beginning April first, twenty twenty-six and expiring on April first, twenty thirty.

We have a motion from Councilman Hingum and a second from Councilman Risley.

Let's vote.

One moment.

Sorry, Lauren, who is in the office?

Yeah, I apologize for that.

The motion passes seven to zero.

And will the clerk please read item six C into the record?

Nomination to reappoint Commissioner Eddie Rodriguez for a second term on the Colorado Springs Housing Authority Board of Trustees beginning April 1st, 2026 and expiring on the April 1st, 2030.

Have a motion from Councilman Henjam and a second from Councilman Donaldson.

Let's vote.

The motion passes seven to zero.

Will the clerk please read item six D into the record?

No initiation to reappoint Commissioner Catherine Sullivan of our second term on the Colorado Springs Housing Authority Board of Trustees beginning on February 19, 2026 and expiring February 19, 2030.

Have a motion from Councilman Hingem.

And a second from Councilman Donaldson.

Let's vote.

The motion passes seven to zero.

Will the clerk please read item six E into the record?

Nomination to reappoint Commissioner Amy Cox to second term on a Colorado Springs Housing Authority Board of Trustees beginning April 16, 2026 and expiring April 16th, 2030.

We have a motion from Councilman Lineweber and a second from Councilman Hingem.

Let's vote.

Motion passes seven to zero.

Will the clerk please read item six F into the record?

Confirmation of Andrew Gorgay as an associate municipal court judge.

Turn it over to Judge.

I have some information.

Yes.

Excellent.

Good morning, Judge Kane.

How are you?

Good morning.

Yes.

President Pro Tem.

Madam President Hayden Kane, presiding judge of Carr Springs Municipal Court.

I'm here to present the mayor's nomination for the open associate municipal court positions.

The first is Andrew Gorge.

He served as county attorney for Garfield County and previously rose to first assistant county attorney in El Paso County, advising elected officials and senior leadership on all aspects of local government while overseeing aspects, our attorneys and staff.

His practice has included state and federal litigation, employment and land lose use law, public records and open meetings, and complex government matters.

He began his career as a deputy district attorney, completing more than 130 trials.

His career reflects deep expertise in government law, litigation, and executive leg level legal counsel.

I would ask for your vote of confirmation for Mr.

Gorge.

I have a motion from Councilman Hingum and a second from Councilman Risley.

Let's vote.

Okay.

And the motion passes a to zero.

Is there anything you would like to say, Mr.

Bree?

Before you're you can do it after you're sworn in or before, either way.

You've already been passed, so you can't go wrong.

Fair enough.

And my only comments are of thanks.

Thanks to the mayor for the appointment.

Thanks to all of you for approving it.

And uh it's a it's the highest honor, one of the highest honors you can give any attorney.

And uh I look forward to playing my part in uh important municipal institution.

Uh thank you.

Jeff Edson.

Oh zip it up.

It's a Bible you just read, guys.

I'm just ready to go.

I mean at home, I do.

Right.

Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I, Andrew Gorga.

I, Andrew Gorge.

You solemnly swear, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution of the State of Colorado.

The Constitution of the State of Colorado.

The laws of the state of Colorado.

The laws of the state of Colorado.

The charter of the city of Colorado Springs.

The Charter of the City of Colorado Springs.

And I will faithfully perform.

And I will faithfully perform.

The duties of associate judge.

The duties of associate judge, upon which I am about to enter, upon which I am about to enter to the best of my ability.

To the best of my ability.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Ow.

Don't do that.

Moving on to item 6G.

Will the clerk please read item 6G into the record?

Confirmation of Amy Foley as a per diem municipal court judge.

I'm going to turn over to uh Judge Kane to introduce.

Let's see, Madam President, uh, President Pro Tem.

Uh again, Hayden Kane, presiding judge of Car Springs Municipal Court.

I am here to uh present Amy Foley uh as the mayor's nomination for the per diem uh position.

Uh Amy Foley got her jurisdictorate doctorate from Pepperdine uh University and brings over 17 years of experience uh to the position.

Uh Amy is an accomplished uh trial attorney with more than 14 years of experience.

I think that's 17, right?

Yeah, uh spanning military, state, federal, and private practice.

Uh most lately serving as in-house counsel for the law offices of Jeremy Malin.

She handled complex uh bodily injury litigation through all phases of trial and resolution.

Previously, as a senior deputy district attorney with the force judicial district attorney's office, uh she supervised attorneys, developed and led a comprehensive trial advocacy training program and prosecuted felony cases, including homicides.

Amy began her legal career in the U.S.

Army judge advocate generals uh corps, uh, where she served as trial counsel and spec special victim prosecutor and later as a special assistant uh to United States uh attorney for uh the District of Colorado.

Her career reflects a sustained commitment uh to courtroom excellence, leadership development, and public service grab your rope, Councilman Henjam.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

I just want to say uh to both uh Judge Gorge and and very very shortly, Judge Foley.

Um, how much I appreciate your willingness to step into this really critical role in serving our democracy, this uh constitutional republic and the rule of law and serving our local municipal laws and um and the and the citizens of Colorado Springs.

So thank you for for your willingness to serve in this role.

I have a motion from Councilman Henjam and a second from Councilman Donaldson.

Let's vote.

And the motion passes seven to zero.

Thank you so much.

I'm very, very excited.

Um I just have a few thank yous as well.

I want to first thank God for directing my steps on the sometimes broken path that has led me to standing here today.

And none of this would be possible without my parents, mom and dad.

Thank you so much for loving me unconditionally and sacrificing when I was growing up so that I could have every opportunity.

And thank you for being here today.

Um, the most important thank you is to my husband, Greg.

Thank you for being my best friend and for supporting me in good times and bad.

I love you.

Thank you to my wonderful children, Jacob and Alice.

They love me and they're proud of me no matter what I do for a living.

Thank you so much.

They give me perspective every single day on what's important in life.

Thank you.

And then finally, to all of the people who are here today, friends, family, colleagues, former bosses.

I look out and I see so many people who know how much I love to be in a courtroom.

And it means the world to me that you all took time out of your schedules to be here to share in this moment with me.

So thank you so much, Chief Judge Kane, members of the city council, thank you so much.

I appreciate this honor.

I'm building drama.

Amy, we try to avoid drama.

I have a lot to learn.

Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I, Amy Foley.

I, Amy Foley.

Do solemnly swear.

Do solemnly swear.

By the ever living God.

By the ever living God.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States.

Constitution of the state of Colorado.

The Constitution of the State of Colorado.

The laws of the state of Colorado.

The laws of the state of Colorado.

The Charter of the City of Colorado Springs.

The Charter of the City of Colorado Springs.

And I will faithfully perform.

And I will faithfully perform.

The duties of per diem judge.

The duties of per diem judge.

Upon which I'm about to enter.

Upon which I'm about to enter.

To the best of my ability.

To the best of my ability.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

I just did it.

Okay.

Moving on to item eight A.

Will the clerk please read item eight A into the record?

Resolution authorizing the use of a possession and use agreement of an eminent domain to acquire a permanent easement on real property owned by Lockwoodlands and liability company needed for the Calker to South Plant Transmission Project.

This is really great.

Tristan, who's presenting?

Good morning, Renee.

Good morning.

I think Kelly Billingsley with Real Estate Services is coming, but I'm familiar with this project, so I can step in.

Yeah, let's get started.

So this is similar to another property that you've seen already, or it's part of a larger parcel.

There were three parcels that we've been negotiating with the owner.

Hang on second.

For um the Kilker to South Plant transmission project.

And we brought to you the two other parcels recently.

And when our attorney went to go file the case, we realized there was a third parcel that was missing.

And so we're moving forward with entering entering into either a possession and use agreement or condemnation proceedings.

In order to do that, we need to have city council approval to move forward on that project, or on either of those.

And so I don't know if you want to get into detail about the project, but this is basically the transmission line from the Kelkard substation to South Plant, which is the old location of Drake.

And we've acquired 40 properties.

30.

And I don't know if you want to step in, Brad.

I'm gonna hand this over to Brad Rodenberg, our consultant.

Good morning.

Um, for the record, Brad Rodenberg with TRS Corp.

Um, I think Renee has introduced you to some of what's going on here.

Um, the project runs from the Kelker substation to Drake to uh create resiliency to the existing electric network.

We've been in negotiations for the last several years with numerous property owners along the seven mile route.

Um flip side slides here, forward button.

Um the property that we're here to talk about today is located off of AstraZone.

So it's about 500 feet to the west of the cover substation.

Um this piece of property that we're looking at on the screen is a cell tower site, so it's a single lot subdivision that's improved with uh with a cell tower.

Um the property owner that owns it rents that to Verizon.

Um the easement needs to cross more or less the northeast corner and um the northwest corner of the property.

It's notched out around the uh around the cell tower site itself, and it's primarily for sway in the electric line.

Um we have uh presented an offer.

We had it appraised last May, and the value of the easement came in, it's 1992 square feet, and the value of the easement came in at $54,350.

So we presented an offer um last summer to the property owner for that amount.

Um we've been in discussions with them.

They wanted to get their own appraisal.

So we have been discussing the project with the property owner and with the cell tower tenants since 2003.

There was moderate concern about whether the transmission lines would interfere with cell tower operations, and I think we've been able to overcome all of that.

Um came back and provided them with a settlement offer of 146,600 in December of 2025.

Um, the property owner did not want to sign a possession and use agreement pending their appraisal.

So we allowed the property owner to get their appraisal when we received that about three weeks ago.

So the request for the ability to move forward with uh possession hearing will allow utilities to commence with construction of the project um tentatively that is scheduled to begin in uh in June.

So again, our uh action here is we request a motion to approve the resolution authorizing the use of a possession use agreement or imminent domain to acquire a permanent easement upon the Lockwood limited liability company property.

Any questions?

Councilman Henjam.

Uh, thank you, Madam President.

Excuse me.

I do have a question in that um the limited experience we've had up here um related to cell towers and the the federal um aspect of that.

Um my understanding or my experience has been that it can be very, very challenging, and I'm just wondering.

Excuse me.

And I'm just wondering if there are any concerns related to the federal government um aspect of the use of a cell tower.

I don't think the property owner, I've been in communication with their attorney.

I don't know that that's been an that's not been an issue with them.

I mean, initially there was a concern about electric interference with it.

I think we've overcome that.

Okay.

I think it's primarily just uh an issue of dollars at this point.

Great.

And then it looked like the settlement was about three times the amount of the assessed value.

It was it was and still no response at all.

Not yet.

Okay, no.

Thank you.

I see no other comments from the dice.

We have a motion from Councilman Donaldson and a second from Councilman Henchem.

Let's vote.

The motion passes seven to zero.

Moving on to item 8B, will the clerk please read item 8B into the record?

Public hearing for the consideration of a resolution setting certain natural gas rights for color's utilities March 2026 rate case.

Good morning, Chris.

Morning, thank you.

Chris Bidlack, senior attorney with the city attorney's office utilities division.

Um, this morning you will hear utilities March 2026 rate case.

First, the City Council's authority to establish rates, charges, and regulations for utility service is contained within the Colorado Constitution, CODA statutes, the Colorado Springs City Charter, the City Code, and Council's rules and procedures.

Article 20 of the Colorado Constitution provides City Council with the authority to establish electric, natural gas, water, and wastewater charges and regulations.

Article 6 of the City Charter also provides authority to operate the electric natural gas water and wastewater systems.

The power to establish tariffs for electric and natural gas service provided inside municipal limits lies exclusively with City Council.

City Code, Section 121108E directs City Council to establish rates for electric and natural gas services that are just, reasonable, sufficient, and not unduly discriminatory.

Under Colorado Revised Statutes 40 3.5102, the City Council's rate setting decisions for electric and natural gas customers outside of municipal limits are not subject to prior review of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission if the rates and charges are identical to those inside municipal limits.

Typically, rates are considered just and reasonable if the rates balance one, the utility's interest in recovery of legitimately incurred costs and a reasonable return on its investment dedicated to utility service, and two, the customers' interest in being assessed charges that approximate the costs associated with provision of utility service.

Part four of the rules and procedures of City Council, together with section 121108 of the city code, set forth the process that governs City Council's hearing today.

In setting rates, charges, and regulations for natural gas service, City Council is acting in its legislative role.

The written materials you have received, as well as the oral presentations and testimony at this public hearing will constitute the record of that hearing.

Today you will hear the March 2026 rate case, which involves tariff proposals for the natural gas tariff.

At the conclusion of the public hearing, I will assist you in determining what issue of def you have defined for your preliminary decisions as to those issues.

The draft decisions and orders will be provided to you at your April 27th council work session, and you'll be asked to adopt the resolution at your regular meeting on April 28th in order to implement the rate proposals effective July 1st, 2026.

At this point, in previous hearings, it's where I would have asked for ex parte communications.

Um, based on the decision that city council made to modify the rules and procedures at your last council meeting.

Um, here I will instead ask that if any council member has engaged in any material communications related to this hearing that they be included now for the record.

Uh seeing none, um, I will turn it over to Mr.

Shirola for utilities presentation.

Good morning, President Crow Iverson, President Pro Tim Risley, members of City Council.

Uh Scott Shirola, manager of pricing and rates for Colorado Springs Utilities.

And as you are all aware, today we're here to present our March 2026 rate case, which really deals with implementing a new natural gas charge related to our distribution integrity management program.

In terms of a summary of some of the really compliance and procedural actions that we've taken in filing this rate case, um and before I really get into those uh procedural uh requirements, wanted to just remind City Council uh that you've seen this presentation, or most of you have at least uh several times wearing your hat as utilities board members.

Uh specifically, you heard information last July about this program and the potential of this proceeding here today, and then again a weekly common December of 25, and then presentations in January and February of this year to both the working committees and the utilities board.

Uh we did uh provide a copy of this filing uh to the city auditor's office on February 20th.

Uh we filed this case formally with city council and the city clerk's office on March 3rd and provided um uh copies um on our website csu.org.

On March 10th, City Council voted to establish this hearing date.

And on March 12th, we published the notice of this hearing in the Gazette.

We filed supplemental information on April 7th.

That supplemental information was really administrative in nature, reflecting the change in our electric cost adjustment and gas cost adjustment rates, and then also publishing the affidavit of our legal notice publication, auditors report, and so on.

So that brings us here today to the public hearing, which I'll run through a fairly brief presentation on the DIMP program and our proposed natural gas rate.

And as Mr.

Bidlack pointed out, there's really no formal vote today.

He'll do a poll a little bit later with the actual vote on this action at the April 28th City Council meeting.

Oops.

That's the tariff document where all of our rates are codified.

So really diving into a background of the DIMP program.

The distribution integrity management program was really born out of federal legislation in 2006.

DIMP really is comprised of several components, including knowing your distribution system, identifying risk, prioritizing those risk, and then proactively mitigating those risk, including maintenance and replacement of pipelines.

And then it also includes a monitoring and evaluation component, and then of course a reporting reporting component.

Actively engaged in that.

And of course, this accelerated work was not part of utilities' five-year rate rate plan that City Council approved really in October of 2024 for the time period 25 through 29.

And really the driver of this accelerated work not being part of that rate case was really the timing of that notice of those regulatory bodies.

Specifically, Utilities is working on its annual budget really early in the year, as we are right now for our next year budget.

But really, this time of year in the June, July, our budgets are really coming together in a final form, and we filed our five-year rate case with City Council in September of 24.

The ordered from those regulatory bodies didn't come out until October of 24.

And we really didn't reach an agreement with those bodies until late summer, early fall of last year, 2025.

Looking at more details of the finances of both the five-year plan and the funding level of DIMP in that five-year plan, and really the accelerated work that we're now looking at.

The table included on the slide here shows on line two the amount of DIMP funding that was part of the five-year rate case.

So you can see in 2025, approximately 11 million dollars was the funding level for the DIMP.

2026 almost 14 million dollars, and so on.

If we look in terms of percentages and relating that to our natural gas revenue requirement, and that revenue requirement is really the amount of revenue needed to fund our natural gas system.

So it's that non-fuel revenue requirement to really fund that system.

You can see that that DIMP total outlay represents about 12 to 14 percent of the of that revenue requirement per year.

So a significant portion already.

Really by 2029.

So if we look at just the accelerated spending in terms of kind of an adjusted revenue requirement, we see that it's an additional 13 to 20 percent.

So if we really combine both uh the DIMP funding that was part of the five year rate case along with the acceleration plan, we're looking at DIMP funding ranging really in the 20 to 30 percent of the overall revenue requirement.

Um turning a little closer to what we're proposing here this morning.

We are proposing to recover this additional outlay to fund this program through what you may call a bill writer.

A bill rider is uh simply a separate line item on the natural gas bill to transparently uh recover the costs associated with this work.

Bill riders are generally used for specific programs of work so they can be uh really have high visibility to what those dollars are being spent on, but also they can be temporary.

So as we really are proposing this this morning, we're looking for this bill writer to go into effect July 1st of this year.

And uh the main driver of that is again it wasn't part of this funding or this uh spending wasn't part of the five-year plan.

So we're really looking for a bridge through this bill rider to fund this accelerated work and while we work our way through the remaining years of the five-year plan.

And at that time in 2029 for 2030, we can really evaluate whether the bill rider should continue or we uh can propose removing the bill rider and rolling some of this additional uh accelerated work into the base rates in a subsequent case to City Council.

Um looking at the specifics of the proposal itself, we're proposing a flat daily fee for residential and small commercial customers of approximately 28 and a half cents per day.

And again, we are proposing this as a daily fee as opposed to a volumetric charge, and I'll speak a little bit more about why that's the case here in a few moments.

We're also proposing a large commercial industrial and contract service fee at approximately 60 cents per day.

So you see that is uh approximately double the actual rate for those commercial entities than the residential fee.

And really the components and the the drivers of our rate design are really based on the type of work that's being done through the DIMP.

Specifically, this work is largely associated with replacing service lines, service lines in our cost to serve model are allocated to rate classes based on the number of customers.

Since every customer requires a service line to receive service, the we re allocate those based on the number of customers, and we actually use a weighted customer count to allocate that cost.

So we do weight commercial accounts slightly higher, so we use a weighting of two to allocate cost to the commercial class, and that's because their service lines are generally a larger diameter than a residential service line, for example.

So there is some additional cost associated with commercial lines versus residential lines, but residential customers comprise approximately 94% of the overall number of customers, and so uh the majority of this work will really impact residential customers.

Um as we look at the sample bill impacts of our proposed changes, you'll see that the residential impact for our sample customer is estimated at $8.54 per month.

Again, uh that is based on this flat fee that we're proposing.

Uh, and that's represents about 20% increase in the natural gas bill, but a 3% increase to the overall for service utility bill.

We do see a much smaller percentage impact for the commercial and industrial sample bills.

Um, although the actual dollar amount impact again is is nearly twice as much at $18.

The percentage impact is much lower.

The main driver of that is uh commercial and industrial customers' natural gas bill is primarily comprised of volumetric charges, specifically the gas cost adjustment as opposed to the residential uh bill, which is more balanced in terms of fixed daily charges and volumetric charges.

Commercial industrial customers use so much more quantity of natural gas compared to their fixed infrastructure that their bill is more heavily weighted to the volumetric charges, and that's why we really see the percentage impact much lower for commercial and industrial customers in terms of the impact of this proposed change.

Wanted to highlight uh really our competitiveness along the front range incorporating this new bill charge.

And uh we've updated this comparison based on the electric cost adjustment and gas cost adjustment rates that City of Council approved uh last month that went into effect April 1st.

We are still using a January 1st uh front range average in the in this comparison, but we are using what we're proposing our rates to be effective July 1st.

So this is our most recent ECA and GCA rates and the proposed uh natural gas integrity federal compliance charge.

So you can see based based on that, we still are uh relatively competitive in both electric and natural gas services, specifically almost 15% the front range average in electric, uh, approximately 12.5% below the front range average for natural gas service.

And if we look at all four utility services, uh we are approximately 5% below the front range average.

Um moving to the customer outreach, which is always an important part of any change the utilities is making, um, and we we understand that uh any time, whether we're passing along fuel rate decreases or in this case proposing an increase to the natural gas bill, there's customers in our community that are struggling to make ends meet.

And we really uh try to direct customers to contact 211.

There are a number of programs in the community that may be federal or are locally situated.

But if customers can really call 211, they can be directed to the resource that can best address their needs.

And then, of course, we have various bill payment options for customers, and they can call us at our primary number of 448 4800 to contact to uh be in touch with a representative from Clark Springs Utilities.

Although the charge that we're proposing is a fixed daily fee, there's still opportunities for customers to save on those volumetric charges by visiting CSU.org and implementing some energy efficiency measures.

And the best place to look for those is again visit CSU.org, look for uh different rebates that may be available on different items.

Um as part of uh our rate case.

Um we our public affairs team really has done a comprehensive job of notifying customers uh of this proposed change and the potential impact to them.

I won't uh list all the methods here.

And then I did want to also note that as this program is uh taking place throughout our community and actually you know uh dirt being dug, a new pipeline being uh installed.

Uh there's impacts um around the community related to the actual construction as well, and utilities has a comprehensive uh customer engagement uh plan associated with that work as well.

Uh with that I've concluded my formal presentation, and uh as I mentioned, we did submit a copy of our filing to the Office of the City Auditor, and uh they may have some comments for you now.

Great.

Councilman Henjam.

I'll wait until the auditor's done.

Thank you, Madam President.

You Natalie.

Thank you, Natalie Lovell, City Auditor.

Uh in March, we received um the rate case as uh Mr.

Shirolla had mentioned.

The Office of the City Auditors mandate through the charter is to review rate cases for mathematical accuracy and consistent methodology, um, not to recommend or uh or oppose proposed changes.

We did complete our review and concluded that overall modifications included in the March 2026 rate case filing report and the supporting schedules were prepared accurately and consistently.

Methodology changes were properly disclosed in the utilities rate filing report and changes were in alignment with the rate design guidance approved by the utilities board and were supported by the five-year rate case approved by city council effective for January 1, 2025.

There's any questions I can answer them.

Councilman Hingem.

Uh thank you, Madam President, and thank you, Natalie, for that um that report from your office.

I appreciate it.

Um this is uh will be when we vote on it, a uh an increase to our bills.

And um, I think it's really important and I appreciate you, Scott, highlighting all the outreach that CSU has done to the public.

Um, there's more to come with with digging and so forth that will be happening over the many coming years.

But I I would really appreciate if our CEO Travis Steele could speak to the why.

I I don't think I really I I don't think we've really quite adequately in this hearing talked about why um this additional cost to our customers is ultimately so important.

Yeah, thanks, Councilman Hengen.

Um, so really what's happening, gas distribution is really our one commodity that does have some volatility to that can cause an unsafe situation if somebody digs into it or something happens.

Our system's very safe, but there has been instances across the country where steel has corroded and has caused issues where gas is evaporated in areas and is called safety issues, even to the point of uh hazardous hazardous situations like in homes and explosions and things happen.

So that's really why FIMSA is really pushing for utilities to get rid of bare steel.

Steel in the ground basically corrodes and over time it can degrade.

So that's why they're wanting all that replaced with the steel.

So we fall under that requirement to do that.

Um we agree with it.

We did try to find an approach to spread that over a longer period of time to try to keep rates down.

We just weren't able to get that.

So it took a lot of negotiations, and really it was actually at five years they wanted it done.

So we negotiated to get to 10 years because we do feel our system is very safe, but we do need to comply with this, you know, so there isn't any unforeseen issues, you know, in the future.

So we know it's an impact.

We definitely have um empathy, you know, to you know, the hits that this is for our customers, but uh we did do everything we can to try to meet the requirements of this and spread the cost out.

But that's why the steel pipes need to be replaced, you know, with the higher density uh plastic.

We did get some grant funding as well that sort of helped negate some of this.

Um so that helped also, you know, for municipals to try to transition from uh steel to plastic on this.

Great.

Thank you, Mr.

Deal.

And um, I would just note um, I don't know if any of you really listen to podcasts, but those that have ads, I've heard uh some CSU ads on uh being being careful and smelling gas.

If you smell gas, who to call, um I I'm imagining that that's part of the regulation is that we need to be doing that kind of education, but I think it's really important.

Yeah, so thank you very much.

Councilman Donaldson.

And uh, I want to thank uh Scott Sharola for the presentation today and for for laying out the the reason uh we we do need to um charge a fee to pay for this program.

And I think simple way uh our CEOs kind of covered the points I was gonna hit here, but uh we had our our own program.

We were inspecting.

Uh we feel that our our system is safe and the pace we were inspecting and replacing at was prudent.

Uh however, federal regulators uh regulate and uh they wanted it done faster.

And to accomplish that, we're gonna go from I believe Scott's numbers were from five miles a year to 30 miles, so six times as much steel pipe being replaced annually.

And with that, um, we just have to charge a fee to cover that expense.

As our CEO pointed out, we uh convince the federal regulators that a 10-year period is is doing it is as safe as a five-year period, so that keeps the cost down some.

Uh our effort is always going to be to protect uh a rate we call rate payers or citizens.

We are those two, and my neighbors are.

And and uh my home, I think, is probably one newer homes won't won't need this kind of inspection, or the the pipes in front of them are already the plastic, but uh neighborhoods like mine, which are older, um, or the ones that'll be uh affected.

And uh so we're um we're always as the board looking to take care of our fellow uh citizens and neighbors.

And again, I want to thank uh Scott for that presentation today, and I would ask for support for this.

Thank you.

President Carvers, we would ask that there be an opportunity for public comment if anybody wishes to speak.

Um I have no one signed up for public comment for or against all right.

Um that is the end of public comment.

Very well.

Um so if there's no public comment, um, there's an opportunity for any additional comments from the council.

If there are none, I'm happy to move to the next step.

I see none, so we can move to the next step.

All right, thank you very much.

Um so this is the point in the hearing when I um set out what the request utilities has made is and look for a head nod, thumbs up, thumbs down from council so I can prepare your documents for your final review um the 27th and 28th of April.

Um, in many rate cases, we have a number of questions today.

It's just a single question.

Um, so I'm gonna read the question and we'll look for thumbs up, thumbs down um whether council agrees to the proposal.

Should utilities establish the natural gas integrity federal compliance charge in the natural gas rate schedule to recover accelerated distribution integrity management program costs as proposed.

And I'm seeing all thumbs up.

Um with that, I will prepare those documents.

You will see us again on the 27th and 28th.

We're happy to answer any questions you might have on that procedure.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Concludes the hearing.

Moving on to item 10A.

Will the clerk please read item 10A into the record?

An ordinance to amend the zoning map of the city of Color Wrestling is pertaining to approximately 44.72 acres located north of intersection of North Powers Boulevard, Interquoise Parkway from Plan Development Zone with the United States Air Force Academy Overlay to RPLEX medium with United States Air Force Academy Overlay quasi judicial first reading to set a public hearing for April 2826 in accord with the city code.

Hearings for the ordinance and any related applications shall be conducted at the second reading.

Councilman Casey.

Thank you, Madam President.

I previously heard and voted on items 10A and 10B in my role as a commissioner on the Planning Commission.

Because these items are quasi-judicial items, I'm recusing myself from hearing and voting on these items in compliance with council rules six-2B.

Good morning, Alison.

Morning.

I just stepped up here, and just in case there's anything needed from planning staff.

This is setting the hearing date.

Yes, that's correct.

Um, I need a motion.

I have a motion from Councilman Risley and a second from Councilman Hingem, and we will vote on setting the hearing date.

And the motion passes six to zero.

Moving on to item 10B.

Will the clerk please read item 10 B into the record?

An ordinance to amend the zoning map of the city of Colorado Summaries pertaining to approximately 2.17 acres located at 4880 Airport Road from single family medium with airport overlay to multifamily high with airport overlay.

Quasi judicial first reading and setting in the public hearing day for April 28, 2026, in accord with the city code section 7.5.407 hearings for the ordinance and any related applications shall be conducted at the second reading.

Good morning, Chris.

Good morning.

Same thing as the last item.

This is just the first reading setting the hearing date for April 28th.

Um voted to reverse that decision from CPC.

So that's why we're led down this path of uh two hearings to follow up on the actual procedure for a zone map amendment.

Any questions for staff?

Do you have any questions?

Seeing none, I have a motion from Councilman Handim and a second from Councilman Risley.

Let's vote.

Motion passes six to zero.

Will the clerk please read item 10 C into the record?

A resolution authorizing the stormwater enterprise manager to execute all intergovernmental agreements with the Colorado Department of Transportation related to maintenance of stormwater infrastructure.

Good morning, Aaron.

Could you just give us a second?

Um, Councilman Casey is coming back.

Absolutely.

Okay, we're good.

Thank you.

All right.

Good morning, council members and President Pro Hyper Car Everson.

My name is Aaron Powers.

I'm the Stormwater Enterprise Manager for the city.

Today I am presenting a proposed resolution to allow CDOT maintenance agreements that happen to be IGAs to be signed without bringing them to city council.

And I appreciate this opportunity.

I wanted to provide some context around this request because at face value I could seem like it's coming out of nowhere.

But within stormwater, we frequently enter into maintenance agreements.

And these maintenance agreements are for pipes, channels, and detention and water quality facilities.

So it's all stormwater infrastructure.

And we do this typically as administrative tasks.

So typically we're entit entering into these maintenance agreements as the entity that is requiring the maintenance, though not infrequently.

We enter into these maintenance agreements as the entity signing on for maintenance.

Um even CDOT before they required all maintenance agreements to have the IGA heading.

So it's really anyone we share a jurisdictional boundary with or who falls within the city's jurisdiction.

With these agreements, there is no money exchange and there is no property exchange.

So zooming out to a broader public works uh perspective.

Most maintenance agreements with CDOT that are IGAs are not taken to city council because they are covered under a resolution passed in 2020.

This was resolution 12-20, which allows grant contracts and execution documents to not go through council.

And these are considered execution documents.

So it's the same template that's maintenance agreement IGAs with CDOT.

Um, those are the same templates that are covered under that umbrella normally.

So we're left with we have a bunch of maintenance agreements that stormwater executes typically.

A small subset of that are maintenance agreements with CDOT that happen to be IGAs, and then an even smaller subset of those are not covered under this previous resolution.

So the last three examples that have come up all are all maintenance agreements with CDOT.

Uh there was a detention basin that we are maintaining.

Um a developer installed a pipe and the outfall structure extended onto CDOT right-of-way or CDOT property in order to just tie into grading.

That was the most logical location, was extending onto C dot property.

And then we have a channel project, Cottonwood Creek, that extends under the Powers Boulevard Bridge.

In order to have a cohesive channel project all the way down, we need to install some riprap under the bridge.

And because that is in CDOT rock right of way, um, we are required to enter into a maintenance agreement IGA just for that rip wrap, which we'll be maintaining as part of a larger project.

So I appreciate the opportunity to provide context around the request.

And the intent is really to have this small subset of maintenance IGAs with CDOT and even small smaller subset of the overall maintenance agreements in stormwater in general to be handled administratively.

So I'd be happy to take any questions.

I don't see any questions.

I have a motion from Councilman Risley.

And a second from Councilman Lineweber.

So we'll vote on the IGs.

And the motion passes A to zero.

Moving on to item 10 D.

Will the clerk please read item 10 D into the record?

Ordinance and ordinance repealing ordinances number 20-44 and 22-33, thereby dissolving the law enforcement transparency and advisory commission.

Good morning.

Michael Montgomery Legislative Services.

And the chair and vice chair gave a comprehensive overview last time.

So here just to answer any questions you have about the ordinance to dissolve the commission.

I don't see new in the dice, but we'll start with public comment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

First up, we have Stephanie Vihill.

Good morning, Stephanie.

And for everybody who signed up, please limit your comments to three minutes.

Yes, my minute is Steffi Hill.

My name is Stephie Hill, Executive Director of Citizens Project.

We are a civic engagement nonprofit based here in Colorado Springs, and we've been advocating for just equitable and inclusive policy in our region for over 30 years.

We appreciate the leadership of LEETAC for taking this step to revise our approach to law enforcement oversight.

And I want to thank this council for taking up the recommendation to dissolve this commission as it has reached the limit of it of what its current enabling ordinance allows for.

However, it is also very important that you don't skip this opportunity to create a strong successor to LETAC.

The staff presentation from a couple weeks ago cited a number of accomplishments that don't go far enough, and in some cases I found them a bit misleading.

So just to touch on them.

The community engagement events are more about good PR than accountability.

Police officers making public appearances is nice.

I don't think it assures over police communities that they're any safer with law enforcement.

These good optics do not change the fact that the city of Colorado Springs has shelled out nearly $9 million over the last four years in settlements for excessive use of force cases, with the largest settlements paid out to Dalvin Gadson and the surviving loved ones of Jeffrey Melvin and of course Devon Bailey, latter of uh two of whom uh dead at the hands of law enforcement.

Those Cal IA accreditations that were talked about so much, I don't think they inspire a lot of confidence.

There's 160 criteria that are mentioned that uh departments are graded on, but they are not publicly posted anywhere, not on CSPD's website, not on Calia's, and none of these accreditations specifically address use of force or whistleblower protections for our good cops.

Their own website actually states explicitly CalEA is not an investigatory body.

In Colorado Springs, like most of the rest of uh American cities, the number of police officers killed in the line of duty pales in comparison to the number of people killed by police.

Not only are these figures asymmetrical, we actually don't even have clear numbers on just how many people are killed by police in our city and most of the rest of the state, because we apparently don't value civilian lives enough to even count them when people are killed at the hands of their own state.

But we do definitively know that in the entire 150-year history of our city, a grand total of 13 officers have lost their lives in the line of duty, fewer than one per decade compared to at least four civilian deaths in Colorado Springs last year.

This is no ordinary city department.

It's our single largest expenditure.

It's over 40% of the taxpayer dollars that are paid into the city budget, and it's the one department that's allowed to suspend your freedom and even take your life.

Taking oversight of this department very seriously, I think is not too much to ask.

Today's ordinance as drafted claims that the recommendation from LEETAC commissioners included a charge to evaluate a repurpose citizen-led body, but the language of the recommendation is clearly more forceful and charges you to draft a new ordinance establishing a repurposed citizen-led body.

I urge you all to take this recommendation from current LETTEC members seriously.

Do what they have actually recommended.

Draft an ordinance for a new body.

Resulting commissions to center the experiences of those most impacted by policing should have the ability to take meaningful action to review use of force and promote public trust through accountability, not through better optics.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for giving me a few more seconds.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Sparrow McKinney.

Hello, my name is Sparrow McKinney.

I come here as a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization to demand that the city of Colorado Springs create a civilian police accountability council to replace LeeTac.

In the past few years, the list of victims of CSPD's violence has been racking up.

The most recent victims being Benji Greenfield, Michael Foster, and Michaela Pasillas.

In the last year, we lost Alex Martinez Sarmiento and Nathaniel Johnny Altman.

And I can go on and on and on.

It is very obvious there is a pattern here.

Black and brown folk are targeted and terrorized in their own neighborhoods by officers who live outside of their communities.

They are denied even a seat at the table for discussions around policies that directly impact them and their community.

Consequently, the power to determine how they are police is given to a few slight people outside of these targeted communities, like police chief Vasquez and D.A.

Allen.

These two cleared violent racist cops of their crimes, allowing them to continue to torment the community, adding more victims to the list.

When police are not held accountable for their crimes and instead protected, it makes our city a much more dangerous place to live in.

These murderers are still walking the streets with a badge and a gun, and it is then only a matter of time before a violent cop brutalizes and kills another person.

We see this with officers like Daniel Moore, who already in the past brutalized Michael Foster and stalked him, only only to later chase corner and then shoot Michael, attempting to murder him again.

Or with Officer Connor Wallach, who has a pattern of racial profiling, for example, assuming a queer Chicano victim of the Club Q shooting to be responsible for said mass shooting.

And then a few years later, racially profile Alex Martinez Sarmiento and shoot him three times in the back.

This same officer, cleared by the DA, faces none of the consequences of his murderous actions.

We need change, and we need it now more than ever.

We need community control of the police.

These communities are forced to live with an ongoing threat to their lives, and they have no say, no voice, no power in who polices them and who and how they are policed.

This is the this is a systemic problem that requires a systemic solution.

This city council has the power and responsibility to right the wrongs that CSPD has committed by pressuring the mayor to give black and brown working folk the democratic power to actively shape the police into a force that works and serves their needs and not the needs of the powerful wealthy few.

And we can achieve this through a creation of a democratically elected council of people from the community with powers ranging from investigating police misconduct to hiring and firing officers of any rank, including the police chief himself.

A council with real teeth, unlike LETAC, can truly empower black and brown families to get the justice that Chief Vasquez and D.A.

Allen are denying them, and it can finally hold the police accountable to the community that they are supposed to serve.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Genevieve Richard.

So that's a bit of history, but council surely knows.

LETTEC was created on purpose to be toothless.

It was created in the wake of the George Floyd uprisings in 2020, as well as in response to local protests around the shooting of Devon Bailey.

And it had the power to make recommendations to Colorado Springs police department that they were just free to completely ignore, and they often did.

It's not surprising that LeeTac uh voted to dissolve itself under these circumstances.

And it's clear that while the accomplishments LETAC made and making the police more transparent were real, they were clearly not enough.

The police are more violent than ever.

Trigger happy shooting first and asking questions later.

We see this too in the fact that Alan Van Lant, who shot and killed Devon Bailey on the street, now works an internal affairs.

A murderer is in charge of holding police accountable when they do wrong and investigating police misconduct.

That is deeply shameful.

So I hope that you see the community trust in the police is still very low.

And with Lee Tac resolving, you do have a responsibility to replace it with something better.

We in the Colorado Springs Alliance, as part of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, demand a CPAC, a civilian police accountability council, an elected all civilian board that has true control over the police.

Now that is a long-term goal.

But in the short term, something needs to be held or something needs to be created that gives police far more uh accountability and transparency than they currently have.

We demand that the next commission created be all civilian, meaning people like Cheryl, uh, who heads up the civil heads up, I believe it is the police protective association, not beyond that.

Police can't be on it.

Former police shouldn't be on it.

This should be a community-led community-driven commission that can make hiring and firing decisions, that can make uh policy decisions, that can open investigations into police misconduct, and when there are deadly use of force investigations, this commission needs to be automatically involved in the investigation.

That is all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Brandon Rincken.

Hello, council.

My name is Brandon Rencon.

I'm with the Colorado Springs Alliance.

Um, I'm here today to also demand a civilian police accountability council.

Um, you know, it is high time that that black and brown folks and working people of this city have a say and have a seat at the table.

Um, it's been far too long and far too many victims, far too many people have lost loved ones, far too many people have unfortunately become survivors of this and have to live with this trauma when it things like this should never have happened in the first place.

Um, you know, I think of uh specifically uh the Nevada flat shooting um that was recently ruled justified, um, in which case an officer without identifying himself shot into a crowd of four people, uh hitting two bystanders uh and severely injuring them, one a mother.

Um, and and the DA, District Attorney's Office found this justified.

Now, this is creates a cycle, this creates a pattern.

When officers see this lack of accountability, they become emboldened.

They think, okay, my the person I sit at lunch with was able to kill somebody, and they got a medal of valor.

Um, so maybe I can kill somebody, maybe I'll get a medal of valor too.

Um, is shameful and is disgraceful.

Um, you know, we need uh we need uh apparatus for everyday people of this city to have a say in how we are police, because currently the only people who have a say in how we're policed are the rich elites, the developers, and the billionaires of this city.

And it's not working people need a seat at the table.

Um, and we need to see that everything to be on, to be honest.

And so that's why we we advocate for community control of the police.

Um, because we want to take that control away from these developers, from these racist right supremacists, from the billionaires of this city and give the control back to the people so the communities and the neighborhoods have a say in how they are policed and who they are policed by.

Um that's all I really wanted to say.

We're here to stand with some victims who are also going to speak today.

Uh, you will hear some stories, and I really encourage counsel to listen deeply uh and think about the stories of these residents of this city.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Bug Peterson.

Hello, council.

Um, I've been to almost every LeeTac meeting for the last year, um, and I fully support disbanding LeTac and replacing it with a civilian police oversight board that has substantially more teeth.

You know, our current system of police accountability is not working.

There really is not a meaningful system for police accountability.

You know, CSPD shootings are investigated by the sheriff's office, um, and vice versa, and there's internal affairs.

But you know, the fact that the Nevada flat shooting was just rule justified, tells us that something is not working here.

That's a police officer, Austin Hornberger, who walked up to a group, did not announce himself, did not say anything, did not give any warnings, did not do anything to de-escalate before he opened fire into a group of four people.

That group of four people included the person who had made the 911 call.

Um, one of those people had a BB gun because or an airsoft gun because they were armed in self-defense, because somebody had said they were gonna come back, had threatened violence.

Um, Austin Hornberger did not assess the situation accurately at all before essentially doing a mass shooting.

He shot two people who were not the person he was aiming for.

He shot two people who were not the person he was aiming for, and that was deemed justified?

Like, what are we doing here?

How is that justifiable when police officers are doing mass shootings of community members?

The fact that Alan Van Lant, who killed Devon Bailey is in internal affairs and emailing people back who who, you know, write complaints about excessive force that they've experienced.

Alan Van Lant is investigating those things and talking to those officers and saying, you know what?

I think they actually did a fine job.

Um, that's a problem.

The fact that last year's Medal of Valor, um, the police foundation's Medal of Valor dinner honored six officers, all of whom had shot or or killed or brutalized a member of our community last year.

It did not take me very long researching those officers to realize that every single one of them immediately when you search their name, you find the significant incident briefing video.

These are all these are our most violent cops who are being valorized.

That's a problem.

So CSPD just continues to brutalize and kill our neighbors, particularly our black and brown neighbors, and get away with it and not only get away with it, win medals for it, be valorized for it.

We need civilian police oversight that has teeth, power to actually hold these officers accountable and actually work to keep our community members safe.

Justice for Benji Greenfield, Justice for Mike Foster, Justice for Michaela Paseas, Justice for Ashley and Justin from Nevada Flats, Justice for Richard Arford, Justice for Alex Martinez Sarmiento, Justice for Johnny Altman, Justice for All.

Thank you.

Next up we have Lorraine Foster.

Hi uh, hello.

I'm Lorraine Foster, my son, Michael Foster is a victim of shooting February 2nd, Colorado Springs Police Department shot my son on February 2nd.

At the time of the shooting, they told me, well, they didn't tell me, but it told someone else that they were not even looking for my son.

My son right now has nine bullet holes in his body.

He has nine bullet holes in his body, four on his back.

He asked the police to help him while he was on the ground.

My son sustained five shots after he asked the police to help him.

He raised his hand and said, help.

And the police stood over here and fired five shots into his chest.

Right now, my son has over 700 staples in his body.

He has several rods in his body, he has a shattered clavicle.

He has extensive damage to his body.

Why is my son shot?

This is the question that my family has.

He is one of eight siblings.

I have nine children.

He is my second oldest son at 35 years old.

My question is, why has my son been brutalized?

This is not the first time my son was shot.

It is the first time he shot, but it's not the first time he was brutalized.

The same police officer, Dan Mork, four years ago, uh beat my son to the point where my son's neck was broken.

He was in the hospital, and we didn't even know what where he was for eight days.

When we did find out, my son called from Fenrose Community Hospital, saying that I thought it was a prank because he was speaking in such a low voice that I didn't even know who he was.

He said, Mom, this is me, Michael.

He told me I'm in the hospital for what?

He said he was beaten by the police officer, Dan Mork.

At that moment, my son was also paralyzed.

The same individual that shot on February 2nd.

I'm here today to fight for accountability, accessibility, and everything else that we deserve as citizens of Colorado Springs.

I'm fighting, and I'm starting here today locally.

I'm going to the state, and if that don't work, we're going national.

I don't care.

My job as a human, as a mother, as a parent, as a citizen, isn't standing up for everybody who can't stand for themselves.

And that's what you are here for.

That's what your positions are.

Don't disrepresent some of the people, represent everybody's community.

I've been here since December 6th, 1988.

I am a citizen.

He was born here at Fort Crossing Hospital.

My son was.

He was a passenger in a vehicle.

The young lady that he was dating at the time, they slammed, snatched them both out of a vehicle, slammed her to the ground.

For what?

She was at the time.

This young lady was carrying my son's child.

This child was deceased because of brutality.

I'm asking y'all to help me and everybody else.

We need help.

I know my time is up, but my son is fighting still.

He is in CJC right now.

Not even getting his medication, which is gonna keep him alive.

I need help.

Thank you.

Next up we have, and hopefully I say this correctly.

If not, please correct me.

Um Hiltzi.

Hello, my name is Wishali Chamali, and I'm here with Kosaker and the Colorado indigenous Rambares.

It's a moment of silence for all the victims.

The innocence because of police brutality, the negligence.

As I start, I'm here because the city has a pattern it can no longer ignore.

Mike Foster was shot multiple times, but that was not the beginning.

Years earlier, he was brutally beaten by the same officer who was present during the shooting.

The same officer.

So I asked, why was that officer so in a position to harm him again?

After surviving being shot, Mike was denied basic care custody right now.

He's not getting his medication, not able to see, he needs his glasses.

He's being asked to sign documents that he cannot see.

Another victim, Michaela, was running for her life.

She was fleeing an abusive boyfriend who was chasing her with a weapon, and feared she sought safety and got into a police car because the door was open.

Instead, the escalation or understanding she was shocked at while trying to hide.

We must ask, where was the communication?

Where was the attempt to understand she was a victim?

Why was the vehicle left accessible in that way?

And what accountability has followed for that officer.

Ashley, another victim, was in a hotel when she was accidentally shot by a police officer.

Instead of transparency, there were efforts to keep it quiet.

That is unacceptable.

Benji Greenfield was shot over 30 times by three officers.

No matter someone's past or mistakes, that is not justice.

That is excessive force.

This happened last.

Also, this something also that happened last year, very close dear to me.

Richard Arford was found in a burned building that was put out by the fire department.

This happened last year.

There are no real answers and no accountability.

His mother has not been properly engaged.

Rachel was a gay Chicano and was but and we must ask whether his life has been treated with equal urgency and value.

Is it because he was a Chicano gay?

If others, if officers are triggered happy, lack discipline, or cannot recognize when someone is in distress, they should not be in law enforcement at all.

We know the history of police in this country, and we continue to see its impact today, especially in brown and black communities.

Thank you.

All power to the people.

We are powerful.

All power to the people.

All power to the people.

Next up, we have Luna Lesterlude.

Hello, City Council.

My name is Luna Lesterude.

Um, I am a Navy veteran.

I was a hospital corpsman, and I'm here to talk to you about uh CPAC and the beliefs surrounding its creation.

Firstly, a democratic society demands the consent of the governed, an autonomous paramilitary force patrolling our streets with no accountability is antithetical to the ideals of a democratic society.

To push us towards a more democratic society in Colorado Springs, we suggest CPEC, which would have the power to hire and fire, determine police budget, investigate misconduct independently, up to and including subpoena.

The civilian police accountability council will be made of people elected democratically, completely separated from any police ties to prevent nepotism, favoritism, and structural racism.

An often repeated anecdote that was said to me when I was in the military was that the rules of engagement are far more strict for our soldiers, for our Marines, for the corpsmen abroad, than they are for police.

To highlight this issue morbidly, I will remind you of the people murdered by police.

Alex Martinez Sarmiento was shot three times in the back while fleeing.

Nathaniel Johnny Altman was also shot in the back while fleeing.

Michael Foster, who was racially profiled, chased and cornered and shot multiple times while on the ground for the crime of self-defense.

Michaela Pasillas, a Chicano woman chased both by her armed ex and armed police, where she was shot inside a police cruiser.

And Benji Greenfield, who was shot 27 times for the crime of looking suspicious.

These people would be alive today if we lived in a society where the police serve their community instead of a racist, violent agenda run by corporate billionaires, white supremacists in the interest of the elite.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you very much, sir.

Thank you.

Next up we have Isaac Contreras.

It's my understanding that LeeTag was made to create accountability with the police.

But I ask everyone in this room really who creates the policy for the police.

Does anyone know?

Because I don't know.

I don't know if it's the mayor who decides the policy.

I don't know if it's the city council who decides how the police operate.

I don't know if it's the trainers themselves who tell the police hey, if you see someone outside and you don't know who they are, you should always treat them as the enemy.

I don't go outside and treat my neighbors as the enemy.

I don't go outside to think of everyone else as dangerous.

Why should the police be held that way?

When the police are remaining, when doctors perform malpractice in a hospital, we demand restitution.

But when police are allowed to do the same, we give them bonuses, we change their position so that they aren't held accountable.

Our society shouldn't be built on this idea that the police who enforce the laws should be allowed to break them as well.

They should be held accountable to the people.

Because right now, I don't think anyone here actually knows how their policies are set.

I'm not even sure if the mayor knows how their policies are set.

You know, council member Williams over here, when she was campaigning, she said that our police department needed 60 more policemen.

What was the point of having more policemen if they're not even doing their job?

What's the hat?

What's the point of having more policemen if all they're doing is just creating more dangerous society?

Right?

All of you campaigned under the idea of a more safe Colorado Springs, but what are you gonna do when the police are the ones making it unsafe?

That is the end of public comment on this item.

I'll move it to that.

Um conversation.

I don't see any.

Okay, I need a motion.

I have a motion from Councilman Donaldson and a second from councilman um Lineweber.

Let's vote.

And the motion passes eight to zero.

Moving on to item 10E.

Will the clerk please read item 10 E into the record?

A resolution adopting the city council's annual report to the citizens for April 1st, 2025 to March 31st, 2026.

Good morning, Alex.

Great.

Um, I think we're pulling up the new one.

All right.

Yeah, this is our final version of this year's annual report to the citizens.

I do have some hard copies made up front, if anybody in the audience would like one, but we'll go through it real quick.

There's a few pages that were missed on the last version that I presented.

Most of these pages haven't changed since you last saw them.

The biggest one that has changed is this strategic plan page.

It is now a two-page spread with our mission vision and core values on one side, and then the city council strategic plans five buckets on the other side.

We have our city budget highlights, our by the numbers page.

All of these numbers have been filled in.

And I'll remind everybody this report runs from April 1st of 2025 through March 31st of this year, 2026.

We have our previous city council items.

We have our land use that this council has heard, uh legislation, policy resolutions, our parks items that came through this last year, um, some other noteworking.

The items, and then we have all of our pictures from in the community that um you guys were all out and about with.

We have our boards and commissions pages.

Um the board highlight page changed since last time you saw it.

We do have pictures uploaded for um highlights of the three boards that we are highlighting the airport advisory committee, uh historic preservation board, and then Stormwater Advisory Committee.

And then we have our two utilities board pages.

Uh these ones have pictures added from last time you guys saw them.

And then we also have our two-page spread, which is our new addition to the report this year of the um Office of the City Auditor.

And then our final page is our legislative services page and our uh civic engagement page uh to become more involved.

And then finally, our back page.

Uh last time I was up here uh presenting this, uh Councilman Donaldson asked me about the historical uh items of the city council report.

Um it was in the city charter in January 2005, um, ordinance 529.

Uh the city council shall provide for an annual report to the citizens on progress in meeting the strategic plan.

And then um under the city uh city code, it's uh in performance of its duties required by city charter.

The city council shall provide in its strategic plan and goals and its annual report to the citizens to the mayor no later than June 30th for mayor's consideration in the development of municipal administrative budget.

I also have I wasn't here for all of these, but this is my sixth annual report that I've done, but I have all of the annual reports going back to 2015, if anybody would like to see versions of them.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Ben and President.

Alex, what was the year you said that was uh initiated?

Uh January 2005.

2005.

So that's when the report began was in 05.

That yeah, that's the first ordinance.

Okay, all right, thanks.

Thank you.

This is well done.

It's a very nice um booklet, and it does, you know, as Councilman Donaldson pointed the last presentation, show a little bit of the historic 150, 250 year.

So that was quite creative.

So thank you so much for the work you did on that.

Councilman Henjam.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

I just would like to also add my thanks uh to you, Alex, and really to all of staff.

Um, I think for those of you in the audience who have never looked at an annual report of City Council, um, I encourage you to walk away with one and take a look at it.

I think it really does give a very nice overview of the work we do over the course of a year.

I'm very proud of the staff that we have that support us in legislative services.

Uh they serve us all nine of us uh very equally and without prejudice, and um it's very important role that they play because every two years these seats change, and they are the consistent thread um serving city government, which is the front line of your democracy.

And so I think it's um just really a great, it's a great demonstration of what this council body does, but I I like to highlight the staff itself who support and make it possible.

Um and to that end, I actually, because I had to leave early yesterday from the work session.

And to that end, I actually, because I had to leave early yesterday from the work session, I'm just gonna take a moment and say something I wanted to report yesterday in in council member reports, and that is about two weeks ago, uh Councilmember Gold and I with Sam Friedman, who, if you're in this audience, you've had a connection with Sam Friedman, um, did a really great presentation on just simply how the agendas that we're working on today, how they're developed, how to read an agenda, how to understand and participate in a meeting.

Um, and he did a really great job of educating people.

We had this entire chamber was filled.

There were 50 people here.

It was from five to seven in the evening.

There was no refreshments whatsoever.

Uh, we have a water fountain out in the hallway.

I think people made use of that.

We had no no drinks provided, no food, and for those entire two hours, people will fully engage, asking great questions and showing a tremendous appreciation for the work of council and for how it works.

So um, I just thank you very much, Alex, and thank you to staff.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'd like to reiterate um this report is done by all of us on legislative services.

We all write sections, we all provide pictures for it.

It is very much a group effort.

I have a motion from Councilman Henjam and a second from Councilman Donaldson.

Um so let's vote.

The motion passes a to zero.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That was a tough one.

I wasn't sure that was gonna pass, Alex.

Moving on to one hour of citizens discussion for items not on today's agenda per city council roles.

Citizens will have three minutes to share their comments.

I have a list of those who have signed up.

When I call your name, please come forward, introduce yourself and limit yourself to topics that are relevant and germane to city business.

Um, starting with Isaac Contreras.

Hello, council.

I have appeared here before to speak about ICE, and I appear here again to speak about ICE.

And it really comes down to the same accountability as a problem with we have with police forces across the nation.

ICE is just terrorizing people of any locality.

And that is not right, period.

When the argument of immigration first came up in this country in the Bush administration, it was always the argument that we should get rid of the violent immigrants, the violent criminals.

But instead now we have ICE really attacking anyone with brown skin and anyone that appears to be an immigrant.

I don't really know what it means to appear to be an immigrant, and I don't know what it means for someone to even be approached in the manner that ICE is approaching them.

Because I haven't had the displeasure of having to interact with ICE.

But I asked that city council actually maneuver to pass an ordinance to limit the amount of ICE activity in this city.

Because there's certainly ICE activity in this city.

Forty percent.

Actually, no, that statistic is wrong.

30% of the population in the city is non-white.

That means anyone at any time could be terrorized by ice just from being outside, standing outside.

And that's why people don't stand outside.

They don't want to be terrorized.

They don't want to be harassed.

They don't want to be put in a predicament where they're in a containment cell waiting to be deported because they have no access to any lawyer or anyone who will stand up to them, stand up for them.

And that's why I'm here to ask City Council to pass an ordinance to limit ice activity in the city.

And I sadly do not have the or an ordinance that it I had typed up, but I will provide it to Sam so that he may provide it to all of you as a template for what city council should pass.

Next up we have Larad Niles.

Councilman Henjam.

Yeah, I'm uh sorry, Madam President.

Yeah, I just want to make a comment.

With City Council is not able to pass an ordinance to prevent um federal activity from happening in the city.

Um however, I I do simply want to take this moment to really make sure that people understand that ICE activity is impacting enrollment in our schools.

And um, and it's a conversation we need to be having.

People are afraid to show up to school.

They're they're becoming afraid to show up to work.

And I don't know exactly what we can do about that.

Um, but I am uh working on uh I'm planning to have a conversation in specific with Mitchell High School um principal and some others um in the Southeast community to um to really have a conversation about the unf really unfortunate impact that ICE activity is having on school enrollment in our city.

Thank you.

Lorad Niles.

Hello, uh, I guess I'm somewhat familiar with this forum.

Um my name's Lorad Nels.

I live at 1814 West Vermo.

I've talked to you about a number of issues in our uh old Colorado City area.

Um I commend you for uh getting a hot asphalt machine in the city.

We've got tons of potholes that reoccur every six months to a year, and that's hopefully gonna help with some of that.

Um I commend you for uh trying to get the homeless out of some of our parks and things, although that effort has driven them into our community through partially through the effort of there's a place called the Sanctuary where they come to bathe and everything else.

People from homeless from all over the city come into our area and set up encampments on our streets.

Uh and uh things, people's front yards, their side yards get inundated with massive piles of homeless people's wares or whatever.

Um and I've seen the homeless commission come through, talk with them, and then they're still there for three, four days.

And this is terrible in our community.

I uh as of a week ago, I had a homeless person come with uh has been in our community for 16 years.

Came with his truck, which is totally out of tune and everything else, sits there and guns it all night long because he's trying to charge his battery and uh run his heater and moves from one side of my house to the other side of the house, and the police uh when I call the police, they say, well, we can't do anything about it.

He has a right and he's been trying to live in the property next door to me.

This is the picture of it as of last uh night and creates trash out of a trying to create a home.

This is not according to our living standards here in Colorado Springs or building standards, and uh this continues on and on, and the police told me when I called them about this that we are not going to discuss this.

This is he's got a right to be there, and I asked him what right, and they said, Well, we can't talk to you about it.

So I'm giving the cold shoulder.

I got another person behind me that I've had code enforcement come multiple, multiple times after.

They have tires hanging on their fence, tires in the front yard, and code enforcement hasn't addressed the issue.

Basically, we're not being listened to uh by the police or the code enforcement.

I had somebody else come pounding on my door at one o'clock in the morning, and I'm going, what's going on here?

I go to it, and there's a homeless guy there, and he goes, Oh, by the way, do you have some water?

Mr.

Niles, if you'll give your address to Sam Friedman over here, he can connect with our interim chief of staff, and we can get code enforcement out there with those pictures.

Yeah, this is ridiculous.

It's constant.

It's like it's been going on for way too long.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Steph Beeheel.

Thank you, Council.

Oh, twice in one day you get to hear from me, lucky.

Um, Stephie Hill, uh, executive director of Citizens Project, uh, with no particularly uh pressing agenda item today on this topic.

Um, nonetheless, want to speak today about council pay.

Um, in our pursuit of just and equitable policy at Citizens Project, uh, we're very concerned about the lack of pay for you all.

Um, it's time.

This is a city of about half a million people.

We're the second largest city in the state, and Colorado Springs serves as the civic and commercial seat for a county of over 750 K.

This is a lot to manage, and I know I don't need to tell any of you that this is a full-time job.

Uh, when we don't pay someone for a full-time elected job, we assume certain risks, namely that the pool of candidates will shrink because anyone who can't survive without a full-time job is effectively disqualified.

Or alternatively, we run the risk of having some number of council members try to balance another full-time job to live on, plus this, which we recently have with our uh newly appointed member.

And um, bless you, sir.

I am also a workaholic, I get it, but this is a lot for anybody to be taking on on this body.

Even when we don't agree with all of you at my organization and among some of the other community groups I work with, we very much respect that you are doing a difficult job and that it takes up a lot of your time and energy.

It is definitely more than a full-time job.

Um, and because we value that service and because we appreciate you taking the time, even when we're not on the same page.

We definitely believe you should be paid for your labor.

So I'm just here today to encourage you to start thinking about what a referendum might look like to send to the voters, how much pay to ask for, what the timing should be on that, what election do you want to send it to, um, and what the implementation timeline might need to be.

We have a lot of uh members of the community from all over the political spectrum who are interested in this issue.

I actually feel really bad.

My good friend and friend of our organization, Nick Raven was supposed to share some of this with you today.

Um, and I'm just up here for the both of us, I suppose.

So I just want to ask you to start considering that.

This is not obviously the last time you'll be hearing about us on this issue, and we would welcome any sort of uh meetings that you're willing to take with us.

You can reach out to us at uh director at citizensproject.org, and we would love to work with you on this issue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Lonnie Mira.

Hello, all these good job.

Uh I'm here because last time we were at the council meeting.

I told you uh saying thank you.

Did Jake at the front of the house uh from the house uh on corona straightened out the curve and stuff and side?

But the council is it the city worker came and knocked on the door and let me know they were there.

I had another one come after him, and he just said we're just gonna right here in the front, not the whole curve and the whole uh street.

And people next to me and down were low stuff too, because that needed all the whole street needed to be done.

And uh I asked him, why can't you change it?

He says, We don't have the budget, it's not our budget, it's not on our account.

Well, that's been going on.

Like he, I told you it's been on 25 years or full.

That should have been done a long time ago.

But when I'm trying to get at I don't want to look like I'm being winning pick job.

I said, Well, you got the one from my house done in front of them over muster shop is but uh people our neighbors, they're neighbors of mine.

They're good that you know they got concerned in the neighborhood with the street too, not just me.

Well, I can know if we get that whole street fit done.

You know, I want it all done for safety reasons.

You guys were talking about safety last time.

You're talking about protection.

Well, um that's part of being protection and stuff.

Uh just yet done.

And then I talked to you guys about the uh drug, the uh joke uh center rope and up.

I didn't hear from anybody that's saying they're gonna check into it and what's going on with it.

Uh we you know, it's changes to our kids.

It's not there's a safe kids to be walking across or trying to go to school or something.

So please give us an album.

If you don't know how we do it, where I'll work with you, how to get it straightened out, how to close them, how to make a move.

I'll be allowed to do it.

But I like I don't want to see our kids get hurt.

That's my issue is those uh drug houses and stuff and dope places.

You guys are always talking about safety.

That's a safety right there with the kids.

So please, if we can come with an answer or something, I'll be glad to hear it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Next up we have Pastor Paul.

All right.

Good morning, city council.

Due to the time and our ticket, uh, you always see my proposal.

So, madam president, what we asked is that you could set up a meeting.

Uh, I don't want to read this, I want to have a meeting.

You'll always see my uh request.

Sure, we're I will set up a meeting.

We'll work through my staff.

Gotcha.

So go do the time and my brain to tie it.

Let's sit up a meeting, so we could discuss this.

Sure.

All right.

Happy to appreciate thank you.

Next up, we have Solomon Moore.

Solomon and Gwyn Henderson.

Um Gwen Henderson.

All together.

So we're gonna go.

You're you're all you got it.

Next up, we have Lawrence Clark.

Hello, City Council.

It's been a long time, probably about four or five months now, but I've been working hard.

I've been in DC trying to get things done.

You're looking at the current candidate for Congressional District Number Seven for the American Constitutionalist Party.

Um you guys all know that I run on principles and I run on base foundations of such principles.

As Tom Bailey learned the very hard way.

All of you have your job for now.

But it's always one vote away.

It's always a group of signatures away.

It's nothing that you can just rip up if you don't agree with it.

You know, it's just funny, you know, how so many boards want to uh disillude themselves.

They want to get rid of the transparency board, but then yet offer nothing of a new way.

Because we know that the old way is not is that really like a good way.

But with the new way, with accountability, with oversight, with civilian oversight, you know, because technically y'all work for us.

I mean, you know, and like the what like the worst part about it is that every time that the utilities people come up here and Travis Deal is over there, it's always, you know, more money that you want from us.

You know, why don't you guys make money without having to tax people?

I mean, Risley's over here is worth almost eight million dollars, if not more.

You know, you're you you can make money, man.

You're very good at it.

You know, and tops off to you on that.

Not everybody can.

Not everybody can afford five, six homes.

You know, most of us can't even afford to live in our cars.

And you all got rid of that too.

Thank you for that.

You know, I thought you were crow freedom soon, but now I know that you are crow treason soon.

Because you put us out for the long time of me coming here, I lived in my car.

I didn't live in a nice fancy house or a nice fancy apartment.

I got that periodically.

I got that now.

But for a long time, I was like them too, living out of my car.

You know, every single one of you, except for Hendrium and Gold.

Thank you, Nancy, like for that, because for voting like against that, because how how anybody up here could vote for kicking people out of their homes, out of their cars.

I mean, as we know, the streets are dangerous enough.

Bradley Benford was a sheriff's deputy.

He killed two people.

He shot 16 rounds, hit the person with three.

If I had the accuracy rate of three out of 16, I don't think I'd be working anywhere.

If I've if I burnt three, if I burnt what, 13 uh out of 16 burgers, you'd think I would have a job anywhere.

If I didn't sell, if I only sold three out of 16 homes, you think a realtor agency would ever keep me there?

No.

No.

Well, what I would love, and what I'm focusing on with my congressional district is a huge overhaul of accountability from board members, city councils, police, all of it.

Because nobody's job is safe.

Because jobs come and go.

And it's the people who dictate that.

Thank you very much.

Next up, we have Taylor Gray.

Morning.

So uh welcome to the team, Ken.

Um, just of course, to remind you guys, like always, we're not in normal times.

The you know, our laws are being broken by our own federal government.

That like Nancy said, we can't just like tell them not to be here.

But what we can do is we can read the melt act that I sent you guys that safely stops the flow of information that they're using to attack us.

And I think it's so important that we're talking about accountability and transparency today.

Um, you know, the whole police thing, it's just like the ice thing, it's just like everything else.

Um, it's really important that you guys understand that nobody's gonna give this up.

We need accountability and transparency across the board with all of our elected officials and everyone who's in charge here.

Um we're like committing war crimes with our tax dollars, right?

You know, this isn't okay.

So we are being attacked domestically.

So you guys all swore to defend the constitution.

You also spoke a lot last week about having time, but not a single one of you reached out to me.

You guys didn't take time to ask questions.

When I saw you guys have the the previous council member here over and chose not to ask questions, it's just insane.

You guys made a vote to not ask questions.

That's like officially being like, let's do this.

And to have made a plan beforehand that you weren't gonna ask questions.

It's just all ridiculous.

How is there like five, ten people in here speaking about someone else?

But you guys, and nothing against you again, but you guys picked someone who's a federal agent, I believe, you know.

Like this is not someone who's connected to the people, which is why they were recalled.

So I invite every single one of you who does not have time or does not feel motivated, or does not understand.

Just step down and let us have someone in this place who can afford the time.

I don't know.

What are we gonna do, guys?

I I want to know.

When we're gathering this digital information, and then it's being leaked to other countries that we're at war with when it's being used for horrible crimes that I if you don't pay attention to the news, guys, like every day new stuff comes out.

It's sick, it's disturbing.

So my question today is actually for the city attorney.

Who is responsible for the lost metadata when it gets leaked into another country into a company that isn't supposed to have it when people are accessing?

Okay, you know, I said it's so easy to hack these things.

Someone hacked it, one of the cameras, and then went to see what people were looking at.

Well, the logins show them watching children in gymnastics classes inside schools.

Like who's responsible?

Thank you.

No questions?

No answers either.

I need you guys to take the time to listen.

Please.

Next step.

I have a full-time job.

Okay.

I don't have time.

Please, guys.

Steve Lightfoot.

My kind of town.

Colorado is my kind of town.

Anyway, I've been here about a year now, and I'm happy to be here from California.

Weather's better, people are better.

Air's cleaner.

It's a great place.

Potholes aside, there's too many.

I came here to break a big news story.

Stephen King getting John Lennon's last autograph.

It's not only a news story.

It's the biggest story since Christ.

It is.

There will be thousands of suicides caused by this story breaking.

Just like there were thousands of suicides caused when Stephen King shot John Lennon.

And we all knew the government did it.

A lot of people got out while the getting was good.

Things have gotten terrible since.

AIDS.

If an EMP attack happened, it would be a good thing, in my opinion.

It would reveal us as how helpless we are without that stuff, which is useless and stupid.

Makes you scrambled your brain to make it work.

I'm working now part-time.

And I know you're all so overworked, you don't have time to care who killed John Lennon.

Even if it's Stephen King.

You know, apathy is the sum of all sin.

Oh well, it's that guy's in the street, he just got run over by a car.

I think I'll just keep walking.

It's the sum of all sins.

If we cannot respond and avenge John Lennon, there is no person on earth we will ever be able to avenge and stand up for.

And it should uh interest you to know that the uh the murder of John Lennon was not an attack on him, it was an attack on you and your right to challenge the status quo.

John Lennon challenged the status quo.

My first political thought is boy, are we stupid to work half of our awakening lives?

Certainly we're nuts.

That was my first political thought.

If you let me be your leader, you're not gonna be working 40 hours a week.

You'll be working 30 hours a week, trust me.

We don't have to work like this.

We used to have a one paycheck economy in the 50s.

Now you got Latchkey kids shooting each other at school.

You know, right now uh we're debating war.

Israel was about to get the nuclear weapon.

You know who opposed it?

John Kennedy.

Before he died, Time in Newsweek documented John Kennedy's death.

They knew about it.

Israel knew about the upcoming murder of John Kennedy.

And they are central behind the murder of John Lennon.

We've got uh one solution to the Middle East, and that is to create another diaspora for the Jewish community.

They don't belong there.

Thank you.

Next up we have Genevieve Sherard.

Hello, Council.

Uh again, Genevieve Richard with Colorado Springs Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

My comment here is a pretty simple one.

Um, this meeting time is very inaccessible for working people.

It's uh you all have public comment.

You say that you want to talk to the public, engage with the public, hear from the public, but it's really hard for the public to get here at the time you meet.

Uh to you know, those persons comment earlier, you know, we have full-time jobs, unlike RISLI here.

We have to work for a living, you know.

So uh yeah, um that that's about it.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Jen Verda.

Good morning, friends.

Jen Verda with UCCS.

If you can believe it or not, we are literally here with zero agenda.

The only thing we want to say to each and every single one of you is thank you.

You do not hear it nearly enough, any of you.

You are all servant leaders, you are doing your best for the city in your own way, and we all know that you are not certainly doing it for the money.

We might not all agree all the time.

You might not all agree all the time, but we know that you are doing what you do for our community, and we appreciate all of your efforts.

Thank you on behalf of UCCS, Reliant Construction, Pike's Peak Library District, Housing and Building Association, United Healthcare, Chamber of Commerce, many business owners, Gold Hill Mesa.

Please know we all thank you from the bottom of our heart.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

To everybody in the room.

Thank you.

And then I succeed my time, Gendel.

I just want to add, uh, I was told I could embarrass Lynette, so that's why I came.

But I hope you know that you're all admired very much.

We appreciate the time, the effort, the sacrifices, and you get a lot of complaints, but you're not going to get that from us today.

We just want to say in our own small way, a big thank you.

So we appreciate it.

I'm John Areader Claymeyer.

I represent the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corporation.

On behalf of our thousand members and uh being the business voice for Southern Colorado, I echo all of my colleagues' sentiment.

It's a hard job.

Uh leadership is is hard.

And I just want to say thank you.

Um the hours you all put in, the sacrifices you make, the sacrifices your families make.

Please know that it doesn't go unnoticed.

And thank you for caring so much about our city, because at the end of the day, I know that's what we all agree with, even if at times we disagree.

But thank you.

It means a lot to all of us, and it means a lot to our members.

Council members, thank you.

Uh Michael Talk with the HBA.

You know, a lot of the work you guys do happens in long meetings, uh, with difficult conversations and under intense public scrutiny.

Uh you hear from people when they're most frustrated, not when they're most grateful.

So I really appreciate you guys.

So today, and alongside everyone, I want to thank you for your hard work.

We appreciate you.

We see you.

And uh your commitment to this community matters.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Hingem.

Uh, thank you, Madam President.

Thank you all for for coming and sharing those thoughts.

I I want to use this just as a moment to reflect on um the fact that we are leaders and our community wants good leaders and needs good leadership.

And people are watching.

And you heard a lot of comment today that we hear every two weeks.

Um, and I think all voices really deserve to be heard and appreciated and understood, and that uh, you know, we had uh uh there's a there's a local group in town.

In fact, the chamber actually hosted uh a dialogue around civility, and the local group is reclaiming civility, and uh that group started locally after reading a book called The Soul of Civility, and that author was just here speaking at UCCS as a matter of fact, and they have invited us as a council to participate in some civility um uh work together as a council as a body of leaders.

And I do hope that we will take them up on that because it isn't an easy job, and we don't always agree.

But it's not about just being polite, it's about being able to listen to each other and appreciate the differences, whatever the issues are.

And people want and need us.

They're looking at how we are leading.

Pastor Paul came earlier.

He brought a letter.

The thing he wanted to meet about had to do with engagement among council members here.

And I hope we meet with him.

And I actually, the president committed to meeting with him.

I'd like to be a part of that meeting.

I think being able to address those really hard and challenging things that we're dealing with as a city head on with respect for the differences and showing a way forward for our community is critical.

And so I really appreciate you all coming.

I appreciate everybody who spoke today at Citizens Comment.

I appreciate our president for how she leads the meetings.

And that's that's really all I have.

Thank you for coming.

And that concludes our city council meeting for today, and we are adjourned.