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Here are some of the stories we are following this week. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for up-to-the-minute news.
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The new year brings a new effort to count all the urban campers in El Paso County. It seems that vagrants are dispersed far and wide these days. Do you think the folks who tally them up can get an accurate count? Also, what happened to basic laws of civil society, where urban camping and rampant open-air drug use were discouraged, even illegal?
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Should Colorado Springs have a limit on how high buildings can be downtown? A proposition is before the City Council to allow a 36-story apartment complex to be built Downtown. Once this genie is out of the bottle, you cannot put it back. Please let us know your thoughts on building height limits for Downtown Colorado Springs. Reply to this newsletter, with your name and your opinion, on restricting building height in Downtown Colorado Springs.
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The data is in on Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade’s listening tour. One of the top priorities, shown in the data, is more, and better, public transportation. Do you think the data results were skewed by the format of the meetings?
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Colorado Springs Utilities is offering a rebate if you would like a smart thermostat. We suspect that micromanaging your energy usage, and even shutting off your air conditioning in summer, would also be included.
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If you are a Colorado Springs Utilities customer, did you notice a new charge on your utility bill this month? Folks who use natural gas are being charged a new fee, which some might call punitive. Residential customers are paying around $0.75 a month extra. Is this just the beginning of special fees for using energy the “green energy unicorn” people don’t like? Also, have you noticed that coal and natural gas have been used to produce energy for generations, and we are not all dead from global warming?
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Aurora, Colorado, is proposing a “work-first” approach to housing homeless people. This approach would cost Aurora taxpayers $26.5 million to start. Do you think this is a better approach than the Denver “housing first” approach?
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The sanctuary city problem is reaching crisis proportions in Denver. Hospitals are overwhelmed with migrants seeking free medical care, and patients, who are naturalized citizens, are being turned away. Naturally, the hospital system is crying out for bailouts from both the state and federal governments. This lawless chaos, encouraged by the Biden administration, is simply unsustainable.
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The Colorado legislative year has begun, and you know what that means: insane bill proposals. One example is a proposition to pay ex-convicts $3000 of taxpayer money once they are released from prison. They also want to offer in-person voting in all jails. No, we aren’t kidding. When they plunder and disdain taxpayers, while catering to criminals, illegal aliens, and vagrants, it’s safe to say we no longer have a representative government.
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Colorado Democrats in the legislature are also continuing to chip away at the rights of landlords. They’ve filed a bill, pushed by activists, to make it more difficult for landlords to evict tenants, and not renew tenant leases.
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Democrats are also proposing, once again, supervised drug injection sites. This will not help anyone except for the bureaucrats, politicians, and activists who will fund and manage these sites, while taxpayers get the bill.
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Did you know that Governor Polis and the Colorado Legislature could save you $510 per year by cutting the income tax rate?
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Anatomy of a grift: One radical leftist activist, who happens to be married to Congressional Representative Brittany Petterson, and is long-time friends with folks in Jefferson County government, is cashing in on his marriage and friendships, at taxpayer expense. His consulting company is being awarded $340,000 in taxpayer funds to craft messaging toward the goal of getting Jefferson County taxpayers to vote away their TABOR refunds. Similar measures have been voted down in Jefferson County three times, so far. This is pretty disgusting on several levels.
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Fewer students are being enrolled in Colorado public schools this year. Will bureaucrats backfill this enrollment, and any possible revenue reductions, with migrant children?
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As a taxpayer, you are being forced to reward the rich for buying status-symbol electric vehicles. This is in no way, shape, or form, the proper role of representative government.
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Boutique electric vehicles require boutique charging stations. You get to pay for those too.
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Councilwoman Michelle Talarico is expressing concerns that downtown businesses are struggling, and could benefit from your support. We, citizens, could benefit from being able to go downtown without being accosted by vagrants and being gouged for parking. Let’s try that approach, and see what happens.
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We’ve been keeping tabs on the Pine Creek residents fighting an “affordable housing” apartment complex being forced on them. We have the entire legal appeal document from them for your review.
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If you would like to help support us in our mission as government watchdogs by becoming a Newsletter Sponsor, we are offering two sponsorships for each weekly newsletter, at the nominal cost of $100 each. Funds raised from these sponsorship opportunities will help us to keep looking out for taxpayers.
Here are some upcoming meetings in the area. We hope you can attend one or more! If there are other public meetings you’d like to see announced here, please drop us a line. We are happy to include them in an upcoming newsletter. These might be government-related, candidate, or elected official meetings. Thanks!
Colorado Springs City Council Meetings
Monday, February 12, 10:00 a.m.
Colorado Springs City Council Work Session
107 N. Nevada, 3rd floor
Live stream link here
Agenda not yet posted
Tuesday, February 13, 10:00 a.m.
Colorado Springs City Council
107 N. Nevada, 3rd floor
Live stream link here
Agenda not yet posted
El Paso County Board of County Commissioner Meetings
Tuesday, January 30, 9:00 a.m.
El Paso County Board of County Commissioners
Centennial Hall
200 S. Cascade
Live stream link here
Agenda not yet posted
Tuesday, February 6, 9:00 a.m.
El Paso County Board of County Commissioners
Centennial Hall
200 S. Cascade
Live stream link here
Agenda not yet posted
Colorado Springs Utilities Board of Directors
Wednesday, February 21, 1:00 p.m.
Utilities Board of Directors
Blue River Board Room
Plaza of the Rockies, South Tower, 5th Floor
Live stream link here
Agenda not yet posted
Miscellaneous Meetings of Interest
Monday, February 5, 6:00 p.m.
Law Enforcement Transparency and Advisory Committee
City Hall
107 S. Nevada Avenue, Suite 200
Also, online via Microsoft Teams
Information and Agenda
Thursday, February 1, 6:30 p.m.
Independence Institute Local Government Training Workshop
Online Via Zoom
Information and Agenda
View the full Colorado Springs City Council meeting schedule here to see upcoming meetings.
View the full Board of El Paso County Commissioners meeting schedule here to see upcoming meetings.
View the full Colorado Springs Utilities Board meeting schedule here to see upcoming meetings. Please also follow CSU's social media on their Facebook Page and Twitter.
Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Since most of the City and County board and commission meetings are not televised or recorded, we are trying to remedy that. We now have a camera and tripod for volunteers to check out for future meetings.
If you have a tip about a story in the Pikes Peak region that you aren’t seeing reported, let us know. We will see what we can find out.
How to Contact City and County Officials:
City Hall
107 N. Nevada Avenue
Colorado Springs CO 80903
(719) 385-5986
Contact City Council
Mayor's Office
30 S Nevada Avenue, Suite 601
Colorado Springs, CO 80901
(719) 385-5900
Contact Mayors Office
County Commissioners
200 South Cascade Avenue, Suite 100
Colorado Springs, CO 80903-2202
Phone: (719) 520-7276
https://www.elpasoco.com/contact-us/
Thank you!
Rebecca
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