Former City Councilman Sean Paige, who championed a public-private partnership between the city and the owners of a swim school to keep some city pools open, said he was disappointed to hear that the agreement had been terminated.
The Colorado Springs Recreation Center will close Friday.
Paige said the city should diagnose what went wrong and learn from the experience.
“I thought we had a lot of momentum on partnerships going and I’ve seen some of that fall away as the perception has taken hold that the city has money to spare,” he said.
“I personally believe that this is a model that we need to keep pushing forward and we need to reenergize because the city’s fiscal problems, I think, are going to be chronic.”
The City Council says they have the money to paint chipping murals on rooftops for the USOC, maintain the city councils special interest tennis courts and give each of them an $80,000/year pay raise. Not bad for a irreverent council.
How come they dont have the money to open the pools and rec centers for the city’s poor? I guess none of them live in those areas and their continued support of the USOC’s glorified t-shirt shop is more important.
How come the USOC has NEVER EVER done anything in the community even though we give them millions and a building they are renting out downtown? If we would have sold the building rather than giving it away we could afford many things we had to stop like bus routes so poor people can get to work.
If the USOC was not located in this city we would easily have enough money for the rec centers for the poor kids that had to be closed down because of the ransom we had to pay this non-profit who exists here in name only.
A partnership with this highly anti Colorado Springs organization could be a start, even if it would be a very small start in comparison to the pain the USOC and the city council has caused every citizen in this city.