On the eve of Mayor Steve Bach’s first year in office, an epic storm hit the city.
“As you know, we had a major storm event in Colorado Springs last night. We had, in some places, up to four inches of water in 2 hours. That’s equivalent to a one hundred year storm. This is nothing new for our city. We’ve had this happen to us certainly many times in the past, but it’s always a very concerning event in terms of life and property,” Bach said during a press conference at the City Administration Building.
Photo by Daniel J. Chacón
Hoping to improve communication and build collaboration on issues facing the city, Mayor Steve Bach is holding the first of what is expected to be a series of informal meetings with the City Council this Wednesday.
One of the reasons the mayor initiated the meetings is because several council members told him they didn’t feel involved in the “big issues,” Bach said last week.
“Part of what prompted my thought to begin holding these regular all-hands meetings is that several councilors have told me that they don’t feel included in the overall conversation,” he said.
The meeting is called the “Mayor’s Counsel Meeting.”
“I need counsel from them, and I hope they want some counsel from me,” Bach said about the name of the meeting.
The meeting, in Suite 102 of the City Administration Building, starts at 10 a.m. It is open to the public, but no public comments will be taken.
“It’s really intended for the nine members of council and the mayor to have an opportunity to sit around a table and exchange ideas and hopefully to coalesce out of that process a better dialogue so that everyone is in the conversation at the same time,” said Bach, adding that he hopes to build collaboration among council members.
Bach said he envisioned monthly meetings with council but that he was open to meeting more frequently.
“I’m happy to meet more often if that’ll help in terms of building the dialogue,” he said.
The agenda for Wednesday’s 1 1/2-hour meeting includes more than 20 items.
“We won’t get through probably 10 percent of items next Wednesday, but it’ll be a start,” said Bach, whose agenda items are listed first.
The mayor’s agenda items include Memorial Health System negotiations and the governance of Colorado Springs Utilities, among others.
The council’s agenda items include a discussion about redistricting and “ways for City Council members to interact with City staff,” among others.
That last item probably reflects a frustration among some council members, who say their requests to city employees are being ignored.
Here’s the agenda:
AGENDA
Mayor’s Counsel Meeting
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
City Administration Building, Suite 102
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
I. Background and purpose of the meeting
II. Mayor’s agenda topics
a. Strategic plan (incl. community design)
b. Civilian Workers’ Compensation
c. MHS negotiations
d. CSU governance, letter of credit
e. Boards and Commissions
III. Council’s agenda topics
a. Re-districting status
b. Charter review
c. Legislative priorities – How does Mayor’s office and Council office work
together on legislative issues? Role of current legislative staff.
d. Council-Mayor relationship
e. Council-Mayor roles and responsibilities
f. Communication support from City Communications
g. Strategic planning, essential City services and priorities for the City
h. Spirit of the Springs events
i. Schedule for implementation of the 2012 budget changes
j. Review of Boards and Commissions
k. Mayor-Council trip to Washington, DC
l. Plans for Mayor/Council retreat
m. PPM, compensation study and pension reform
n. A Process for the Mayor getting information/issues to Council. With the latest PERA issue, it seemed PERA was raised “somewhere,” and then suddenly Council gets emails from citizens, with Council having no official information relayed on the matter.
o. The Formal Agenda memo as part of the ALTERNATIVES section Council would like at least 3 options given. It seems we are often given just one alternative/option. Then during the staff presentation, staff brings up other options that could have been included in the agenda packet.
p. Authorized ways for City Council members to interact with City staff. How
is Council to use City staff to research agenda items?
q. The role of Banning Lewis Ranch in the strategic planning for the City.
How does the City want Banning Lewis Ranch to develop?
r. What is the role of economic development and the land use for the City? How are the two intertwined? Since Council’s role is land use, how should land use work with economic development of the City?
IV. Future Meetings
a. Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m., CAB 102
b. Frequency and time of day thereafter
Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach is predicting that the Broncos would beat the Patriots during Saturday’s AFC Divisional Playoff game.
“I think it’s going to be 38-35 in overtime, Broncos,” Bach said during a wide-ranging press conference Thursday at the City Administration Building.
“Whatever happens, I just think it’s a great moment in our history to be proud. It’s an uplifting positive experience and I hope you’re excited about that,” he said.
“I will be wearing orange on Friday,” Bach added. “I’m not sure what it’s going to be. I gotta get some socks or something.”
Mayor Steve Bach today will present a small gift to a group of junior high school students who are visiting from Fujiyoshida, Japan, which is one of Colorado Springs’ six sister cities.
City spokeswoman Julie Smith said Bach is giving the students a Colorado Springs flag pin and a nice pen with engraved images from Colorado Springs, including Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods, General Palmer, Pioneers Museum and the Air Force Academy chapel.
“It’s customary to exchange a small gift representing Colorado Springs when we have visitors from our sister cities,” she said in an email.
The meet-and-greet will take place in the mayor’s office in the City Administration Building at 3:30 p.m., and the news media has been invited to special event.
“Fujiyoshida and Colorado Springs have had many different kinds of exchanges over the course of our relationship but, the most enduring is the Junior High Student Exchange program,” Smith said in a news release.
“The visiting students will also participate in the Everybody Welcome Festival at America the Beautiful Park on Sunday, August 7 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” she wrote.
Smith also said that next year marks the 50th anniversary of the sister city relationship between Colorado Springs and Fujiyoshida.
“Sister cities are formed to develop friendly and meaningful exchanges involving a large number of citizens and organizations in both communities engaging in projects of mutual interest on a long term basis,” she wrote. “Colorado Springs has six Sister Cities: Bankstown, Australia; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; Fujiyoshida, Japan; Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Nuevo Casas Grandes, Mexico; Smolensk, Ukraine.”
On Aug. 4, 2012, the Colorado Springs Diversity Forum is joining forces with the city, Japan America Society of Southern Colorado and Colorado Springs Sister Cities committee “to feature one of Japan’s three most unique festivals” – the Yoshida Fire Festival – at America the Beautiful Park.
At the end of this month, members from the diversity forum will represent the city during a visit to this year’s Yoshida Fire Festival in Fujiyoshida, Japan.
“This is your city, and you are welcome in the City Administration Building.”
– Mayor Steve Bach tweeted today about his decision to get rid of a policy requiring visitors to sign in at the City Administration Building.
Former City Manager Penelope Culbreth-Graft had instituted the policy over concerns that “angry people” would go to the CAB, 30 S. Nevada Ave., and confront city employees who worked in the customer call center of the Stormwater Enterprise, which some people despised.
While he was campaigning to be mayor, Steve Bach promised to bring more transparency to city government if he was elected.
So far, so good.
On Tuesday, the day Bach was sworn in, the city eliminated a policy requiring the public to sign in at a security desk in the lobby of the City Administration Building downtown.
“During the transition, we’ve had discussions about being more open to the public, and based on the last year or so of experience with our security screening process, we probably had more negatives than we had positives related to people feeling welcome into the CAB,” Assistant City Manager Nancy Johnson said today.
The sign-in policy was instituted either late 2008 or early 2009 by former City Manager Penelope Culbreth-Graft.
City spokesman John Leavitt said there had been concerns about “angry people” going to the CAB to confront employees of the much-maligned Stormwater Enterprise customer call center.
“The thought was that if you just provided a little bit of a net there, that people would maybe be discouraged from any kind of a violent confrontation or something,” he said.
Although the safety of city employees and visitors at the CAB is always a concern, Leavitt said history has shown very few negative instances.
“Before Ms. Culbreth-Graft instituted that policy, we had a free and open entry policy for years,” he said. “There we a few occasions when had little problems, but we corrected them or addressed them on an individual basis as opposed to a general policy.”
Leavitt noted that the seven-story building at 30. S. Nevada Ave. still has security.
“We do still have guards that are available to us and will continue to patrol the buildings,” he said.
Under the policy, city employees were also required to show their badges.
At 6:37 a.m. Tuesday, city employees received the following email:
“Effective immediately we will no longer require employees to show their ID’s upon entering (or wearing them while in the facility) and visitors will no longer need to sign-in when visiting the CAB.”
City Administration Building
If you see fire hoses and fire trucks at the City Administration Building today, don’t worry.
“The CAB is not burning down, and staff and visitors inside are not in danger,” city spokesman John Leavitt said in an e-mail.
Leavitt said the Fire Department is teaming up with facilities staff “to detect the source of roof leaks at the CAB” on Nevada Avenue.
“This may include the use of fire hoses and ladder apparatus,” he said. “Never fear!
The people who have been dangling from ropes off the seven-story City Administration Building aren’t city employees depressed or upset about all the layoffs or budget cuts.
They’re contract workers who are re-caulking the building at 30 S. Nevada Ave. to make it more energy efficient during the winter.
And just in time for summer, the windows will be re-tinted in the near future, too.
This is the point where locals are probably wondering: How can the city government, which let go of dozens of employees and cut programs and services, afford such luxuries?
Thank the Obama administration.
The projects are being paid through an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant under the federal stimulus package.
“It’s not city money,” said Curt DeCapite, the city’s procurement services manager.
“It is an efficiency retrofit or a modification to help reduce energy costs that we can then pass on to the citizens,” he said.
DeCapite said the re-caulking with prevent heat loss in the winter.
“The building has not had that done in a long time. It was really needed,” he said.
The re-caulking project is about 75 percent complete, he said.
This week, the city issued a request for proposals for the tinting project, which is estimated to cost between $50,000 and $100,000.
The windows are already tinted, but the tinting was more cosmetic than anything else.
“Yes, we have a slight tint, but you have to remember this building was built back in the early 80′s,” DeCapite said. “It’s not an energy efficient tinting. It’s just a thing that they put in the glass to make it not completely see through.”
DeCapite said he didn’t believe the existing tinting would be removed.
“How they’re going to do it, I’m not exactly sure,” he said. “I believe it’s a film that’s going to be added to the inside of the window.”
