2023 Mayoral Runoff Candidates
Ballots due 7pm May 16th
We asked Wayne Williams and Yemi Mobalade to answer the following:
“Mayor John Suthers will leave office with an impressive legacy of parks related accomplishments.
Beautiful Panorama Park was completed during his time as Mayor, a $7 million Tabor Retention initiative benefitting Trails was overwhelmingly passed as was the TOPS 20-year extension.
If you become Mayor, what would you champion that would improve our city’s parks, trails and open spaces. Or as Mayor John Suthers has often said: creating a city that matches our scenery.”
Yemi Mobalade: Colorado Springs’ open spaces, trails, and parks are arguably some of the most beautiful in the country.
We must ensure Colorado Springs families today, as well as future generations, have access to well-maintained and safe trails, parks, and open spaces. As mayor, I will invest in our natural beauty and environment and support the various efforts to create more funding for our playgrounds, community parks, open space, trails, and sports complexes. This includes
1. Budget: Bring the City’s Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services budget back to pre-recession levels.
While the City’s General Fund has increased 56% since 2008, the Parks budget is currently only 5% of the City’s budget compared to 8% of the budget in 2008.
2. Tabor Retention: If appropriate, I will leverage a voter-approved excess tax revenue opportunity to improve the City’s parks, trails, and open spaces.
3. LART: Increase the Lodging and Auto Rental Tax (LART) from 2% to 4% to better maintain our tourism attractions and parks. The burden of this tax increase falls on the visitors and tourists.
I advocated to place the TOPS extension on the city council agenda and voted to submit it to the voters.
I also voted to place the prior extension on the ballot and served on the YES for Trails, Open Space and Parks Committee where I helped strategize and raise money for the campaign.
Wayne Williams: We’ve increased general fund support for these areas during my four years on City Council and we’ve added over a thousand acres of parks and open space. We also added more than a thousand acres for El Paso County when I served as a county commissioner.
To be specific, the Parks and Forestry General Fund Budget when I joined city government was $14.8 million. The 2023 budget we adopted allocates $20.5 million for Parks and Forestry – an additional $5.7 million – a 38.7% increase in four years.
In addition to increasing the general fund, I’ve also consistently sought additional ways to fund parks, including:
(1) obtaining voter approval of ballot issue 2B in the November 2019 election, which allowed the City to keep $7 million in excess 2018 TABOR revenue for park improvements;
(2) allocated a portion of LART revenues to parks used by tourists (such as the new restroom building in Garden of the Gods);
(3) supported TOPS ballot issues;
(4) supported partnerships with the state, nonprofits, and others to obtain funding for parks;
(5) increased the rates for fees in lieu of land in our parkland dedication ordinance from $76,602 per acre to $98,010 per acre for community parkland and from $76,602 per acre to $137,694 per acre for neighborhood parkland; and
(6) worked with Parks staff to ensure we are using funds efficiently and effectively.
At the appropriate time, I also favor placing a LART issue on the ballot providing long-term funding for parks frequently used by tourists.
As mayor, I will continue my work to address these needs. I’m also open to other suggestions and options to address these needs in the future.
Answers to previous questions during the initial campaign:
How should new parks be paid for and how should we address the backlog of capital needs? If you become Mayor, what solution would you support?
General Fund Support, LART (Lodging, Auto Rental Tax), PLDO (parkland dedication ordinance), PPRTA 3 (Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority); all provide limited resources for specific park related capital projects with the general fund providing the largest portion. At this time there is not sufficient funding to build the 15 promised parks (including Coleman Community Park now in the final stages of planning) or meet the 163 million backlog of parks, trails and open spaces capital needs called out in the 2020 Jacobs Study.
Wayne Williams: We’ve increased general fund support for these areas during my four years on Council and we’ve added over a thousand acres of parks and open space. We also added more than a thousand acres for El Paso County when I served as a county commissioner. To be specific, the Parks and Forestry General Fund Budget when I joined city government was $14.8 million. The 2023 budget we adopted allocates $20.5 million for Parks and Forestry – an additional $5.7 million – a 38.7% increase in four years. In addition to increasing the general fund, I’ve also consistently sought additional ways to fund parks, including:
(1) obtaining voter approval of ballot issue 2B in the November 2019 election, which allowed the City to keep $7 million in excess 2018 TABOR revenue for park improvements;
(2) allocated a portion of LART revenues to parks used by tourists (such as the new restroom building in Garden of the Gods);
(3) supported TOPS ballot issues (see above);
(4) supported partnerships with the state, nonprofits, and others to obtain funding for parks;
(5) increased the rates for fees in lieu of land in our parkland dedication ordinance from $76,602 per acre to $98,010 per acre for community parkland and from $76,602 per acre to $137,694 per acre for neighborhood parkland; and (6) worked with Parks staff to ensure we are using funds efficiently and effectively.
At the appropriate time, I also favor placing a LART issue on the ballot providing long-term funding for parks frequently used by tourists. As mayor, I will continue my work to address these needs. I’m also open to other suggestions and options to address these needs in the future.
Yemi Mobalade: The Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department has been underfunded since the budget was cut in 2010 due to the Great Recession. Colorado Springs has the lowest dedicated sales tax for parks of any community on the Front Range. The need for more funding is clear as our Parks Department is facing an almost $270 million backlog after years of insufficient funding. As mayor I will support the various efforts for additional parks funding to include funding through the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority and increasing the Lodging and Auto Rental Tax for tourists using our large regional parks. While I don’t have any plans in the immediate future to increase taxes, because of high inflation and the tight economy, when the times are more favorable, I will engage the people of Colorado Springs to vote to create the community they envision for themselves and their families. I will urge citizens to reconsider increasing the Trails, Open Space and Parks (TOPS) sales and use tax to allow more funding for our playgrounds, community parks, open space and sports complexes. In addition, I will champion and support City Council’s President’s Commission on Sustainable Park Funding, established to identify funding options for our park system.