News Wednesday, May 3, 2023

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.