SIDE STREETS: Budget cuts will hurt quality of life in the Springs

Every election we hear the same old campaign slogans: No big government! Cut the city budget! Shrink the bureaucracy! Those slogans become reality Tuesday as the Colorado Springs City Council finalizes $16.8 million in cuts to the 2009 budget.

But before you cheer the inevitable layoffs, realize that Springs neighborhoods stand to lose some of their best friends in City Hall.

A city "impact statement" suggests the community development department will lose seven people. Among them will likely be one of the three land-use inspectors and at least a couple of about a dozen city planners.

Why should you care?

Inspectors are the folks you call when a neighbor:

• Opens an all-night car repair business in his yard.
• Breeds pit bulls at home.
• Parks an RV on the street for a month.
• Dumps trash everywhere.

You get the idea. They protect the quality of life in neighborhoods just as police protect your safety.

"The land-use inspectors helped us keep Park Hill from turning into a slum," said Marjorie Smith, longtime neighborhood activist. "They are so important. Losing any of them is a tragedy."

Then there are the city planners. You know them as the people you call to find out what is planned for the vacant lot next door. They conduct public hearings and enforce zoning, protect neighborhoods and mediate disputes with developers.

"They are the backbone of the stakeholder process," said Jan Doran, another neighborhood activist, explaining how city planners invited neighborhood leaders to the table with developers, giving them a voice early in the process.

"These are the people the neighborhoods depend on," Doran said.

Remember when the owner of the Citadel Crossing shopping center wanted to wipe out a stand of 25-year-old trees planted to buffer the adjacent neighborhood from noise and light?

It was a city planner who fought to save the trees.

Planners are the face of the city, serving as quasi-project managers for the public, ensuring rules are followed, property lines are respected, zoning enforced.

Then there is Code Enforcement, which will shrink 20 to 40 percent, to just six to eight officers.

These folks patrol the city's 500 apartment complexes for health and safety violations ­- and there's a nasty outbreak of bedbugs and roaches now. They protect tenants whose slumlords are slow to fix broken furnaces, restore water or repair and clean up after sewage backups.

Ask Ken Lewis, code enforcement administrator, how he'll deal with the cuts, and he says he's worried.

Will he have to give up scouring the city for graffiti, illegal signs and weeds? Who will catch the jokesters dumping garbage in dark alleys and vacant lots?

"The question is," he said, "how do people want their neighborhoods to look?"