Clear choices in city election

This story is part of The Gazette's ongoing coverage of candidates and issues in the April 7 Colorado Springs mail-ballot election. Voters will elect four City Council members and decide four questions about city finances. Watch the paper and gazette.com/election for more news and analysis.

City Council candidate Dave Gardner wants to put the brakes on Colorado Springs' rapid growth. His opponent, incumbent Jerry Heimlicher says Gardner's idea amounts to putting "a wall around the city."

The April 7 city mail-in ballot gives voters clear choices among the four candidates vying for two of the council seats up for election, with contrasting views on growth, economic development, taxes and spending. Two candidates are running unopposed: incumbents Scott Hente in District 1 and Darryl Glenn in District 2.

District 3
• Jerry Heimlicher — The top priority for Heimlicher is "financial sustainability." The city slashed its budget in 2008 and this year, resulting in scaled back services and nearly 200 layoffs. Heimlicher's looking to the council-appointed Sustainable Funding Committee to recommend changes to city taxes and other policies that would avoid wild swings in city revenues. Whatever the committee comes up with, Heimlicher said, the long-term strategy must support "healthy growth" of the city.

"We can't not have job opportunities for our young people, because otherwise we become a community of senior citizens," he said.
Priority No. 2 is revitalizing rundown areas along South Nevada Avenue and South Academy Boulevard. He's been working with police, developers and neighborhood organizations for about two years.

• Dave Gardner — Colorado Springs is in a financial bind largely because of the unrestrained urban growth of the past decade-plus, Gardner says. Among his top priorities are forming a citizen committee to explore "volunteer-powered initiatives that nurture our local businesses." The committee might need a little money for its activities, but Gardner figures more than enough would be available if the city canceled its contribution to the Greater Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp. (EDC), which recruits new businesses.

Colorado Springs gave $70,000 to the EDC this year, and Colorado Springs Utilities gave $192,000.

Gardner has other ideas for gearing down the city's growth: Ramping up fees on developers and holding their feet to the fire to ensure new neighborhoods have sufficient infrastructure such as roads, gutters and parks.

District 4
• Bernie Herpin — New troops arriving at Fort Carson could boost the economy and shield the city from further budget cuts, Herpin said, but he's not counting on it. If more cuts are necessary, he said he wants to shield the police and fire departments as much as possible. Even if the economy bounces back, the city won't necessarily recover at the same time. That's because of a provision in the City Charter, the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) that limits how fast the city budget can grow.

"Even if we have the money, it's going to be a problem because of the ratchet-down effect of TABOR," Herpin said.

Getting voter permission to amend TABOR is an option Herpin said he wants to explore if elected, although he emphasizes he would oppose a wholesale repeal.

Two points on which Herpin said he won't budge: property and gun-ownership rights. He's a former president of the Pikes Peak Firearms Coalition. Gun rights disputes rarely come up for City Council members, but property rights are more routine as the city sometimes forces landowners to sell to make way for public works projects such as roads.

"I will never support the taking of private property for nongovernmental use and will only support using condemnation in the most extreme situations where public safety is necessary," Herpin said on his Web page.

• Tony Carpenter — Slashing waste in government is Carpenter's top goal. He's well known among city staffers for his frequent requests to review public documents to ferret out spending he considers excessive.

Among Carpenter's biggest targets is salaries. He faults the government for setting salaries and raises based on comparisons with workers in similar jobs across the country. Pay should be set based on comparisons with local workers, he said.

He sees tens of millions of dollars in potential savings by axing overtime and bonuses to employees, and consolidate some departments among the city and its enterprise operations such as Colorado Springs Utilities.

The city could boost its services by diverting money from traffic fines to parks, community centers and refurbishing the City Auditorium on Kiowa Street, Carpenter said.

Call Swanson at 636-0187