Senior deputy leaving city manager's office

Assistant City Manager Mike Anderson, architect of numerous financial deals including the one that kept the United States Olympic Committee from leaving town, is leaving the city government after 25 years, the City of Colorado Springs announced today. 

In December, Anderson will become a partner in Summit Economics, a local consulting firm headed by Dave Bamberger. 

Anderson, 51, was interim city manager in 2007 while the city searched for a replacement for longtime city manager Lorne Kramer, but was passed over in favor of Penny Culbreth-Graft.

Anderson's city salary is $166,000.

Coming after Kramer's retirement, Anderson's departure strips the city manager's office of a chunk of its institutional memory. The other assistant city manager, Nancy Johnson, was brought on board by Culbreth-Graft.

“Mike has been invaluable,” Culbreth-Graft said in an emailed message. “His financial skills are outstanding, his institutional memory is excellent, and he is highly regarded by City Council and citizens in every walk of life in Colorado Springs. I will truly miss him.”

Anderson said he wanted to see the USOC deal through to completion. With that done, he said, he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to join Bamberger's team, which he called "some of the brightest economic minds in Colorado," and to begin drawing his city pension before it gets cut back.

"Public service does take its toll on you in terms of the amount of time you can stay with your family," he added. But he said the announcement should "absolutely not" be construed as dissatisfaction.

Anderson was also the financial engineer of the expansion of the Colorado Springs Airport in 1992 and the annexation of the Banning-Lewis Ranch in 1988.

Before joining the city government in 1984, Anderson was regional economist/demographer for the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments. He managed a variety of city departments including finance, public communications, economic development, human resources, parks and recreation, fleet management and transit services.