Manitou Springs candidate forum recap
The participants in Monday night’s Manitou Springs Council and School Board Candidate Forum may not have radically changed the positions they’ve been speaking on over the past few months, but the event, attended by more than 140 residents at Manitou City Hall, did help delineate which points truly separate the candidates from one another.
The elephant in the room was brought out promptly in the opening question for Ward 3 candidates Matt Carpenter and Karen Cullen: Should the city continue funding the Economic Development Council, the Business Improvement District and Chamber of Commerce at present levels?
Carpenter said the funding had to be looked at. “I’m not going to take an anti-this stance or anti-that,” he said, “but when I look through the budget and see such big numbers that aren’t broken down, I do have a problem and want to see the details of where that money’s going, how it’s being used, and most importantly, how it’s impacting our city, because it is a very important part, especially in hard times.”
Cullen was less enthusiastic about the possibility of cutting funds to the entities, since the groups’ budgets had already been reduced by $40,000 for the coming year.
“Economic development and tourism is very very important for our town,” Cullen said. “Tourism is our main industry, so we have to be able to support that. Cutting the budget, I don’t know that that’s feasible.”
The EDC was brought up again when Cullen asked Carpenter what he would do ‘about the EDC and tourism dollars.”
“I want to read the books and have some time for them to tell us what they’re doing with our money,” Carpenter said. “That is our money, not their money.”
There were other questions for the candidates as well, about the Incline (it needs fixed), about one trash haul service for each neighborhood (yes), and about the city communicating with its residents (it needs improvement).
When asked whether they preferred cutting salaries or people on the city staff, Cullen suggested furloughs and shutting city offices for a few days to save money. Carpenter said it would depend on which department and how thin they were already stretched. He thought the Police Department, with only 15 officers, should not be touched, for instance.
Similar economic concerns carried over to the mayoral race, where Councilman Marc Snyder said the city was over-reliant on sales tax for funding with 50 percent of tax revenue coming from the downtown corridor. He said the city was “on a collision course with bad news” unless it diversified its revenue stream.
The contentious issue of raising the city’s excise tax, which was discussed heatedly at the July 14 city council meeting in which Ward 3 Councilman Shannon Solomon resigned, was addressed as well.
Candidate Rick Barry said the issue had been broached at the council meeting without enough prior thought.
“If there’s a tax increase that’s going to affect me, it should be thoughtfully considered,” Barry said. When pressed by an audience member as to whether he had a position on the tax, Barry said he would need to have more public input before reaching a decision. Both Snyder and candidate Nancy Barnes agreed the idea deserved further investigation and public input.
As for the possibility of raising property taxes, Barry said, “There are no sacred cows. If we have to look at raising property taxes, then we will look at it.”
Barnes said she owned a condominium in Manitou and had “personally, no problem taking an increase.”
Snyder was more cautious, saying, “the problem with property taxes is that downtown businesses pay three times what residents pay.” Snyder would prefer to see a residential property fee instead.
The mayoral candidates will square off again before the Nov. 3 election. Residents can catch them on Monday at 6:30 p.m. during the Kiwanis Club of Manitou Springs meeting, held at the Community Congregational Church of Manitou Springs, 103 Pawnee Ave.
