NOREEN: City and County of Colorado Springs? Doesn't make sense
Most people around here like the idea of smaller government and every so often someone fires off a missive about the benefits of a consolidation that would mirror the governments in Denver and Broomfield.
When a host of issues is ignored, the idea can be made to sound good: One government, perhaps consisting of a five-member panel and one city/county manager, one police force, a single planning department, etc. It can be dressed up in limited government, Jeffersonian terms, but even Jefferson would not have an answer to, say, Fountain, or Manitou Springs.
“We’ve always been pleased to work with our big sister to the north,” said Fountain Mayor Jeri Howells, “but we don’t want to be gobbled up.”
Howells knows her city and she knows county government, too, having served 16 years as a county commissioner.
None of this means the city of Fountain is a latter-day South Carolina seceding from a more perfect union. But those small-government Utopians who envision a single city-county entity should consider that when given a chance to join in the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority in 2004, Fountain, Calhan and Monument all passed on the opportunity.
Manitou Springs Mayor Marc Snyder whose town joined PPRTA and buys its electricity from Colorado Springs Utilities, said “We have a very strong municipal identity in Manitou Springs. We’re proud of our thing.”
Snyder said there is no way Manitou would ever be interested in being melded into some huge metro government, because retaining a unique identity “is one of the guiding principles” in Manitou.
County Commissioner Sallie Clark, who also served on the Colorado Springs City Council, understands the philosophical allure of consolidation but said “I think it is much more complex than most people think.”
Clark noted that there are about 1,900 square miles of unincorporated land in the county. If a statewide election created the City and County of Colorado Springs, “how would you provide city services for all those people?” You’re creating an expectation that there would be four-minute response times.”
A local city-county merger also would be tough because hefty sales tax increase would be necessary for that vast unincorporated area. Colorado springs utility ratepayers would also face the burden of sharing their water, another tough sell.
The city-county model has worked well in Broomfield since 2001, but it was its own city before it became a county, and that city once crazily sprawled into four counties — Adams, Jefferson, Boulder and Weld. The City and County of Broomfield made sense.
It doesn’t make sense here.
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Listen to Barry Noreen on KRDO NewsRadio 105.5 FM and 1240 AM at 6:40 a.m. Fridays and read his blog updates at gazette.com/blogs/barrysblog
