Our View - Sunday

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Keeping USOC should involve us all

Colorado Springs boasts an average of almost 300 days of sunshine a year, and our mild winters and moderate summers practically beg folks to get out and enjoy outdoor activities. That’s important if you’re an Olympic athlete training for your shot at a gold medal. And many train in and around Colorado Springs

Since the United States Olympic Committee moved here from New York in 1978, the USOC has become so much of a fixture in the Pikes Peak region that it’s hard to think of its headquarters being anywhere else. Many Olympic sports’ governing bodies have their headquarters here and several former USOC and International Olympic Committee board members call the Pikes Peak region home.

It’s not unusual to see athletes working and training at local facilities and many residents eagerly watch the Olympics to try to catch a glimpse of a neighbor or co-worker competing on the international stage. Colorado Springs and the USOC go together, in the words of Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump, “like peas and carrots.”

Still, The Gazette reported recently that the USOC is considering offers from other cities to relocate. According to the report, for months the USOC and the city have “held months of behind-the-scenes talks . . . about finding new offices to replace [USOC’s] aging, cramped facilities on Boulder Street.” Now that the cat’s out of the bag, there’s no reason to continue discussions “behind the scenes.” Let’s bring those discussions out into the open so other interested parties can know what’s going on and decide what they can do to help keep the headquarters here.

City Council member Margaret Radford summed up the situation nicely: “Clearly, they’re here. We want them to be here. We want them to stay. That’s why we’re focusing on what we can do to meet their needs.” Vice Mayor Larry Small said the USOC has written to the city to ask it to submit a proposal. Because the city isn’t in the development business, Small said, it has approached local developers to see if they are interested in helping draft a proposal.

That’s a good start; we’d also like to see others in the region explore what they can do to help the cause. Many players in the area benefit in one way or another from having USOC here in the shadow of Pikes Peak. All these parties should be included, as much as possible, in efforts to keep the Olympic Committee’s headquarters in Colorado Springs.

USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said the organization’s goals are more than just office space. “It’s a three-part equation: how to meet the training needs of our athletes, how to best support the administrative needs of some of our national governing bodies and the USOC’s own administrative needs,” he said. Looking at that list, there’s nothing there that Colorado Springs can’t provide.

Our area is consistently at or near the top of various lists of the best places to recreate. When Americans think of outdoor activities, Colorado always comes to mind. It’s what people associate with our region: healthy lifestyles and athletic activities.

In addition to being athlete-friendly, the Pikes Peak region attracts business people and retirees from many different backgrounds. That creates a pool of talent from which the USOC can draw to meet its varied needs. Our educated workforce can easily support the requirements of the USOC and the governing bodies associated with it. If the USOC can’t find what it needs here, it will be hard pressed to find it anywhere.

Athletes enjoy coming here to train because of the altitude. High-altitude training allows them to compete anywhere in the world without the need to arrive early to acclimate to an area before their competitions. They know that their high-altitude training here gives them an advantage at lower altitudes.

But those athletes need more than just training. They need support from the community. And we don’t mean government handouts to encourage the USOC to stay here. There is likely some kind of public/private partnership that can accommodate the needs of the committee without dunning the taxpayers for the cash. Such partnerships are not unheard of and we have a perfect example in the World Arena. Built with private funding, the venue required little help from the city, mostly in street and utilities improvements in the area. And just look at how the business community has responded with hotels, restaurants and stores around the arena.

In addition to the other work it’s doing to keep the USOC here, the City Council might also take a fresh look at regulations that could stymie plans for new offices and support facilities. There is also the possibility of putting development plans on a fast track through the approval process — not to steamroll any opposition that might pop up, but to free such a project of rules and regulations that serve little purpose other than to gratify some bureaucrat.

We all have a stake in keeping the USOC and national governing bodies in Colorado Springs. We should use this as an opportunity to showcase our spirit of community, to demonstrate our cohesiveness and overlook our differences, to pull together to support a common goal. After all, isn’t that what a community is all about?

Too little, too late to save federal budget

The Bush administration released figures Thursday that show the deficit is shrinking. According to the report, the deficit was $162.8 billion for the budget year that just ended. That’s the least amount of red ink in the federal budget in the past five years.

The administration credited President Bush’s tax cuts with sparking the economic growth that generated the revenue. Just think how much better off we’d be if Bush had found his veto pen sooner and curtailed some of Congress’ spending.