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A Sample of Springs City Council Candidates
March 2, 2007 4:50 PM
The race for the mayor’s chair and four seats on the Colorado Springs city council is getting underway. Last night nine of the 13 people running took part in a candidate forum that only drew an audience of about 40 people.
Listen here:
KRCC NEWS DIRECTOR ERIC WHITNEY: Missing were council candidates Tim Greg and Dave Martin, and mayoral contenders Tony Tyler and Tony Carpenter.
The candidates who were there spent less time trying to distinguish themselves from one another than enunciating their principles, reasons for running, and top priorities for the city. Broadly echoed, for the most part, were concerns about water, infrastructure and transportation. Current council member and candidate Randy Purvis talked about another issue that was popular with candidates.
PURVIS: And finally I’d like to see us to continue to work on our public safety, improving and expanding police and fire services, and ensuring that we have a safe community to live in and one that will continue to merit Money magazine's best city in the country.
WHITNEY: Vice Mayor Larry Small, running for one of the at-large council seats touted his work with the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority, his former work on the city charter commission and the fact that two new fire stations have come on board during his tenure. Mayor Rivera also said he’s made significant contributions to public safety by ensuring that each city fire house has at least one paramedic on staff at all times. Council incumbent Tom Gallagher, too, said he worked hard to pass the special sales tax for public safety. He says it proves how seriously he takes the issue, and disproves that the city is “tax averse.” Gallagher says the Springs will get behind a tax increase if it’s fair, targeted and explained well.
A couple of questions and exchanges highlighted race and minority issues in the city. One, posed to appointed councilmember Bernie Herpin, asked what the city could or should do to assimilate recently arrived immigrants. He said the city needs to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.
HERPIN: Legal immigrants who come here are assimilating well into our community. We have, for example, a Hispanic chamber of commerce, we have business set asides for minority-owned businesses. For the illegal immigrants, I support the federal government establishing some kind of guest worker program, where we can be sure those coming here to want to improve their lives are coming here to improve their lives, and not for illegal activities or terrorism, or stuff.
WHITNEY: Candidates were also asked what could be done to increase minority representation on city boards and commissions. Jan Martin, the only woman running, and Randy Purvis said the city needs to be more aggressive about recruiting. But Candidate Bob Null, who has served on numerous boards and commissions in the city and county used stronger language.
NULL; I think we have a problem other than qualified people don’t apply.
WHITNEY: Null says his contacts in the minority business community have told him that they don’t feel like it would do any good to apply to boards and commissions, and implied that city government is biased against non-whites.
SMALL: That is absolutely not the case at all.
WHITNEY: That’s Vice Mayor Larry Small.
SMALL: We have recently appointed and African American to the civil service commission. We’ve appointed two ladies to the planning commission.
WHITNEY: Mayor Rivera also took issue with Null’s suggestion of bias in appointments to city boards and commissions. He says nothing could be further from the truth, and that on his watch, the city has always appointed the most talented candidates without regard to race.
Candidate Tom Harold said that, as a young Hispanic himself, he feels like he’s helping increase minority representation by not just running for council, but by serving on the Regional Transportation Authority Citizens Advisory Commission, Highway 24 task force and city stormwater advisory committee.
Not all candidates had a chance to chime in on all issues, but Tom Gallagher, Jan Martin and Tom Harold all said they want to work to save and restore the city auditorium. Bob Null and Randy Purvis both agreed that spending Regional Transportation Authority money on more bus service and other alternative forms of transportation is important. Both Null and Pervis say they’re big backers of bike paths for both recreation and transportation. Purvis and Martin said they favor a proposal in the legislature that would double the amount of renewable energy that utilities are required to have in their portfolios. That includes the Springs’ city-owned utility. Mayoral candidate Mike Colletta says he’d like to move motorcycle cops out of “speed traps” and into neighborhood policing. He also said he’s taken a stand against graffiti in his neighborhood by personally confronting taggers, and getting rocks thrown at him for his troubles.
Thursday’s forum was sponsored by the Council of Neighborhood Organizations. There are more forums scheduled for March 5, 6, 7th and 8th, as well as on the 12th, 13th and 14th. KRCC is co-sponsoring one of the forums on the evening of March 13th, all nine at-large council candidates have agreed to participate. For more information on that forum, visit KRCC.org.
Posted by Eric Whitney on March 2, 2007 4:50 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Thanks for the transcript. Now I can vote for those who sound conservative.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 20, 2007 8:15 PM
