Colorado Springs City Councilman Val Snider will not seek re-election, and that means at least three new faces on the council in April.

Snider broke the news Friday morning on Facebook.

“After much thought and personal reflection I have decided I’d like to take my life in a new direction, other than running for another four years on City Council,” Snider wrote. ” . it’s my view some new blood and fresh perspectives will be useful for City Council.”

Snider, a retired Air Force officer, was elected to the at-large seat in 2011, the same year Jan Martin and Merv Bennett won their seats. Martin is term limited; Bennett has said he intends to seek re-election.

The announcement means that three council seats – Martin’s, Snider’s and Joel Miller’s – will turn over, with the possibility of five new council members on the nine-member council. It depends on whether Bennett is re-elected and Helen Collins survives a recall attempt.

In November, Miller resigned his District 2 seat to run for mayor.

This month, a group of residents from District 4 turned in a petition to put a question on the ballot to recall Collins. She’ll face the recall election in April.

Meanwhile, anyone interested in running against her can take out nominating petitions from the city clerk. Candidates need 50 signatures from registered voters.

Snider, 59, led the council, which doubles as the Colorado Springs Utilities Board, in its Drake decommissioning discussions, picking up work started by former council members Lisa Czelatdko and Brandy Williams.

“I hate to see more experience lost on the council,” Martin said. “It’s always a concern to me – there is a real value of having experience working with the city.”

There have been 12 new council members in the past four years, Martin said. She said the change in governance from council-manager to council-mayor, the election of a mayor with no government experience, the letting go of experienced city staff members and the addition of 12 new council members have led to a perfect storm that contributed to stalled government efforts.

“It is my hope that we don’t repeat that,” she said. “But that possibility does exist.”

Snider said he ran for council because he had been a longtime community volunteer. Looking back, he said that he was naïve about the City Council and its dealings.

“When I was working on the volunteer groups, we agreed on the goal and there was teamwork,” Snider said Friday.

In recent months, he has had a difficult time containing his frustration with City Council President Keith King. Snider has taken aim at King in council meetings, saying he repeatedly presents lengthy proposals for the council to consider just moments before meetings.

King said he was aware of Snider’s frustrations but made no apologies. “He wanted the (agenda) packets created and no adjustments and no changes to ordinances,” King said. “I visualized a much more dynamic format where we could bring things forward and adjust them while in the meeting.”

Snider was not one to deliver long dissertations on his views or votes, and it often was difficult to predict how he would vote. However, he was the deciding vote on some key issues, including an April 5-4 vote to ban retail marijuana sales for recreational use in the city.

Lindsay Deen, board member of the nonprofit group Every Vote Counts, said the vote against recreational marijuana sales was a vote against the citizens, who in 2012 approved Amendment 64, which allows cities to regulate marijuana sales in the same way they regulate alcohol sales.

Deen said Snider’s departure from the council could be positive for those who favor marijuana sales for recreational use.

“It would open up a chance to get someone on council who cares about issues that young professionals care about,” she said.

Snider said anyone on the City Council will have a tough time in the next few years under the new form of government, where the city’s charter and city’s codes sometimes clash.

“I remember people saying ‘pass the strong-mayor issue and then we will figure out how to do it,’ ” Snider said. “There are no rules, no legal counsel and no precedent.”