Colorado Springs council unanimously OKs Bancroft Park restoration funds
A slew of west side residents and business leaders won a rare unanimous City Council vote Tuesday to appropriate $250,000 to renovate Bancroft Park.
The bandshell in the historic park was torched Jan. 27, and Councilman Keith King has been chiding the city’s Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services staff to move quickly to repair the damage.
Now, though, the park is expected to get more than a new bandshell roof. New restrooms accessible to people with disabilities likely will be built, too, and the city has a survey and planned public hearing for west-side residents to share their ideas.
Old Colorado City, in which Bancroft Park sits, “is the heart and hub of the economic driver that brings our dollars to the city of Colorado Springs,” said Sallie Clark, a west side resident and business owner who recently ended three terms on the El Paso County commission.
Said Wellington Clark, her husband and co-owner of the Holden House bed-and-breakfast: “Bancroft Park is the epicenter of our tourism corridor. That park has not been renovated, we think, since 1948.”
The Conservation Trust Fund will provide $150,000, and the rest will be temporarily taken from the general fund until Travelers Insurance pays its $106,379 share.
The deductible on that policy is $25,000, but Councilman Don Knight said the city is only paying $19,000 of it.
In other business, the council:
◘ Voted 5-4 a second and final time to give $200,000 to the U.S. Olympic Museum from the Lodging and Automobile Rental Tax, which has collected more money than expected over the past year. King acknowledged that he earlier opposed using tax money for City for Champions projects without a vote of the people. “But these excess (LART) dollars weren’t anticipated,” he said.
Council members Helen Collins, Jill Gaebler, Bill Murray and Andres G. Pico cast the dissenting votes.
◘ Unanimously approved using $900,278 from LART for the final 2016 payment to the Convention & Visitors Bureau, plus $250,000 toward the new Summit House on Pikes Peak.
◘ Agreed on a 7-2 vote, with Collins and Pico dissenting, to create a Colorado Springs Commission on Aging, one year after Colorado Springs was designated an “age friendly” city. “As we look at statistics researched for this plan, you’ll see our aging population is going to triple over the next two decades,” said former Councilwoman Jan Martin.
◘ Unanimously declared April to be Child Abuse Prevention Month, with a nod to county agencies, first responders and the Not One More Child Coalition founded in 2012 by Sallie Clark. El Paso County then had the highest reports of child abuse and neglect in the state, at 15,600 and more than 10 deaths, she said. District Attorney Dan May said, “We have seen a significant drop in child fatalities since the coalition formed.”
Colorado Springs employee Jeff Dickson strings a baracade around the band shell in Bancroft Park after a early morning fire damaged the historic structure Friday, Jan. 27, 2017. (The Gazette, Christian Murdock)
Colorado Springs employee Jeff Dickson strings a baracade around the band shell in Bancroft Park after a early morning fire damaged the historic structure Friday, Jan. 27, 2017. (The Gazette, Christian Murdock)