Colorado Springs Issue 2 would help city combat stormwater problems
Issue 2 on the April 4 ballot would enable the city of Colorado Springs to keep $12 million in excess revenue – $6 million both this year and next – to tackle more stormwater projects.
Under pressure by a federal lawsuit and by the dire need to improve and expand drainage culverts, channels and basins, Mayor John Suthers and the City Council majority are urging residents to help them control flooding, improve water quality and comply with federal regulations.
The city had a terrific year in 2016, with more tourism, residential building and a strong economy. As a consequence, sales tax collections exceeded the limits set by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
Although the final number isn’t in, $8 million to $9 million of excess revenue last year alone could result in refunds of $41 to $47 per household. Or voters can support Issue 2 and see refunds of $10 to $16.
This year is expected to be similarly successful for the city, and that’s why Issue 2 asks for $6 million in 2017 and in 2018. Rather than pay $400,000 or so for a special election next year, a nonelection year, city officials decided to ask for both amounts at once.
The money might seem like the proverbial drop in the bucket, especially compared with the $460 million being spent on stormwater over 20 years in a pact the city struck last year with Pueblo County.
Suthers’ view is that the economic boom won’t last forever, so the city should try to get ahead on its $17 million annual commitment to stormwater while it can. If that extra $12 million has to come from the general fund instead, he says, that could cut into other city services, such as police and parks.
The city’s long-neglected and inadequate stormwater system prompted a lawsuit filed last November by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state Health Department, later joined also by Pueblo County and the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District.
The city’s pact with Pueblo County calls for 71 projects to be completed, most of them beneficial to Colorado Springs residents and to downstream neighbors.
The 26 projects under Issue 2, by contrast, include only two that also would benefit people downstream. Two dozen of the projects planned for that $12 million would be local neighborhood fixes – items that could interest people who saw their basements flood in the heavy rains of 2015.
Those 24 projects are scattered citywide, from Falcon Estates to the Broadmoor area, with several clustered along Spring Creek in the city’s southeast quadrant.
An intersection drainage system would be installed at Wentworth and Chapman drives, for example, while other areas would see construction of culverts, channels and drainage basins.
The Shooks Run neighborhood, which flooded in the wake of last July’s freak hailstorm, would get a concrete drainage system if Issue 2 passes.
Tim Mitros examines a stormwater pipe plugged by sediment from the Waldo Canyon burn car below the chuckwagon area of Flying W Ranch Thursday, October 29, 2015.
Tim Mitros examines a stormwater pipe plugged by sediment from the Waldo Canyon burn car below the chuckwagon area of Flying W Ranch Thursday, October 29, 2015.