A body of five or a body of nine? Split votes highlight new dynamics on City Council
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify how resolutions such as last week’s resolution on Space Command get placed on the City Council’s agenda.
Every round of local elections creates a new iteration of the Colorado Springs City Council, with its own political alignments and divisions. Tuesday’s council meeting was fairly smooth and speedy, but it still included moments that show the lines that have formed since April’s elections.
The council passed a resolution 7-2 during the meeting stating the body opposed the state Attorney General’s lawsuit against the federal government over the relocation of Space Command headquarters out of Colorado Springs. Before voting against the resolution, Councilmember Kimberly Gold said she had not been aware of the measure until the agenda was released last week.
“This is just another example of how we as the body do not work together as a body of nine, but sometimes as a body of five,” Gold said.
Most issues that come up for a City Council vote end up passing unanimously or with limited debate. In the last three months, the city has seen about one hot-button issue per meeting that passes by a narrow margin.
The recent hotly-debated topics have included changing the qualifications for the City Auditor, a resolution naming a day of remembrance for Charlie Kirk, removing changes to the solar net metering program from a Colorado Springs Utilities package and taking a six-month pause on an ordinance banning vehicle camping. Each of those four debates ended in a 5-4 vote, but with a different permutation of which officials were for and against.
In recent interviews, four of the councilmembers were similarly split on the importance of the divided votes. Some said that it reflected a broader issue with communication. Others said the more reflective actions were the many issues that passed unanimously or with mild debate.
“The fights or the discussions you see on the dais are really the marginal things because most of the hard stuff gets worked out before it ever becomes public,” said Councilmember Tom Bailey.
Bailey and Gold were both among the newly elected councilmembers selected by voters in April, along with Brandy Williams and Roland Rainey.
City Council President Lynette Crow-Iverson was elected in 2023 as one of the three at-large members of the council. Crow-Iverson said the only major change she noticed from the last iteration of the council was that this group seemed more fiscally conservative and hands-on during the 2026 budget discussion.
Crow-Iverson said it was common for resolutions and ordinances to be workshopped by multiple councilmembers before they appear on the agenda. Tuesday’s resolution about Space Command, for example, was introduced by councilmember Roland Rainey but had been worked on by herself and others. After five councilmembers agreed that it should be placed up for a vote, Crow-Iverson prepared Tuesday’s agenda to include the resolution.
It was up to the councilmembers leading the effort to reach out to the rest of the body to gather support. Crow-Iverson preferred this method to modifying resolutions in the middle of a council meeting to build support.
“It’s very hard to build a plane when you’re flying it,” Crow-Iverson said. “I don’t really want that mess on the dais. I would prefer everybody to work it out behind the scenes and to have a good-run meeting.”
Vehicle camping surprise
Dave Donelson is one of the two longest-serving members of the City Council after being re-elected to a second term in April. He had first joined the council in 2021 when it was led by long-time local politicians such as Wayne Williams and Richard Skorman.
The vote at the Nov. 10 council meeting to take a six-month pause on a proposal to place stricter limits on vehicle camping in Colorado Springs, Donelson said, was one of the most surprising council votes he could remember in the last four years.
Donelson said the idea had been introduced at a council work session weeks before, and while he’d talked to all the other members about the proposal at some point after, he didn’t think he needed to give it a hard sell. He felt that some people had changed their minds during the meeting without giving a clear reason.
“There was a lot of experience (on the 2021 City Council) and people who were very willing to speak and lay out their thoughts during a meeting,” Donelson said. “Some of the no votes on the car camping ordinance, they didn’t say a word.”
Crow-Iverson was one of the five votes in favor of the delay who didn’t explain her reasoning during the meeting. In an interview this week, Crow-Iverson said she was concerned that the city’s Housing and Homelessness Officer Aimee Cox and the homeless nonprofit leaders had not been consulted. She also argued that the ordinance needed to differentiate between people living in cars who were committing other crimes and residents down on their luck.
Part of the reason the delay was surprising was that Donelson and most other councilmembers say they can tell where the others will come from on their votes. Bailey said that after a few months on the council, he had learned that the best insights were often built from his individual conversations behind the scenes with councilmembers.
“It’s the only way you can really start to know people and what makes them tick. A lot of times, the public persona is a little different from them in private,” Bailey said.
It may not be a bad thing if the votes are not unanimous. Crow-Iverson said that the sponsors of a resolution often just want it to pass with their original intention intact.
In an interview before Tuesday’s council meeting, Gold said it came down to figuring out how to determine the will of the constituents.
“I think that we’re not communicating in the best ways in order to have more consensus. But it’s also important to highlight that the people don’t elect this body of nine hoping that every decision is 9-0,” Gold said.