Tag: inside the halls of power

With cash short and every penny a gem, the city of Colorado Springs is checking the sofa cushions and tracking people down who owe money. So this week the city decided to hire four new employees. For good reason. In the corporate world, they’d be called “producers,” workers who generate new sales, i.e., income. These…

It was a brutal first two weeks at City Hall this month, when 11 people got their walking papers and two others saw their paychecks whacked. The cutbacks were part of City Manager Penny Culbreth-Graft’s effort to balance the budget because of slumping sales tax revenues. Seven of those laid off remain on the payroll…

If you want to cash in on Colorado Springs Utilities’ appliance rebate program, pull up a chair. You’ll have to provide proof of purchase, date, cost and other information about your old appliances. Oh yes, you also must prove you’re a U.S. citizen. You do that by producing a driver’s license, military ID or Native…

As businesses downsize, thousands of workers are shown the door through early retirement with not much to show for their company loyalty. That’s not the case for Colorado Springs city workers, who can retire with taxpayer-funded benefits for years after their departure. Benefits are so lavish, in fact, that the city has amassed a $58…

Think all the text messaging on cell phones these days is a frivolous misapplication of technology?Soon, a text could save your life.El Paso-Teller County 911 Authority is preparing to move to the next generation of technology, mandated by the federal government, that will allow 911 messages to be sent by text or photo or video…

   It walks like a tax and quacks like a tax, but it’s called a public improvement fee – a new way developers get into the pockets of citizens to pay for roads, utilities and other big-ticket construction.     The public improvement fee, or PIF, is collected on retail sales under an agreement between the landlord and…

Springs resident Katie Healy has an idea about how to fund local government.She’s not an elected official or a member of an appointed board. But she reads a lot, and her inquisitive mind wonders if plastic shopping bags could render more gold unto Caesar.She notes that Ireland imposed a 15-cent tax per bag in 2002,…

   All the regular folks who live in older homes should jump in their cars during the Parade of Homes this month and drive to the northeast part of the city, in the Pine Creek subdivision, to see how the rich save the planet.    On Highland Glen Place, they’ll find a $1.45 million, 6,000-squarefoot home that Colorado…

   Mayor Lionel Rivera will run this weekend, but not for political office.   He’ll lace up his New Balance shoes, plug in his headset and jog a 5K route starting in Memorial Park to promote the Colorado Springs Sports Corporation’s State Games of the West.   Rivera runs nine-minute miles now, but back in the day…