Dear Citizens, I continue to be impressed by the thousands of visitors to this page and the insightful posts. Thank you for your interest in our city. I’ll spend the next few days working as a pilot, which is the job that pays the mortgage, so to speak, but here’s a summary of the items people have asked me about the most this week: 1. City budget: On behalf of the citizens of Colorado Springs, your City Council members are carefully scrutinizing the numbers given to us. Unfortunately, the numbers are very closely guarded by the executive branch, and that situation has led the Council to write a letter to the Mayor. The letter asks for more budget details, because we can’t make good decisions on behalf of the citizens unless those details are provided. Currently, for each department, with a few exceptions related to capital expenditures, we’re only provided with salary and benefits, operations and capital. I think it’s important to note that all nine City Council members signed the letter. I don’t know for certain the political party affiliation of all Council members, but I suspect we’re comprised of Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians. We professionally disagree on a number of issues, but on this one we stand united. A copy of the letter will be placed on my website in a few days. 2. Utilities budget: Also on my website in the next few days, I’ll discuss the Utilities budget (a link to the budget is provided below). The rate increase is regrettable and tens of millions of dollars have been removed and deferred to minimize the impact. This year’s biggest funding requirements are for capital construction. One of the largest construction projects is continued work on the Southern Delivery System (SDS) which will provide a means for conveying water to which we already have the rights. SDS will provide assurance of adequate water supply to us as residents and to businesses considering us for relocation or expansion into the future. It will place us on much more solid ground for the future than other Front Range competitors. The other large capital outlays are to meet new EPA standards by the deadline of early 2017 for silicon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide scrubbing retrofitting of our coal-fired power plants. Although these projects are expensive, they are far less than the alternative. Our Drake and Nixon power plants make up 40% of our power generation capacity. I also think it’s important that citizens should become more familiar with the amount of money Utilities supplies the City’s General Fund in “planned surplus” payments. Although the charter allows surplus payments, few are aware that the “surplus” is a planned amount that is figured into the rate structure for gas and electric service. Some believe this $30+ million practice is a backdoor tax on the ratepayer. There is additional pressure from the executive branch to add a planned surplus for water rates as well in order to fund city parks watering. I love our parks—I have argued for more funding for them because they are a critical component of the quality of life in Colorado Springs. That said, it is a General Fund responsibility. To say that the water is free and can be given away for free without raising taxes is disingenuous. The bottom line is that our Utilities company is nonprofit. If water is free for parks, someone has to pay for it: the ratepayers. 3. Website: The website is up, but it’s under construction. Know that information will be added to it as time permits. It can be found at JoelMillerColoradoSpringsCityCouncil 4. City for Champions: There will be a section on the website that outlines some of the reasons why I oppose the CFC proposal. That section will go live shortly. Many have asked for an update on the baseball survey results. City Council asked the City Attorney for those results (again, all nine City Council members were united in providing public direction on this issue) and gave a deadline that came and went last Tuesday. joelmillercoloradospringscitycouncil/uploads/5/3/4/5/5345303/2014aopdraft.pdf
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 21:00:36 +0000