Remarks by Nancy Henjum
109 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 5
“Yeah, I'll save it. Yeah. I'm sorry. I apologize.”
“I was trying to figure out who, I was like. No, that's right, so.”
“I've always been interested in the pages 57, 58, and 59, every budget year. It's basically, to me, what the city needs, but we can't afford, right? Right. It's unmet level of service, if you will. Yep. So what gets to the bottom of, in this case, page 56, is really what gets prioritized. And going back to process, and I got to admit, I haven't been paying attention every single second of today's discussion, but I've been trying. I think what I heard was these priorities came out from conversations with all department heads. Is that accurate and fair?”
“Is, is, The term, are we parsing words by calling it a pothole crew? Because I think what I'm also hearing from you, Rich, is that's not, we're not gonna hire those people and they're never gonna do anything but potholes, correct? I mean, it's really, I mean, I'm just trying to understand, because it kind of matters. I mean, honestly, it's a little political, right? When it gets down to what do you prioritize, it's what do you really care? Your priority is your budget.”
“a big family around the table who gets the best piece of you know meat yeah but i mean i don't want to diminish the needs of other departments they're real yeah yeah yeah no for sure i mean it's hard right it's hard to yeah yeah choose what to prioritize but i guess i guess that's ultimately i think the conversation we're having and the the healthy tension that may exist sometimes between city council who represent all the city but also you know the mayor also represents all the city and where does this input come from it certainly comes from citizens and what they care about and you all hear…”
“Oh, Councillor Henge, I'm sorry. You're up. It's okay. Just going back on that bicycle tax. Yeah. And maybe you said this before, I'm sorry if you did, but I'm assuming those dollars go directly to capital improvements that will support bicycle infrastructure.”
“Councilman Hingham. Thank you. This actually reminds me, and this might be a question for Sharae actually, but on this unfunded request, I know this last year a lot went on there that we haven't recovered, but there have been other positions on there for a long time. Is there a way to... or maybe it doesn't matter, but is there a way to categorize what just we lost versus ones that have been on there and felt the need for the last five years but we haven't had the funds? Do you know what I'm saying? Am I making sense?”
“Well, I guess I'm kind of thinking really holistically about, for example, the long-term trend of parks, which has just been continued to go down, down, down, down, down. And, you know, how do you avoid that, or how do you pay attention to... It's probably a conversation for later, but thank you. Of course.”
“Thank you, Madam President. Clearly this is not my area of expertise, but $1.5 million just to do a design? Just for the design?”
“Okay, it just seems like a lot of money.”
“Have you consulted with our parking enterprise manager about this? Yes. Okay, just because I know that's her expertise, yeah.”
“Councilman Hendren. Yeah, and are you or would you be willing to consider solar on top of the parking? Absolutely, yes.”
“Thanks, I missed whatever was funny. Okay, okay. My question is about advertising and marketing. So I know LART, when there's requests for LART dollars to go to advertising, it has to go to the chamber. Why, just help me understand how it can be in this budget and then LART advertising has to go to, or LART dollars for advertising for the airport has to go to the chamber.”
“Well, you can do the weeds later with me if you want.”
“Thank you, Madam President. Sheriff Roybal, it's very nice to see you here and I am very supportive of this ballot initiative and I do hope people listening will, But yes, if they haven't voted already, fill in that bubble for yes. And I appreciate that you talked about the partnership between Colorado Springs and El Paso County, certainly on the law enforcement side, but it also extends to fire as well. And would say that at some point here in the coming years, hopefully sooner than later, we need to have a conversation about our own public safety sales tax, which was instituted in 2001 and…”
“Thank you. I'll bring it back to the dais. Councilman Hingem. Thank you, Madam President. Angela, thank you for being here. I'm so grateful for Copper. I'm going to take this opportunity to, one, say to folks who are here who may not realize, you know, many cities and many governments actually fund the arts through their general fund and have positions and really uplift the arts. That's not Colorado Springs. That's not who we are or how we do it. However... Copper does receive some of our LART funds, which is the Lodging, Auto, and Rental Tax, to support their work. But the majority of their…”
“This year. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Gould.”
“Thank you, Angela. That's so nice of you. Hey, how are you? Good.”
“Yes, thank you, Madam President. And Jim is here, and I really appreciate it. An outstanding candidate. We had a great, actually, pool of candidates to choose from, but Jim works for the city, works at the airport, and has a great story, and I think will bring really important things to the LARC committee. Thank you, Jim. I concur.”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“Councilman Hingem? Yes, thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Wayne, for those updates. I was wondering if you could say a little bit more, and if not you, even perhaps the Council President, about the North Nevada charrettes. I will be attending the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday myself. I'm not sure I'm going to make the final Saturday one. It is actually not open to the public yet at this point. And I think it deserves, for those who don't know, what that even a charrette is, just hearing a little bit more about that process and the development of that quarter. And I mentioned the president…”
“Oh, sorry. councilmember hengeman and thank you for the additional conversation and i i wanted to do that because in part i got the invitation And I am very keenly interested and focused on this area. It is in my district, and the Capeton-Cragmore neighborhoods will be dramatically impacted in, I think, a very positive way by this development, as will really the entire city. I made the mistake of forwarding that invitation to one of the neighborhood organizations and learned that actually it's not quite ready for that level of public input. And so I'm learning in the process. And I just…”
“And now I do have something to say. So I didn't know, actually, that Councilmember Gold was going to pull this off the agenda. But I did. And I want to highlight the opportunity here. I want to take this as an opportunity to highlight the work of the city clerk's office and the incredible work that goes into creating minutes and a record of all of our public processes. This was a very, very long meeting. Therefore, you can imagine taking minutes for such a long meeting is quite the task. Those minutes were published on Wednesday, and then a corrected version was published on Friday, and I…”
“Councilman Hengim. Thank you, Madam President. And this is a good and valuable conversation. And, you know, I think it's really important for us to acknowledge and recognize that for decades, we have deferred maintenance on a historic city property. And we defer maintenance on so many things because we don't have the dollars in the budget. And we have a homegrown Colorado Springs boy now man, who is devoting his expertise and energy into helping restore this really beloved property for the city of Colorado Springs. I concur and I don't think anybody expects or wants that this abatement would…”
“addressed or available depending on how they wish to do it we discussed this at the work session i am happy to answer any questions that there may be councilman hengim thank you and yes we did receive a communication that went out to all employees yesterday on outlining based on whatever would happen here today there is just one clarification i don't recall reading in that communication wayne um And I asked it last time. By the way, I'm very supportive of this. I'm grateful that you're bringing it to our attention and that we have the revenue to give a day back to employees and payment. And I…”