Doug Bruce will have two items on the Colorado Springs ballot this November. The Gazette published a lengthy article about them and their impact yesterday and then chose not to put it up on their site. They get no link because there is nothing to link to.
Here's the scoop:
Colorado Springs has a problem with water runoff. As the city has been built up with square miles of impervious rooftops, streets, and parking lots, rain water no longer soaks into the soil. It gets divereted to the nearest sewer and is sent downstream towards Pueblo.
Think about the floods in Iowa this month. The same thing is happening there except that it is also happening with farmland as the farmers engineer better drainage from their fields.
If the city doesn't try to get the situation under control, it faces the threat of large scale fines from both the state and the Feds. Pueblo would be quite happy to sue the socks off the springs over the issue and even happier if it deep sixed the Southern Delivery System.
In a misguided attempt to solve the problem, the city council pulled a fast one. They created a "stormwater enterprise" in 2005 and gave it the power to collect fees based on impervious surfaces on each piece of property.
Enter Doug Bruce. Doug is trying to kill this enterprise, but as always, he is using a hammer to swat at a fly. If he kills the fly he will do a lot of damage to every other enterprise in the city, which isn't all that great.
Now, as a voter, I am left with a very unpleasant task. I very much dislike what the city did. I think that if they had simply asked, they would have gotten their fee. I would have voted for it because the state and the Feds would have had the power to make things very unpleasant. Now that they have gone around the voters I would have to consider voting for one of Doug Bruce's measures IF I thought them reasonable. I don't.
Here I am, trying to be a responsible citizen with no real way to be responsible. If I vote against Doug, I endorse what the city did. I send the message that they have full freedom to do what they like. If I vote for Doug's proposal, I do much more damage than I care to do.
How can I recommend to others what to do if I can't figure out what to do myself? On first blush, I will likely vote with the city, but it is a vote I will hate casting. Stay tuned. This may not be the final answer.
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