Bringing Colorado Springs into the future and solving some of its most important issues requires a common vision and collaboration between its top leaders.

With that goal in mind, they gathered Friday at the Penrose House – Mayor Yemi Mobolade and his administration, alongside the nine members of the City Council and their staff – to discuss where they want to take the city, the challenges it faces and how to jointly address pressing topics like public safety, development and land use, economic vitality, homelessness, mental health and others.

The group won’t decide concrete solutions in one day, City Council President Randy Helms said early Friday afternoon at the annual Mayor Council Retreat. The event brings the executive and legislative branches of the local government together to discuss imperative issues Colorado Springs faces, promotes trust between both branches, and helps them uniformly serve residents.

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“Today, our objective is to gain the trust and confidence between the mayor, his administration, the City Council and our staff so that we can work together to eventually come up with solutions to some of these major issues,” Helms said. “… We have the trust between the mayor’s office and the council, so how do we continue that?”

Mobolade hoped the group would take away a few “actionable items” at the end of the retreat to help them address the day’s discussion topics. Development and public safety emerged as two of the most critical items.

“A critical question that came up this morning when it comes to development is what type of city do we want to be in the next 20 to 50 years, and how do we work backward?” Mobolade said. “Because what we don’t want to do is be too much in the minutiae, making everyday decisions without being a futurist about where our city is going.”

Leaders need to be mindful about balancing the need for housing of all types and for all income brackets and ensuring the city can keep up with growth, he said.

Some residents at recent land use meetings have questioned the need for more housing in the city. For example, neighbors in Pine Creek opposed to a proposed affordable housing project at the intersection of North Powers and North Union boulevards have said sources like apartments.com, an online apartment listing website, show Colorado Springs already has thousands of vacant apartments.

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Public safety is another critical issue at the top of officials’ minds, Mobolade and Helms said. Data show Colorado Springs Police Department average response times have worsened since 2019, a symptom police officials said was due to ongoing staffing shortages the department is working to address.

The Police Department has 730 sworn officers, and 37 people who are in the academy and will join the department later this year, according to figures the department provided July 10. The city has designated enough funding for 818 sworn police officers but retaining them has also been a challenge. 

“We want our city to go forward not only in a safe manner, but (also) in a positive manner as we grow, because we know we’re going to grow again,” Helms said, adding that public safety is a broad topic encompassing police and fire response, offices of emergency management, traffic and emergency evacuations. “We want to provide a safe city. We want to provide a wonderful city (where) people want their kids and grandkids to stay.”

The Police Department’s continuous hiring model, holding academies every 15 weeks, can help get more trained officers on city streets faster, Helms said. More officers working can reduce response times, Colorado Springs police officials said last week.

On Monday, Mobolade, Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez and city CFO Charae McDaniel provided the City Council more details about a possible ballot question this November that would allow the city to retain $4.75 million in excess tax revenues to help build a second police academy. Mobolade and Vasquez have said another academy is critical to keeping the community safe and would “positively impact” the department’s ability to recruit new officers and retain current officers.

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Councilmembers said they generally supported building a new facility for police training, but some disagreed over using excess tax revenues to fund the project. Some residents told the board during its regular meeting July 25 they would prefer those extra dollars address affordable housing or homelessness.

Colorado Springs’ economic vitality is another important issue, Helms said.

“We seem to be doing really well right now,” he said.

Swiss solar manufacturer Meyer Burger recently announced plans to spend $403.5 million to expand into Colorado Springs and create more than 350 high-paying jobs, the latest deal in a series of new local economic development efforts.

On Tuesday, the City Council approved an agreement between the city and an unidentified Colorado Springs-based aerospace and defense engineering company that wants to spend $3.4 million over 10 years to expand into Colorado Springs and add an estimated 620 high-paying jobs to the community over the next eight years.

High tech manufacturers Entegris and Microchip Technology have also announced their intent to expand their existing Colorado Springs operations in recent months, adding more than 1,000 jobs and making combined investments of nearly $1.5 billion. Zivaro, a Denver-based information and technology firm, has also announced it will bring more than 300 jobs to the city.

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