Just under a year since being elected to the Colorado Springs City Council, councilmember Tom Bailey has resigned in the face of a successful recall campaign.

Bailey announced his decision at a press conference on Tuesday in the City Council Chambers at the end of the council meeting.

“I think the work my former colleagues will continue to do here is very important,” Bailey said. “I expect they will work together to identify a replacement who they can work with, who fills a lot of squares.”

The other council members wished Bailey well and said they appreciated serving with him. Council President Lynette Crow-Iverson tore up Bailey’s resignation letter at the dais. The action does not change Bailey’s decision.

The resignation caps a five-month push by a group of residents in Bailey’s district to lead the recall campaign over his lack of accountability to their concerns. The city announced Friday that the petition had gathered the thousands of signatures needed to force the issue.

A search of records at the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum could not find another instance in the past 100 years of a recall effort successfully removing a Colorado Springs councilmember from office.

Bailey was elected to the City Council in April 2025 as the representative for District 2. Bailey largely ran unopposed for the seat in the northern Colorado Springs district after the other candidate who filed suspended his campaign early in the race.

Bailey said his initial instinct was to stay in office and face a recall election in the coming months. Over the weekend, however, he decided to resign to save the city the cost of an election and allow the City Council to choose his replacement.

He said that a special recall election would have lower turnout than normal, dominated by people who had already signed the recall petition. Bailey said that an election could replace him with someone with different political views, while a council appointment was more likely to match his concerns.

“The danger of increasing representation on this council of the radical, anti-growth influences that have been festering in our region in recent years is very significant and is too great for me to ignore,” Bailey said.

Tim Lewin, spokesman for the recall campaign, said that Bailey’s decision was a win for residents who want more accountability from their elected leaders.

Lewin and two other residents of the Pine Creek neighborhood were initially driven by their concerns about the city approving the nearby Royal Pines affordable apartment complex. While Royal Pines had been initially approved by the City Council years earlier, Bailey voted in favor of the $60 million private activity bonds the project requested last spring.

“Initially that was the issue, but as we started talking to people all over the district, we found so many others who felt they were not being heard, not being listened to, not being represented,” Lewin said.

Lewin said that Bailey’s comments about who would replace him were “a big insult to his district.” Lewin expected that multiple candidates would apply for the seat who wanted to go in a different direction from Bailey.

According to the city charter, the City Council will have 30 days to appoint a new eligible resident from District 2 to fill Bailey’s seat. The appointed councilmember will serve until the next municipal election in April 2027.

City staff said the application window for the council appointment would open soon and remain open for two weeks. The City Council would then narrow down the candidates and choose an appointee at a public meeting.