After two recent ethics reports looked into Mayor Yemi Mobolade’s use of his city-provided car, the Colorado Springs City Council is addressing the issue through the city’s Code of Ethics.

The City Council approved new ethical rules concerning elected officials’ use of city vehicles 7-1 during its meeting Tuesday morning. Councilmember Nancy Henjum was the sole vote against the changes.

Two recent reports from the City Auditor’s Office looked into Mobolade’s use of city resources. The reports largely focused on how Mobolade used the car issued to him to run errands in town and take longer family trips to Denver and Crested Butte. Auditors also found that Mobolade’s wife drove the vehicle for a few weeks during the summer of 2025.

The Auditor’s Office found in both March and June that many of the issues were not considered violations because there were no explicit rules in place for city officials. Councilmembers said these changes would help fix that for the future.

“While these changes were precipitated by a current elected official, in a large part what was identified were loopholes in the system,” Councilmember Brian Risley said.

The audit reports also found instances when the mayor’s security detail accompanied him when he picked up his kids, and that he asked city staff members to watch his children on multiple occasions.

The council added some compromises to the ethics language from the original version, including removing the ability for the council to censure the mayor and adding exceptions copied from Denver’s rules for city vehicle use.

The code of ethics update states that the vehicles provided to the mayor and City Council must be “used for official purposes only and shall not be used for personal use.” The update also expands the definition of “city resources” which could be used or abused by officials.

Senior City Attorney Tracy Lessig, who worked with Risley and other councilmembers on the ordinance, suggested that they follow Denver’s policy for employee use of city vehicles. The modified Denver rules will allow Colorado Springs elected officials to drive passengers who are attending the same city event, performing similar city business or are in the “care or custody” of the official during city business.

Lessig said the rules would allow the mayor to drive family members to a city event if they were expected to appear as a family. It would not cover unofficial city business or errands that take place between city events.

Henjum said the proposed rules were overly restrictive, especially when it came to incidental trips and limitations on relatives.

“Whoever the elected mayor is, that family configuration could look a lot of different ways and we should be supporting the mayor, which is a 24/7 job, especially in a city our size,” Henjum said.

One debated item that did not end up in the final version was setting a minimum value for these issues to trigger an ethics complaint. Councilmember David Leinweber said that he would prefer a clarification so the city didn’t have to follow up on every small vehicle trip with a full investigation.

Leinweber mentioned $50 as a theoretical cutoff. Mobolade’s chief of staff, Wayne Williams, presented a version of the ethics code that set the cutoff at $500, which he said was largely a placeholder. Williams consulted with a different city attorney than the one who advised the council to propose his version.

Williams said the new code should not place more restrictions on other city staff, who could be impacted by the broader definitions for city resources. He asked if the code would address fringe cases, such as a valet moving the mayor’s car.

“We’re making this more complex than we need to,” Risley said.

“I’m looking at the language, and as a lawyer, I tend to do that,” Williams replied.

City staff said a minimum dollar amount would not prevent future cases from being heard by the Independent Ethics Commission or the Auditor’s Office, since a body would need to determine what the fiscal impact was. The commission is allowed to dismiss complaints that are “frivolous” and do not justify using city resources to pursue.

The Code of Ethics changes would override the administrative rule Mobolade enacted in May to cover the same vehicle questions. The administrative rule allows for personal use of the vehicles as long as the official pays the city a reimbursement at the IRS mileage rate of 70 cents per mile.