2 days Ago By Brennen Kauffman [email protected]
After getting mixed success with its ballot measures this month, final plans are coming together for the downtown development authority in Old Colorado City. The election was run through the Spencer Fane law firm, which certified the final results on Nov. 14.
Four ballot questions were sent out to residents and business owners within the proposed district. The initial measure to create the authority passed easily, 123-90. But voters rejected the ballot question that would have allowed the district to assess its own 5 mill levy to help fund operations and reinvestment, voting 89-85 against it.
The Old Colorado City Partnership and the board for the new district will be meeting with lawyers early next week to figure out how to navigate the partial success of the election. "We're still figuring out the legality side if it and game-planning what do we do for the district without the mill levy, and what might that look like from a financial perspective," said Jamie Giellis, president of the consulting company Centro that helped manage the creation of the new district. One of the legal questions is how the district will fit with the two existing Special Improvement Maintenance Districts within the same boundaries.
If the mill levy question had passed, that levy would have replaced and consolidated the two mill levies from those districts. The mixed results make it unclear whether all three districts will continue to exist at the same time. Two of the other funding abilities for the authority narrowly passed, each by a three-vote margin.
Those ballot measures allow the authority to issue debt to pay for improvements via bonds and keep all tax revenue generated within downtown. Old Colorado City Partnership said the special district was needed to lead advocacy efforts for the area's businesses and help fund some improvements. Restauranteur and executive chef Jay Gust is one of the five starting board members of the district, along with Michelle Talarico representing the Colorado Springs City Council.
Downtown is in the name of the district, but Gust said one of the new authority's goals was to market and support a broader stretch of Colorado Springs. The boundaries for the new district run along Colorado Avenue for more than three miles, from Interstate 25 to the Manitou Springs city limits. "We can be a little more unified as a whole.
Instead of making little noises, we can be a bit of a larger noise and message," Gust said. One of the initial steps for the new district will be expanding the board of directors to 11 members. The rest of the board members will be chosen by the current board from eligible businesses in the DDA region, with final approval being made by the city council.
The step after that will be creating a detailed development plan to specify how the new district will use the funding it does have available. Giellis said the board would move quickly and build on preparation work that had been done leading up to the vote. "Everyone is anxious to get those two things done and that will happen relatively quickly," Giellis said.
The Colorado Springs DDA did not get its official downtown plan approved by the city until 2016, a decade after the district was approved by voters..
