Opportunity Springs

A 10-Point Plan for Colorado Springs’

Job Growth and Economic Development
Introduction

Over the last 10 years, Colorado Springs has grown by more than 90,000 people, but we have only added
14,000 jobs to our workforce – 16,000 new soldiers and 2,000 fewer civilian jobs. Over the same period,
real wages here have decreased 10%. Unemployment in El Paso County has risen to 9.5%, the highest in
a decade.

We have two options: we can do nothing, and hope for a national recovery that includes us, or we can
implement a comprehensive job growth strategy now. There is no reason to wait.

Colorado Springs can become a vibrant economic center now – independent of national trends. As full-
time Mayor, I will be more available for business recruitment than any other city leader in our history.
I am willing to sit at any table where I can offer influence, guidance and local government assistance to
create jobs. And I will ensure local government works with the business community to support this goal.

Everything else we will debate on the campaign trail – from parks to taxes, from land use to service delivery
and social issues – must be viewed in this job creation context. All other issues pale in comparison to the
importance of having good paying jobs for our local citizens.

Opportunity Springs is my 10-point plan for ensuring long-term, economic health for Colorado Springs. If
it looks like a business plan, that’s because decades of business ownership have shaped my perspective and
my approach to leadership.

This plan combines proven economic development techniques of recruiting outside employers to relocate to
Colorado Springs with successful innovations like “Economic Gardening” that can be adapted to our unique
local culture and economy. It strengthens existing initiatives for public-private cooperation and proposes
bold, new ones. It promotes stabilizing and strengthening city services in support of these economic goals
and it leverages our community’s one-of-a-kind assets to pursue productive new directions.

1. Economic Development: Make Business-Friendly Job Creation a Top Priority for

Municipal Government

In my administration, the purpose of city government will be not only to deliver services efficiently and to
enforce laws, ordinances and codes fairly; of equal importance will be to assist and facilitate local job growth.

Government employees must recognize the relationship of public service to economic development.
Primary employers who provide jobs locally ensure the revenues that allow city government to provide the
level of service that citizens expect. In other words, municipal employees have a vested interest in helping
to create and sustain jobs in the community.
 All officials in my administration will be expected to wake up every day with an important question
on their minds: “How can I help facilitate the creation of local jobs?” City staff will be urged to use a
flexible, business-friendly approach to enforcing ordinances, zoning, codes and land use regulations. Every
department will dismantle unnecessary bureaucracy, and be encouraged to be less risk averse and to think
of specific ways to expedite new job development. This represents a cultural shift that, once in office, I will
implement throughout the entire organization.

Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Create a “Red Tape” hotline for businesses in our community to address concerns as they arise.

• Integrate the phrase “efficient collaboration between departments and with the business community”
into our stated city philosophy.

• Direct public officials in the Clerk’s office, Attorney’s office, Planning and Development, Code
Enforcement, Public Works, Streets, Communications, Finance, Information Technologies (IT),
Police and Fire Departments to re-examine all policies and procedures with this new “culture shift”
goal in mind.

• Work with City Council to change codes and regulations to improve efficiencies and ease of
operations for local businesses.

• Work diligently with the EDC and other groups to support primary employer attraction and retention.

• Connect the dots for city staff to realize that wasting time can result in fewer jobs in our community.
Encourage questions such as: Do we allow for too much public process? Do we hire too many consultants?

• Implement software solutions for submitting planning and development requests on-line.

• Refund the city’s portion of the Business Personal Property Tax and increase the Vendor’s Fee paid
to local businesses to collect sales tax to three percent. This tax and fee contribute minimally to the
city’s general fund budget and may instead serve as a small stimulus to support job creation and
stability in local businesses.

2. “Economic Gardening:” Grow Our Own Local Businesses

Locally-owned businesses can create more jobs than outside employers, and have made a proportionally
greater contribution to the overall prosperity of our community. For every $1,000 spent at a local business, for
example, $680 flows back into our community, whereas, for every $1,000 spent at a business owned elsewhere,
only $430 stays in the community. I support “Economic Gardening” for Colorado Springs businesses.

Economic Gardening is an economic development plan that provides locally-owned startups and existing
businesses with new resources to promote growth. Traditionally, economic development plans have focused
on incentive packages to bring large employers to the region, but have not included much support for
growing locally-owned businesses.
Developed in neighboring Littleton, Colorado, Economic Gardening can be successfully adapted to match
Colorado Springs’ own culture, business climate and values. Consider this background:

After designing and implementing this policy, focusing exclusively on growing local small business, Littleton
was able to double the number of jobs in the area and triple tax revenue without spending a single dollar on
tax breaks or other incentives. During the same period, Littleton’s population grew less than 25 percent.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, there are 16,779 small businesses in the Colorado
Springs area, composing 98 percent of all firms and 60 percent of all employment in the area. If we can
facilitate enough growth in these businesses over the next three years to sustain 17,000 new positions – an
average of one new position per business – we will have created more new jobs in those three years than
we have over the last 10 years.

Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Find partners and funding to help expand the Colorado Springs Small Business Center into a comprehensive
local and small business portal and incubator. The center would provide information services and business
counseling along with facilitate communication and partnership between existing local businesses and new
local start-ups.

• Establish the Small Business Center as a universally accessible support network for all small businesses.

• Work with the EDC and other groups to facilitate local connections to national and international
business networks.

• Work with local funding institutions and government agencies to facilitate securing grants, loans, lines
of credit and other capital investment opportunities for locally-owned small start-up businesses.

• Partner and grow access to credit for locally-owned, well-established, existing small businesses. Growing
a barbershop in Hillside or a Korean restaurant on South Academy may be less expensive, less risky and
offer greater return than growing a new high technology start-up, for example.

• Work with local investors to create a local business Venture Capital Authority and facilitate access to
regional, state and federal venture capital money.

• Expand public/private partnerships with Governor Hickenlooper’s “Ground Up” Initiative, the Technology
Incubator, and with UCCS’s entrepreneurial programs.

• Work with Pikes Peak Community College, Colorado Technical University, and other educational institutions
to make sure that our students are receiving relevant training for the jobs our community is developing.

• Use the “bully pulpit” to promote “Think Local” as a community-wide campaign, urging everyone to
patronize local businesses.

• Increase efforts to encourage local government and utilities to purchase from local contractors and business
through purchasing process education (RFPs) and outreach.
DESIGNATE SOUTHEAST COLORADO SPRINGS AS AN OPPORTUNITY ZONE

This key action is actually a comprehensive set of actions listed below and based on the following background.

The southeast side of Colorado Springs is one part of our community that is economically struggling.
Much of the commercial activity centers around convenience stores, fast-food restaurants, dollar stores,
and check-cashing businesses that are not locally owned. Many of the local businesses that do exist have
little access to lines of credit or needed capital to grow.

The long-awaited completion of the Academy Boulevard Master Plan (from Drennan to Maizeland) is
a step in the right direction for this region. However, this plan will be difficult to implement in the near
future without securing new sources of funding. And without rapid implementation of the plan, this region
will most likely continue to suffer economically and to require a disproportionate share of city resources.

Our citizens on the southeast side of the city should not have to rely exclusively upon the slow
implementation of the Master Plan for new opportunities and economic expansion. When I am Mayor, this
area will become an “Opportunity Zone,” with new initiatives and tools designed exclusively to combat the
unique challenges faced by local business owners there.

Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Develop an economic development strategy for this zone based on intense, neighborhood-based outreach to
promote understanding of what small, locally owned businesses currently provide to the region, and what
gaps can be filled by new start-ups and expansion.

• Work with local banks, credit unions and the Small Business Center to create a micro-loan program, from
$500 to $10,000, to help start new locally-owned businesses that are needed in this zone.

• Organize a land bank management and disposition strategic plan that inventories key vacant and distressed
storefronts and commercial properties. Facilitate strategic partnerships with non-profits, community
organizations, churches, lenders and local government to pool together resources to use these properties as
opportunities for new business ventures.

• Develop new, community-based neighborhood policing practices in this zone, where crime problems are
addressed before they turn into potentially more serious situations. If the same officers patrol the same
beat, the subsequent familiarity with the area will aid the police in solving crimes. Citizens’ familiarity with
the officers will help promote a trusting and productive relationship between the police and local residents.
It’s a proven strategy and a win-win.

• Set up a contracted out, van transportation system for this zone of the city only, working with existing fixed
bus routes but providing quick, less expensive service to key areas of work and recreation concentration.
This region is the most dependent on the city transit system. The recent cutbacks in bus service have severely
limited residents’ mobility – imposing further hardships on individuals seeking employment.
3. Economic Collaboration: Cultivate Strategic Regional Partnerships

Colorado Springs is the finance, commerce and marketing center for the Pikes Peak Region and all of
Southern Colorado. Yet we often are perceived as a parochial community of only self-interest.

Colorado Springs has a big stake in a financially vibrant region. Where do people in Monument,
Woodland Park, Pueblo, Falcon, and La Junta shop and work? What airport do they use? What television
stations do they watch? And reciprocally, where do we, in Colorado Springs, get our locally-grown food?

We are linked as a region. There are enormous opportunities for economic benefit to our community.
Enhancing that link will help create new jobs.

Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Promote our area as a regional tourist destination for amateur sports, outdoor recreation, arts and culture.

• Facilitate the creation of more markets and consumers for specialty food growers in the region.

• Implement innovative programs like “Double Up Food Bucks” – a program of the national group Food Fair
Network where food stamp coupons can be doubled when used for fresh food from local farmers markets.

• Continue to oppose out-of-basin water transfers from the Arkansas River basin. This will help ensure
stability for farmers in the region and thus more healthy, fresh food for our community and more local jobs.

• Continue in an active role and expand relationships I’ve developed on the Fountain Creek Flood Control,
Water Quality and Greenway District project to fix Fountain Creek and turn it into a recreational corridor
between Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

• Partner with all other government entities in the region to combine, share and leverage every resource
possible thus eliminating redundant expenses. If that means sharing resources like GIS mapping, heavy
equipment or research, we should not hesitate to say yes. Proprietary turf wars won’t be tolerated in
my administration.

• Export “Economic Gardening” into the region. By sharing knowledge gained in Colorado Springs’
successes with this endeavor and by encouraging the development of small businesses regionally, we reduce
the likelihood that businesses will leave the region or the state to get what they need. Again, regional
success creates local jobs because Colorado Springs is the economic hub.

• Partner with Northern and Eastern El Paso County to address their future water needs. They are
48,000 acre-feet short going into the next decade. By considering an arrangement to use an existing short-
term surplus, we could ease the burden to Colorado Springs ratepayers and at the same time ensure the
long-term health of the region.

• Promote and plan clean energy development regionally.

When we strategically combine assets we leverage our investments and achieve our goals. We are bigger
and better together than we can be individually.

4. Economic Security: Stabilize Local Government

Business leaders are not going to move to Colorado Springs to create new jobs and existing employers aren’t
going to stay here unless we deliver the services they need and maintain our municipal infrastructure.

“Opportunity Springs” rests on a foundation of maximized efficiency and transparency in our city government.
We must restore the services and infrastructure that help our community attract and retain jobs.

Personnel policies must be evaluated to identify any alterations or additional efficiencies that could
maximize sustainability for the future. If it is deemed most effective, options for privatization or outside
contracting will be on the table for any and all departments and services. If the private sector can do it
cheaper and better, then we need to make a change.

Colorado Springs has lost key staff in all departments – staff that is critical to providing and protecting a
stable infrastructure. My priority will be to build a competent, permanent team as quickly as possible. I
want to assure the talent that the city currently employs that their jobs are secure and that their new boss
will treat them with the respect they deserve. And, just as in the local businesses I have run successfully
for more than 20 years, they need to know I will make swift changes when an employee is not bringing
excellence to the job every day.

Consider this background: Colorado Springs’ per capita number of public safety and civilian employees
is well below the national average. Compared to other medium-sized cities across the country, we have
some of the smallest numbers in the nation. In other words, fewer police and firefighters are protecting
larger numbers of our citizens across bigger areas.

We have gone from over 2,100 full-time city employees in 2007 to just 1,623 – of which more than 1,200
are in public safety and courts - in FY 2011. The Parks Department now maintains over 9,000 acres of
parkland with only 13 employees.

The reality of this current economic recession is that our city is already lean. Colorado Springs has some
of the lowest debt and lowest taxes of any city our size in the country, and since 2007, City Council has
had to cut almost $50 million – 20 percent – from our budget.

It is unlikely that more cuts will solve our problems, but I will explore every option to increase
government efficiency.

Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Examine the following personnel policies:

o New Hiring Practices
o PERA
o Deferred Benefits
o Defined Contributions
o Real Compensation
o Workman’s Compensation
 o Overtime Policies
o Occupational Health
o Employee third-party leasing agreements

Unsustainable personnel policies of the past aren’t going to have a “quick fix” today but personnel efficiencies
will be an essential part of my efforts to stabilize city government.

• Stabilize staff. Right now, we have “acting” managers in these positions: City Manager, Fire Chief, Parks
Director, Planning Director, Transit Director, City Engineer, and Streets Division Director – just to name a
few. We have lost outstanding talent over the last few years. Current talent is being recruited by other
entities. My priority will be to build a competent team as quickly as possible. Permanent department heads
need to be put in place soon to stabilize the city administration.

• Ensure that we retain the most talented employees. In many cases, the city currently pays low-market
wages for employees that have high-market education and skills. Ensuring that we retain this talent avoids
high costs of recruiting, hiring and training.

• Explore all options for privatization and outside contracting. The current City Council and City Manager
have explored many solutions of this nature that make sense; I will continue that process.

• Implement innovative policies that ensure competence and competitiveness of city departments. I like the
policies that Indianapolis and Charlotte have put in place, requiring city departments to bid on contracts as
if they were from the private sector. It will be important, however, to analyze the experience and
institutional knowledge of current city staff before awarding contracts to the lowest financial bidder.
Furthermore, we also need to make sure those contracts are bids based on an even playing field, where
contracted service providers also have reasonable personnel policies.

5. Asset Leveraging: Grow Amateur Sports

Colorado Springs is home to one of the largest populations of amateur sports and disabled sports athletes
in the nation. Our city also has one of the largest proportions of sports fans per capita in the country.

An Amateur Sports Complex will connect and leverage these two assets. Communities in other parts of
the country have made small investments in public amateur sports complexes, which have then attracted
regional, state, and national tournaments, and have reaped the associated economic benefits. For
example, the local government in Blaine, Minnesota invested $14.7 million in the construction of a large
public/private amateur sports complex. Now completed, the complex brings in $37 million annually.

I envision a city-wide strategic plan to not only promote amateur sports, but to make us known as the
Amateur Sports and Para Sports Capitol of the United States. An important part of this vision for the future
will be the creation of an Amateur Sports Complex for exhibition. With our amateur sports scene, Colorado
Springs is uniquely positioned to reap great benefits and create jobs locally from such an endeavor.
 Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Encourage our existing tourist industry infrastructure to cater to amateur sports enthusiasts
and organizations.

• Work more actively with the USOC and other organizations to increase the number of local
exhibition events and to bring more regional and state competitions to the city.

• Create new events, parades and community marketing to recognize the athletes who call
Colorado Springs home.

• Actively seek and engage interested partners to create and promote an Amateur Sports Complex
in Colorado Springs.

6. Asset Building: Grow our Outdoor Recreation Industry

Colorado Springs already has a reputation for some of the most beautiful scenery and easiest access
to spectacular mountain biking, skiing, rock climbing, rafting, fishing, hunting and backpacking
opportunities in the nation, perhaps in the world. Add our proximity to national forest and wilderness
areas and there is very little standing in our way from becoming the next “Moab,” attracting tens of
thousands of young outdoor enthusiasts to the area annually. Manitou Springs could become “the new
Breckenridge,” with tourists from the North Front Range making the drive south on I-25 instead of
fighting the traffic on I-70. And there is no reason we should not be known as a world-class fishing
destination, given the large number of reservoirs and streams within our region’s boundaries today.

Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Work to advance local partnerships to ensure our outdoor resources are well- planned, developed,
protected and promoted. For example, I will work with my colleagues on City Council to ensure
Colorado Springs Utilities is a true partner in this important job creation infrastructure, particularly
emphasizing the importance of opening the South Slope Reservoirs and their other local watershed
holdings to responsible recreation.

• Work diligently with our tourist industry to brand ourselves an outdoor recreation destination for the
whole country to enjoy.

• Work diligently with bicycling businesses, sporting goods stores, and sports organizations to leverage
local park resources and create as many new outdoor marathons, bike challenges and other outdoor
competitions as possible.

• Work with the Division of Wildlife programs like, “Fun is Fishing” and area specialty businesses
(e.g., local fly-fishing and sporting goods stores) to strategically plan a world-class fishing master plan
for the region.
7. Asset Protection: Grow our “Healthy” Local Environment and Outdoor Infrastructure

Every dollar we wisely spend making our outdoor life richer, our air purer, and water cleaner will pay us
back in the creation of new jobs.

Whenever I ask a crowd of people why they moved to Colorado Springs or why they stayed, they almost
always respond that they love: the outdoor life, clean air, fresh mountain tap water, blue skies, nighttime
stars, 300 days of sunshine, Pike’s Peak, the 1.1 million acres of national forest on our Western border,
and/or the easy access to trails and recreation. There is no other city in the country with these amenities.
There is no other city in the country with a more beautiful setting. It’s our biggest new job creation asset
and it’s an asset we need to grow and protect.

Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Do everything possible within legal and budgetary limits to protect more land, build more trails, and
keep our air and water clean.

• Work to protect and purchase the front 100 acres of Ute Valley Park and work with our Parks Department
to open up access to Queens Canyon and the Russ Wolf property.

• Work to secure parts of the Banning Lewis Ranch that would be ideal for open space for future recreation
and make sure those areas are connected to Coral Bluffs.

• Work to turn our waterways, like Fountain Creek, into healthy trail and recreation corridors — full of
wetlands and wildlife.

• Ensure that all future projects are evaluated for potential long-term negative impacts to protect our
environment and our future. I will work to prevent short-term gain projects – such as gravel pits – from
damaging long-term assets, like our mountain backdrop.

• Implement a range of education programs to reduce unintentional strain on our air and water and maximize
sustainability. This includes:
o A program similar to Ft. Collins’ “idling awareness” program.
o Education initiatives to find solutions for PM10 (particulate air pollution) related problems.
o A “Don’t Pollute” car educational program – the sustainability version of “Stay Alive, Drive 25.”
o Create a non-point pollution educational outreach effort, protecting our waterways from
chemical pollutants.

• Reexamine existing traffic patterns and roadway standards to devise effective placement for additional bike
lanes. I will also ensure bike lanes remain a key component of new road construction and make new,
temporary bike routes available at non-high traffic times.

• Create “night-sky” compliant opportunity zones throughout the city.

8. Human Capital: Promote our Robust Health and Fitness Culture

Colorado Springs has already been labeled the most physically fit city in the United States. We need to
capitalize on this well-deserved reputation. I will promote fitness and health as no public leader has done
in the past. A fit, healthy city is a city where people will choose to live, work, play, and retire. Healthy kids
are our future job innovators. Poor public health ends up being everyone’s financial burden.

Our community should be known around the world for our rehabilitative and sports medicine services.
Colorado Springs has two great health systems that can capitalize in this sector. Both can easily expand into
regional or even national providers, with connections to institutions like the Mayo or Cleveland Clinics.

Every new health care job created here produces the equivalent of another eight-tenths of a full-time
position in local support industries. Using our health culture to promote our quality health industry will
advance our economic vitality.

Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Actively advocate for a local sports and rehabilitative-medicine industry, partnering with the USOC and
Memorial and Penrose Hospitals, and aggressively advocate for a sports medicine teaching facility at UCCS.

• Thoroughly investigate the financial prudence of Memorial’s transition into a non-profit hospital then,
based on facts, facilitate an efficient and effective transition. Such a transition will be designed to enhance
the flexibility Memorial will need to generate new jobs more easily and preserve the quality of care.

• Organize exercise community partnerships in neighborhoods across the city modeled after Penrose
Hospital’s successful program with the North End.

• Become known as the “Hiking Mayor” and will encourage my staff and the city at large to take advantage of
our natural “health resources” in ways that support a fitness culture for people of all abilities.

9. Asset Reallocation: Make Decisions Today to Create Sustainable Local Government

for the Future

If we want job-creating businesses to make long-term investments in our city, then our city needs to assure
them that we can provide the infrastructure and services they need in the present and for the future.

As Mayor, I will launch an ongoing process to evaluate how sustainable our policies, plans and infrastructure
needs are now and for the future. Sometimes investing today saves more tomorrow. Other times, we will need
to adjust our expectations and requirements. It is important to know the difference. A competent assessment
process informing these decisions will impact our city government’s capacity to support new job creation now
and sustain that process in the future.

Consider this history: Many of our municipal departments have planning documents in place that were
drafted during a huge growth economy. Those standards need to be revisited. Some assumptions don’t hold
today. Others did not take into account new technology and best practices.
Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Sit down with each department to determine if their planning documents and current procedures support
policies and infrastructure needs that make sense for today and for the future. Some questions I will ask:

− Should we change our neighborhood park per capita requirements in our Parks Master Plan?

− Should we put in place “low-impact” or “no alteration” development standards?

− Should we re-examine our streetlight standards?

− Should we invest in smart, night-sky compliant, energy-saving LED streetlights?

− Should we invest in Crumb Rubber Asphalt?

− Should we look to wetland propagation for mitigation against water quality and storm drainage
requirements in the future?

− Should we hire entry-level public safety employees to handle the daily chores of the sworn officers,
so they can deal with more pressing emergencies?

− Should we renegotiate our ESA agreement to include some payment for Fire Department responses to
medical emergencies?

− Should we look at more van service and less large bus service as a way to address transit needs?

− Do we have additional city assets we can lease to generate more income for the general fund?

− Should Colorado Springs Utilities institute an On-Bill Financing program where city energy and water
efficiency savings can be funded and then repaid through a long-term tariff tied to the city meters?

− Should Memorial Hospital become a Federally Qualified Hospital?

− Should we change the city charter to allow for ratepayers to exempt themselves from CSU
Purchase Power Agreements to bring in more federal dollars for solar installations?

− Should we revisit the Trails and Open Space master plans to determine if future TOPS funding can be
spent more strategically in the future?

• Require updates based on this inquiry and data to increase efficiencies and build sustainability.

Decisions from the past that we revisit today will inform important course corrections and solidly impact
both the long-term efficiency of city government and new job creation in the future.
10. Build our True Brand: The Big Tent

New ideas, unparalleled assets and a sleek and stable city government mean nothing if “Colorado
Springs” continues to be a negative label in the minds of potential employers.

When I travel, I find myself constantly defending Colorado Springs. Our image is one of narrow-
mindedness, intolerance, anti-good-government and infighting. No wonder our children leave. No wonder
outside businesses hesitate to invest here. The bottom line is that without a more positive brand, we will
never grow jobs. The time is now. Our community is ripe for this growth.

The world needs to know the true reality of Colorado Springs. We have a huge arts community and
infrastructure, we are a well-educated community, our locally-educated children go on to fine schools
and prominent careers, our local defense and aerospace industries house some of the top scientists in the
country, our local state university is a powerhouse of innovation and national recognition, and we have a
quality of life and outdoor infrastructure second to none. And this list is only a start.

We are also a city rich in cultural and ethnic diversity. Many communities share Colorado Springs. Our
population consists of many different skin colors, faiths, languages, sexual orientations and belief systems.
A talented, diverse population is good for attracting new employers.

Our diversity includes the socially conservative faith community, which has been an important local
economic driver and provides a rich and vital viewpoint. We have plenty of room for other perspectives in
Colorado Springs. People of good faith understand: talented individuals are good for jobs no matter what
their belief systems might be.

Even the anti-tax movement has made our community a better place. Granting citizens the right to vote on tax
increases has created a more accountable government in Colorado Springs than can be found in most other
areas of the country. But, if we are known only as a community that refuses to invest in itself, made famous for
shutting off streetlights and removing trashcans from our parks, then our economy will continue to suffer.

New ideas, unparalleled assets and a state-of-the-art and stable city government mean nothing if Colorado
Springs has to defend against a negative label in the minds of potential employers.

Key Actions
As Mayor I will:

• Work diligently to promote the “real” Colorado Springs. Negative, stereotyped or overly broad portrayals
of Colorado Spring in the state, national or international media will never go unchallenged by me. Not on my
watch. The image is not true, and it’s not good for jobs.

• Visit every school in the city once a year as John Hickenlooper did, not just to promote health, fitness and
our beautiful environment but also to instill a community-wide pride, engagement and positive identity
among our youth.

• Consistently and visibly communicate the richness and value of our Colorado Springs culture to primary
employers who want to relocate and to local employers who contribute here.

• I’ll travel anywhere to encourage employer relocation and share the richness of Colorado Springs.