COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.
"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."
Some residents are less sanguine, arguing that cuts to bus services, drug enforcement and treatment and job development are attacks on basic needs for the working class.
"How are people supposed to live? We're not a 'Mayberry R.F.D.' anymore," said Addy Hansen, a criminal justice student who has spoken out about safety cuts. "We're the second-largest city, and growing, in Colorado. We're in trouble. We're in big trouble."
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well well well its not really dry ,come together,you will come together and find water,food,shelter, what is your goal ,when you come together all things become possible.give me a for instance and i will give you a way
ReplyDeleteNo money for American citizens and their nice parks and programmes, but plenty of money for war and rich bankers.
ReplyDeleteWay to go American, just keep sitting back and watching your TV.
Cool, I think more cities need to go this route!
ReplyDeleteWho run Bartertown?
ReplyDeleteUse County inmates to push the mowers and fix the streets, trim the trees and clean the pool. Every full day of hard work will subtract one day off their time remaining. Any questions?
ReplyDelete7:31 you must be very naive about human nature.
ReplyDeleteAnother city, another round of extortion. I would love to hear a city that comes up with common sense proposals to cut the budget, instead of extorting its citizens. They'll cut police, but not some middle manager whose only job is make-work and make-paper meetings. They'll cut firefighters and not cut clerks who sit and do nothing all day. They'll turn off street lights and not enforce minimum work production standards. I've said it before, I'll say it again- it's extortion!
ReplyDelete8:31 You are right on - this is the way all the local games are played, intimidate the people by cutting out important services and leave the overstuffed government employees alone. What a crock!
ReplyDeleteall these cutbacks and no mention on public pensions...sounds as if they will always have money for the public pensions.
ReplyDelete8:31 & 9:14...Absolutely spot on. We’ll have to follow this one. I imagine we’ll hear about break-ins and robberies only to find out it’s the local Cops that get caught doing the crime driving the extortion ring and scaring the populace into accepting higher taxes. When will municipalities get it…between feds, state and city taxes the Turnip is Bone Dry…leave us alone and rob Geithner, Bernake. Pelosi and Soetoro!
ReplyDeleteAs most you know here, nothing is going to happen and all the idiots commenter above suffer from amnesia.
ReplyDelete8:31 is actually arguing over whether ice cream tastes better eaten in a bowl or in a cup. It all tastes the same going down, and so does the Police State, which you should all be embracing instead of whining about. Because isn't smaller government better? Come on, goofballs, get on the same page. There will always be some middle to upper mngmt fool holding on to his job who shouldnt be. It's the nature of bureaucracy.
ReplyDeleteLet's see, right on to 7:31 & 8:31, 8:12, what would you have them do sit in their air conditioned "play rooms" and get college degrees while the rest of the economy falter? Nothing makes me happier than to go down the road and see the "convicts", (and note, I did not say inmates)cleaning roads and digging ditches. In Virginia, I recall many times as a boy, seeing work gangs with a guard with a double barrel shotgun to enfore the days work.
ReplyDeleteIs this that far out of reality to happen again.
Many fine men and women in the law enforcement & emergency sector are going to lose their jobs as a result of thieves in Washington and New York continually raping the working class.
Wake up folks, time is drawing near!
Hope & Change is working! Welcome to the new Zimbabwe of the western hemisphere...
ReplyDeleteBarack Husein Obama, mmm.. mmm.. mm
bush worked good for 8 years and two fake wars to bankrupt the usa mmm mmm mmm
ReplyDeleteI guess I have Bush and Lon Cheney to thank. Despite all the terrible things they have done, they did help speed up the downfall of the biggest terrorist nation in the world.
ReplyDeleteDon't you just love how when you point out that Osama is destroying America some Liberal Moron has to go on about George Bush and the Republicans----Attention Liberal Morons---those of us in the know have known for a very long time that Republicans suck also. Those in the know are not Republicans, they stopped being Republicans long ago. But you Liberal Morons are so addicted to your perversions that you will go along with Democrats and their Stalinist ways until the day you die as long as they legalize your particular perversion. Democrat= Wicked + Stupid.
ReplyDeleteLook up Agenda 21 and see why this is going to happen to every city across the country.
ReplyDeleteWake up people!!!!!
http://www.infowars.com/
Hey, are you done with your rant about democrats there friend? I'm really not sure who it applies to here, but you sound pretty sure about whatever it is you are going on about. My advice: don't be so defensive about conservativism, and try not to be so brainwashed by the propaganda mill. But first of all, why are you even pointing out that Osama Bin Laden is destroying America? And secondly, don't you know that they use terrorism as a convenient excuse to further their illegitimate agenda? I thought everyone who still had a brain realized that.
ReplyDeleteDitto Agenda 21. I would really love to know where are the surplus money went during the good years. I would really love to know why everything must be cut because a tax INCREASE was not passed.
ReplyDeleteIn case you are late tuning in, everything must be cut because we have over-extended ourselves, both individually and as a country. We go stuck buying too many toys, relying on too many services, sinking ourselves in debt, and basically acting like the party would never end. Now welcome to Reality 2010. Blame it on the Bankers, the Jews, or your Aunt Ninnie, but the bottom line is this party's over.
ReplyDeleteOsama Bin Laden is DEAD!
ReplyDeleteObama is a puppet to the bankers!
You want proof. Here it is out of there own mouths.
Fall of the Republic HQ full length version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU
Yes the party is over and if your not prepared for the fall you will end up in 1 of those 125,000 plastic coffins that FEMA has by the (Georgia Guide Stones).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK8x_7JIiPc
Welcome To The New World Order!
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Heck, I live in Colorado Springs and TPTB already stopped taking care of the park across the street last year. The grass has died, the restrooms are padlocked, and the weeds get mowed only sporadically. But even with all of that, CS is still a better place to live, save for the relatively low wages, than most other places I've seen.
ReplyDeleteI must agree that threats of dire budget cuts is SOP for politicians. Oh well, maybe we can do without a lot of the services. I guess we'll find out. I think it will make people here even more self reliant than they already are, and that's not a bad thing. It puts more personal responsibility where it belongs: on the people, rather than on vote-whore politicians.
I live in Colorado Springs, and every time a tax increase is on the ballot (every November and also in April). It is usually defeated. It appears that the city is using these basic service cuts as a tool to manipulate the taxpayers into voting for the city to take more of our hard-earned dollars. As of yet, I have not heard of any major backlash against the city. I encounter many people throughout the day; none that I have (unbiasedly) asked have expressed any discontent. In tough times, we cut back. There is no choice. Perhaps this federal government could learn a little fiscal resposibility and discipline. But why should they, when they can just vote to raise taxes, fees (cap and trade, gas taxes, candy, ciggarettes, global warming "reduction" fees, etc)?
ReplyDeleteLet me be clear, these taxes actually will not affect the middle class.
No. Over time they will destroy what is left of the middle class.
Rob immanuel said "take advantage of every crises"so,,,, the more crises the sooner you can have your new Socialist country How do you like the CHANGE ?
ReplyDelete