As Colorado Springs battles a rash of
burglaries after a wildfire that still licks at its boundaries,
it does so with fewer police and firefighters
The city where the Waldo Canyon fire destroyed 346 homes
and forced more than 34,000 residents to evacuate turned off
one-third of its streetlights two years ago, halted park
maintenance and cut services to close a $28 million budget gap
after sales-tax revenue plummeted and voters rejected a
property-tax increase.
The municipality, at 416,000 the state’s second-largest,
auctioned both its police helicopters and shrank public-safety
ranks through attrition by about 8 percent; it has 50 fewer
police and 39 fewer firefighters than five years ago. More than
180 National Guard troops have been mobilized to secure the city
after the state’s most destructive fire. At least 32 evacuated
homes were burglarized and dozens of evacuees’ cars were broken
into, said Police Chief Pete Carey.
“It has impacted the response,” said Karin White, a 54-
year-old accountant, who returned home June 28 to a looted and
vandalized house, with a treasured, century-old family heirloom
smashed.
“They did above and beyond what they could do with the
resources they had,” she said. “If there were more officers,
there could have been more manpower in the evacuated areas.”
Taxpayer Revolt
Since the start of the 18-month recession in December 2007,
U.S. cities have faced shrinking revenue and diminishing state
support, leading to budget cuts and reductions in services and
workforces. Cities faced a fifth-straight year of revenue
declines in 2011, according to the National League of Cities,
which estimated that municipalities would have to fill budget
gaps of as much as $83 billion from 2010-2012.
Colorado Springs, which depends on sales tax for about half
of its revenue, was hit harder than most. The city -- the
birthplace 20 years ago of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which
later passed statewide and has been pushed around the country to
restrict government spending -- became a high-profile example of
cost-cutting. The law restricts government spending to the
previous year’s revenue, adjusted only for population growth and
inflation.
“People are going to be looking at the aftermath of this
disaster to see what is possible,” said Josh Dunn, an associate
professor of political science at University of Colorado,
Colorado Springs. “How far can you go in cutting the size of
city government?”
Pre-Tea
The city, home of the evangelical Christian group Focus on
the Family, is known for being conservative and libertarian. It
“was the Tea Party before the Tea Party was cool,” Dunn said.
Six of the nine candidates in last year’s nonpartisan
mayoral election, including the victor, Mayor Steve Bach, signed
the no-tax pledge pushed by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax
Reform, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.
Richard Skorman, one candidate who didn’t, was flooded with
angry e-mails after saying in a debate why he opposed such a
pledge. What, he asked, if the city got hit by a major wildfire?
“Resources have been very stretched, and we were always
worried,” Skorman, a 60-year-old small business owner and
former city councilman who lost to Bach in an April 2011 run-
off, said in a telephone interview.
On Edge
The costs of rebuilding combined with lost revenue from
business closings and tourism could again push the city to the
point where it doesn’t have money for essential services, he
said.
“It is really going to make it difficult to deal with
these things and all the reconstruction and things that are
going to have to occur in this community,” Skorman said.
Bach said the city is on the path toward financial
implosion anyway because of overly generous pensions and too
many parks.
“Forget the fire,” said the mayor, whose office has an
easel with a chart depicting Colorado Springs’s financial
status, after a briefing on the blaze June 30. “At our current
cost curve, we’ll be insolvent in eight years.”
Bach said the financial situation “certainly has affected
our ability to take care of other things like parks and keeping
the streetlights on.”
It hasn’t affected the handling of the wildfire, he said.
Heading Home
The Waldo Canyon blaze has killed two, engulfed a 29-
square-mile (75-square-kilometer) area the size of Manhattan,
has cost $11.1 million to fight so far and is now 55 percent
contained. All but 3,000 residents have been allowed to return
home, according to the Incident Information System, an
interagency effort to track and provide wildfire information.
Such emergencies are why Bach’s administration has focused
on increasing the city’s unrestricted general fund balance,
which is now at 17 percent, said Steve Cox, the city’s chief of
economic vitality and innovation.
Carey and Fire Chief Rich Brown said they are facing the
same kind of cuts and budget restrictions as public-safety
forces across the country. The reduction in manpower hasn’t
affected their ability to respond to the wildfire, they said in
interviews this weekend.
On June 26, when near-hurricane force winds caused a
firestorm that swept into the city, “I don’t care if we had
2,000 people, there’s nothing we could have done,” Brown said.
The city has 413 firefighters and recently graduated its first
new class of recruits in five years, he said.
Working Together
Carey said the reduction in manpower has forced police to
work more closely with the fire department and other agencies.
“That’s the emerging trend of public safety,” Carey said.
“We can’t afford to have a surge capacity, maximum capacity
every day for these kinds of situations. You have to think
meaner and leaner, and have a plan that includes asking for
outside help.”
The city has been aggressive in applying for federal
grants, too, which have funded wildfire mitigation efforts, said
Bret Waters, emergency management director.
Dunn notes that the city, where there is strong anti-
federal government sentiment, is now turning to the U.S. for
assistance. Before visiting Colorado on June 29, President
Barack Obama declared the state a disaster area, which frees aid
for communities affected by the wildfires.
“Ironically, Colorado Springs is going to rely heavily on
federal funds for rebuilding,” Dunn said. “But it won’t cover
everything.”
To contact the reporter on this story:
Amanda J. Crawford in Colorado Springs at
acrawford24@bloomberg.net
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