April 2009

I received two reports in recent days of a phone poll being conducted on city ballot measure 1A.

Yes, that's the same ballot measure that went down to resounding defeat, 62 to 38 percent, in the April 7 election. Polling before an election is standard operating procedure, if you have money to burn (which the backers of 1A did, thanks to all the developers, builders, realtors and banks who were hoping to get the taxpayers to bankroll local corporate welfare projects -- here's a reminder of who they were: Link). But conducting polls after an election, focused on an issue that was soundly defeated, is highly irregular, and raises questions about the motives of those behind it.

One possibility is that the backers of 1A had some extra cash to blow after being blown away at the ballot box, and that they want to understand what went wrong. If I had donated to a campaign that took such a beating, even after amassing a $170,000 war chest, I might also want an explanation for how opponents, with just $4,000 to spend, carried the day. (I might also ask for a refund, given how ineptly the pro-1A campaign was run -- but that's another blog post.) But that's an unlikely explanation for the after-election polling.

A second, more ominous possibility is that somebody out there didn't get the message, won't take "no" for an answer, and is planning a second run at the taxpayers' wallets, possibly as early as November. This poll is meant to help refine the message, or alter tactics, in a way that will fly next time.

One person who tipped me off to the poll said he thought it was conducted by a firm called Central Research.

"It was a fairly lengthy poll," he said. "I would guess about 20 questions. The first question was how I voted on 1A. When I said I voted 'no,' I got a lot of questions about why. Did I vote no because I didn't like the ballot language? Was it too vague? Or did I vote no because I oppose all incentive deals? Did I vote no on all of the ballot issues, or did I mix some 'yes' votes and some 'no' votes? Did the AIG scandal make me vote no? Did the bank bailouts make me vote no? Did the news about the USOC deal with the city make me vote 'no'? Where did I see advertising that urged a no vote? Where did I see advertising that urged a “yes” vote. What do I remember those ads said?"

I'll be sniffing around in the next few days to find out who is paying for the poll, and exactly what purpose it serves. But if my hunch is correct, it may be the first sign that 1A will be back before too long, traveling under a slightly modified guise. I don't look at the possibility with dread, however. It was so much fun helping smash 1A that crushing "Son of 1A" will be icing on the cake.

Maybe I won’t throw out to those slightly-battered “Fight Corporate Welfare” signs I have stacked in the garage, just in case.

If Fort Carson someday lands on the dreaded base closure list, due to its inability to provide adequate training space for a 21st Century fighting force, we'll have The Gang that Killed Fort Carson Expansion to blame.

Gang members include not just the reactionary ranchers profiled in this Pueblo Chieftain piece, who turned sincere concerns about the proposal into a full-time anti-Army crusade, but the newspaper editorial writers (including at The Chieftain) and politicians (including the Salazar brothers and freshman Sen. Mark Udall) who, instead of serving as a voice of reason and working for a possible compromise, pandered to the anti-Pentagon paranoia.

The Piñon Canyon expansion plan is dead, dead, dead. It’s been dead, dead, dead for at least a year, and probably longer, as far as I can tell. And the chances of a revival are slim to none, given the political forces aligned against the idea at the local, state and federal level. Yet opponents of the plan -- who now seem more interested in being activists than being ranchers -- can't stop kicking this dead horse, They now are pushing a bill through the Statehouse that would bar the state of Colorado from selling or leasing any land to Fort Carson for future training purposes.

"A measure to bar the State Land Board from leasing or selling property to the federal government unanimously cleared a Senate panel on Thursday," reports Friday's Pueblo Chieftain. "The measure is designed to put one more obstacle in the U.S. Army's path to expand the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site in Southeast Colorado."

That's another shift of the goal posts for Piñon Canyon opponents, whose original objections focused on the Army's possible use of eminent domain to acquire new land. Today, the changes in rhetoric and tactics reveal a broader agenda, of preventing Fort Carson expansion, period, no matter how it’s done. Expansion opponents are quick to say they aren’t anti-Pentagon. But their consistently unreasonable rhetoric and actions call that into question. Today they seem bent on stopping expansion, even if all their previous concerns could be addressed and the land could be acquired from willing sellers. Today, with this latest bill, they simply seem interested in slamming as many doors as possible in the Pentagon's face -- sending out an anti-military message that most Coloradans should not endorse, no matter where they stand on the expansion plan. The latest bill constitutes a case of overkill, in short, that seems designed to take another gratuitous slap as the Pentagon -- which isn't the enemy, despite it's mishandling of the situation.

This isn't a private developer trying to grab the land for personal profit, after all. It's the U.S. Army, seeking additional space for military training activities. And as someone who has written about the "encroachment" issues curtailing real-world training at many military facilities, I understand that the military's need for additional land, and a reasonably unfettered training space, is real. It’s claimed by expansion opponents that the Army hasn’t made the case. But what they really mean is that the Army hasn’t made a case strong enough to suit them – people predisposed to an unshakable skepticism on the subject.

Rather than stand against the irrational, anti-Army mentality that has taken root in southeastern Colorado, and bring balance and reason to the debate, short-sighted politicos have played to the mob, by carrying bills like this one, which risk poisoning what has long been a cordial and mutually beneficial partnership between Colorado and the Pentagon.

How this is being viewed inside Washington, and whether it will come back to haunt Colorado in some future round of base closures, is impossible to say. But it’s short-sighted in the extreme to continue provoking the Pentagon, when it was clear many moons ago that Piñon Canyon expansion isn’t in the cards.

The Gazette had an excellent editorial yesterday on the subject of job creation, highlighting a case that shows how companies can be attracted to the area without paying them the sorts of taxpayer-backed "incentives" voters roundly (and wisely) rejected in the recent 1A debate. The company in question, Florida-based Jabil Circuit, decided to open up an office here not because the city could pay bribes, but because we had a highly-educated workforce that suited its needs. The numbers of new jobs created as a result will be modest, at least at first -- not the sort of thing city officials greet with much fanfare. But from tiny acorns mighty oak trees can grow, if rooted in fertile soil.

Wrote The Gazette:

"Jabil chose Colorado Springs the old fashioned way. It took a tip from a friend, examined the community, and decided it was a solid match. It wasn't lured by a wagonload of gifts. The company had needs, and an employee told them Colorado Springs could meet those needs. That's the gradual, sustainable, old fashioned, small-scale model of economic development and the model that ultimately works. Slow and steady wins the race ....
....Our community's success doesn't reside in luring a few big fish with the flashy appeal of shiny financial enticements. A stable economic future for Colorado Springs rests in ordinary folks selling our community's genuine assets to honest enterprises in need of sustainable workers with the right expertise. It depends on not a few big fish, but an abundant and reliable supply of little fish."

How the local economy can grow and prosper by following the "little fish model," and without resorting to cash incentives, will be one of many interesting topics discussed next Thursday, April 30, at a multi-panel event focused on the city's business climate. Cheyenne Mountain Civic Solutions will release its 2009 Colorado Springs Area Business Climate Survey. A panel of experts will discuss the findings and implications. Then, following lunch, another panel -- including members who were on opposite sides of the 1A debate -- will begin the discussion about how Colorado Springs can develop a winning economic strategy that doesn't include 1A-like incentives.

"Building a Vital Local Economy" is just one part of Limited Government Week 2009, sponsored by The Limited Government Forum and The Center for the Study of Government and the Individual. More details and a registration portal can be found here.

I encourage LLO readers to participate, as I will be. Finding the right economic development approach for Colorado Springs can't be left to just the "experts," the theorists or the politicians. It must be something that has buy-in from average Joes and Janes, as the 1A vote showed. No matter which side one took on 1A, everyone agrees that the city and county, the private sector and the public sector, can be doing more to create a better business climate in the Pike's Peak Region. The April 30 event will be the first step in that direction.

The New York Times on Monday offered a compelling portrait of Kashi Nelson, who teaches at a Brooklyn charter school targeted for takeover by teachers unions. Nelson first opposed and then embraced and then opposed unionization again, personifying a struggle for the heart and soul of charter schools taking place across the country.

Having largely lost the battle to stop the schools, unions have adopted a new strategy -- of destroying them from within by infiltrating and organizing their staff people. And with legislation pending before Congress that would make unionizing the work place as simple as gathering enough signatures -- the so-called card check bill -- this assault on the independence of charter schools is only likely to spread and escalate.

Freedom from union influence is one of the distinguishing characteristics of a charter school; it's one of the secrets to their success. But the unions now want to obliterate that distinction.

Writes the Times:

"Ms. Nelson’s shift from union skeptic to supporter and back again provides a glimpse of the complicated and tense dance between charter schools and unions unfolding across the country. As the number of charter schools in New York City and elsewhere swells, unions have become increasingly aggressive in trying to organize their teachers. These two major forces in education politics, having long faced off in ideological opposition, have begun in some places to enter tentative and cautious partnerships, and in others to engage in fierce combat. New York City’s teachers’ union now runs two charter schools in Brooklyn and workers have organized at many more, including more than a dozen across New York State.

Some of the most adamant supporters of charter schools say that the teachers’ union is simply trying to stymie their growth by increasing the regulations on their operation; union leaders, on the other hand, say they are just trying to ensure that teachers are given fair pay and clear guidelines for how and why they could be dismissed."

While President Barack Obama talks a lot about stimulus spending "transparency," and the federal government is reportedly "working on it," one private sector company is taking the lead on making it a reality, according to "Private Sector zips past Government in Recovery Act Tracking," a recent story on GovExec.com.

Federal agencies have all the resources in the world at their disposal, yet they consistently lag behind the private sector when it comes to performance. And so it is when it comes to keeping tabs on Washington's stimulus spending spree, according to GovExec.com:

"The charter for the Obama administration's Recovery.gov Web site is to allow every citizen to monitor the progress of economic stimulus spending. It's an ambitious goal, and one that government might not reach for some time.

But a private sector company boasts it already has created a site that meets the government's objectives.

On March 31, Seattle-based Onvia launched Recovery.org, a site capable of tracking every dollar of federal, state and local Recovery Act spending in real time, according to company officials."

Tracking stimulus funds on the federal government's website is a laborious, multi-step process, of questionable reliability. You're more likely to find White House press releases there than anything else. But Onvia's site is racing ahead of the plodding, red tape-bound feds, who have been given $84 million to get their site off the ground. "We put up Recovery.org to do for the federal government what it is not doing for itself," Onvia Chief Solutions Officer Michael Balsam said. "We felt that we had an obligation to make this information available to businesses, taxpayers and the government."

It's not bad publicity for the company either, of course. "While the information is free to the public, the company acknowledges that part of the goal is to attract new clients to for-profit acquisition-related subscriber services," reports the website. But who cares about motives? If a company is willing to use its expertise and innovative technology to provide the public with information that the federal government either can't or won't provide on a timely and affordable basis, and if Recovery.org shames the Obama administration into faster action, it's doing American taxpayers a service.

Onvia officials recently received some extra publicity when Vice President Joe Biden mistakenly plugged their site, Recovery.org, rather than Recovery.gov, during a press briefing. But that's probably a better place to send reporters anyway.

Perhaps the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board should just purchase Recovery.org and contract out the money-tracking work to Onvia, assuming the company would go along. That would be the more affordable and efficient way to go. But that would also clash with this president's desire to curtail the use of private contractors and bring more competitively-bid work "in house," as a reward to the federal employee unions who helped get him elected. This story illustrates the folly of that approach.

The college town of Boulder, where predations on property owners are commonplace, reportedly is considering the use of eminent domain to take land it says is needed for the widening of a bike path. But what really has locals enraged isn't the land grab, or the violation of civil rights this entails -- but the fact that some trees might have to be removed to make way for the project.

That's Boulder for you.

Of the 58 comments posted in response to the Boulder Camera story (as of 9:45 a.m., the last time I looked), only 4 raised concerns about the trampling of property rights, and the abuse of government power, this involves. Most of the rest expressed anger about the trees.

But trees grow back. Do property rights?

I've blogged before on the fact that much of Barack Obama's so-called economic stimulus package is actually a supplemental government spending bill, designed to grow federal agencies and pad federal budgets rather than grow private sector jobs. This recent news story confirms it.

Former Colorado Senator and now-Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar just unveiled some of his stimulus spending priorities. But how they will boost the economy at large is mystifying, unless Salazar is pushing a full employment program for seismologists, geologists and biologists. Here are some of Salazar's "recovery act" spending priorities, all of which benefit the U.S. Geological Survey, as listed by GovExec.com:

• $15.2 million to modernize equipment at volcano observatories
• $14.6 million to upgrade 7,500 stream gauges
• $14.6 million to remove cableways, groundwater wells and stream gauges no longer needed to make sites safer for the public and support local economies
• $29.4 million to address deferred maintenance at laboratories and make them more energy efficient
• $29.4 million to modernize the Advanced National Seismic System
• $17.8 million to improve wildlife and environmental research centers in Maryland, Missouri and Wisconsin
• $14.6 million to improve imagery mapping used for emergency operations, natural resource management and flood control
• $488,000 to the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory to digitize and publicize bird banding data, which has applications in disease research

Wow. Can you imagine the economic shot in the arm America will get when our volcano observatories take delivery of all that cool new equipment! Laugh if you like, but volcano observatories serve as an under-appreciated cornerstone of the American economy. And even though nothing they do can accurately predict volcano eruptions, or prevent them from happening, just knowing that these facilities are there, monitoring volcanoes and serving as a place for grad students to hang out, is reassuring.

And how about Salazar's upgrading of stream flow gauges? Don't tell me that won't come as a relief to stream flow gauge salesman everywhere. Just the other day I noticed another "Gauge Mart" had closed. Hopefully this will put a stop to that.

Wildlife research centers are also important to the U.S. economy, and a prime generator of good-paying wildlife research center jobs, which we neglect at our peril. So it's good to see Salazar is addressing the wildlife research center slump we've been in.

Finally, the half million dollars for the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory is sure to come as welcome news to the 67,000-member American Brotherhood of Bird-Banders (which endorsed Barack Obama for president and donated heavily to his campaign, just coincidently). Too many bird-banding jobs have been outsourced to other countries. It's time we brought more of those jobs back home. Our economic security depends on the maintenance of a domestic bird-banding capability. This is obviously a wise use of stimulus dollars.

Actually, it's all just an obvious administration ploy to boost agency spending, for things that ought to be funded through the normal appropriations process. It's not what most Americans had in mind when the measure was passed. It makes a mockery of the idea that the goal is economic recovery. And it confirms that Obamanomics, Keynes on steroids, recognizes no distinction between the private and public sectors.

Only bird brains would spend economic stimulus funds on bird banding.

Perhaps there were some national organizations that helped get the word out about, or capitalize on, the April 15 tea parties. Perhaps Fox News was savvy enough, in the marketing department, to realize that giving the parties coverage, and piggy-backing on what was happening, was good for ratings. Perhaps a few opportunistic politicos, like Newt Gingrich, hoped to seize the moment to advance their personal ambitions.

But I didn't get a sense, as a speaker and participant, that I was serving as the pawn of any organization or individual, as Barry Noreen suggests in today's Gazette. If I had that sense, I wouldn't have participated.

The Gazette's (somewhat snide) news reporting on the event indicated that attendees were, at least in the reporter's eyes, a bunch of loose cannons, shooting in all directions. That seems to counter Barry's thesis -- that we were collectively advancing some narrow and particular agenda, like puppets on strings.

Obama was certainly the focus of much ire (just as George Bush was the focus of so much vitriol and ire over the past eight years -- some of it deserved, in my personal opinion). And that at times gave the event the tone of a Republican rally. A few people were over the top. But Obama is the president now, and he has done some radical things. Some of the "change" he's bringing makes people uncomfortable, quite understandably in my view. Some in the media apparently think that Americans should just stuff their contrary opinions and give the new president the extended honeymoon he, in their view, deserves. I disagree.

Barry may have confused cause and effect here. This Tea Party idea all began with an unscripted outburst from a cable TV commentator in Chicago, which somehow gave voice to the alarm many Americans were feelings about the radical economic "fixes" the new administration was proposing. It spread like wildfire, thanks to YouTube and other "new media" vehicles, sparking what to me appears to be a genuinely grassroots effort.

Did certain savvy organizations jump aboard once they saw the momentum building? Sure they did. Did Fox News recognize potential audience members in the crowds that would be gathering? Of course. And because Fox could almost guarantee that the "mainstream media" would either ignore or dismiss the crowds as right-wing crackpots, instead of giving them the respect they deserve as concerned Americans, all the better for Fox News. Did cagey politicians like Newt Gingrich wonder whether they might also tap into the situation. Yes, again.

But I think these groups and individuals were just jumping on the bandwagon, rather than pulling it or steering it. You can't get people to turn out in such numbers unless there's a strong grassroots component to what's happening. And as a speaker and participant, I didn't feel that it was advancing any organization's agenda. I was there to
help get the word out about Limited Government Week and Local Liberty Online to some like-minded folks. But I certainly didn't feel like my organization or any others were orchestrating what occurred. Quite the contrary, we were all just surfers on a wave that built largely of its own accord.

Julie, the woman who invited me to speak, was a complete neophyte, as far as I could tell. She wasn't with any of the organizations Barry mentions, or with any I am familiar with. She was new to this, and moved to action out of concern for the country. But she and a few others managed (with minimal help from the MSM) to turn out several thousand people, mainly through viral marketing and word of mouth, for a very successful event. And that success was replicated all across the country.

And now Barry seeks to diminish that accomplishment, and scoff-off the meaning of what occurred, by suggesting that she, and we, were all the pawns of larger forces.

I've been a watcher or participant in journalism and politics for more than 25 years, and this is as close to a grassroots event as I've seen in that time. It was far more spontaneous, in origin and organization, than most other rallies that garner national attention -- virtually all of which are organized and scripted by parties or special interest groups. Barry has spent even more time as a political observer: perhaps he can provide a better example of a truly grassroots event of this magnitude.

I want to thank and applaud everyone who spoke or attended or helped organize the event. Don't let the cynics in the media -- including my friend Barry Noreen, to whom I owe a case of Mexican beer -- curb your enthusiasm or diminish your accomplishment.

Colorado Springs seems to have plenty of water to spare. So much water, in fact, that it in 2004 agreed to begin flushing a significant quantity of that precious commodity down the Arkansas River, mainly for the benefit of the kayak course in downtown Pueblo. This was meant to placate Springs-bashers in the Steel City and help grease the skids for approval of the Southern Delivery System pipeline project, which is progressing but still pending five years later.

Now Pueblo County is using similar strong-arm tactics in an attempt to force Pueblo West to join in the pact, by making its involvement one of many conditions to be met before the county will grant pipeline approval. But Pueblo West -- to its credit -- is saying "no." It wants to partner in the pipeline, but it wasn't part of the 2004 "flow management" agreement and it is refusing to part with its precious water -- all to ensure that the kayak course in downtown Pueblo doesn't go dry.

It's not just protesting the mandate, but it is suing Pueblo County over the issue.

Bully for Pueblo West.

Here's today's Chieftain:

"Pueblo West's board voted unanimously Tuesday to sue Pueblo County over an Arkansas River flow requirement.

The county has told the Pueblo West Metropolitan District that it must participate in a program to provide recreation water in the Pueblo kayak course if it wants water from Colorado Springs' Southern Delivery System pipeline.

Under state law, Pueblo County can order some requirements on participants in the pipeline because the pipeline is planned to be built in the county. But the flow program comes from an agreement signed in 2004 by Pueblo, Pueblo Board of Water Works, Colorado Springs, Aurora, Fountain and the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District - but not Pueblo West.

The pipeline will give Pueblo West more of its water from Lake Pueblo and provide a second route for the water if Pueblo West's primary pipeline from the reservoir fails.

At the board meeting Tuesday night, Pueblo West board members and staff members repeated their belief that the flow program could cost Pueblo West as much as a third of its yearly water. Tom Mullans, the metro district's attorney, said he's spent too long helping to create Pueblo West's portfolio of water rights to watch part of it literally wash down the river.

"The amount of water we're talking about (losing in the flow program), is going to be hard to come by in the future, at any price," said Mullans. "Most of those shares are owned by Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Pueblo West."

Pueblo West's principled stand may be making a few people nervous inside Colorado Springs Utilities and Colorado Springs City Hall, who never saw a demand from the city or county of Pueblo that they wouldn't meet. Not only could this cause an 11th hour snag in the permitting process, but it might raise questions about whether this city has been a little too eager to acquiesce to the long and expensive series of "concessions" it has made in trying to build a simple water pipe to Pueblo Reservoir.

Too bad if Pueblo West's refusal to be coerced causes some glitch in the plan. It's just nice to see someone saying "no" to the shakedowns.

The Gazette's minute-by-minute blog coverage of the Taxpayer Tea Party in Acacia Park at one point estimated a crowd of about 200. What a crock. 200 multiplied by 10 or 15 is more like it. I had 300 fliers promoting Limited Government Week in my hand when I arrived on the scene, and they were gone, snapped up like hotcakes, before I waded very far into the throng. That's what you get for being a pessimist.

Congratulations to all those who made this event such a success. They did it with scant "mainstream media" coverage or attention. The unmistakably snide coverage -- Gazette - simply confirms that the denizens of most news rooms are far from "mainstream" themselves. The reporter mischaracterized the crowd as angry. While there may have been a little of that -- some of it justified, in my view -- most of the people I saw or encountered were smiling, having fun and simply exalting in their freedom to air their beefs about the way the country is heading. That's as "mainstream" American as baseball and apple pie. They seemed no more "angry" than the people who attended Barack Obama campaign rallies, belittling and denouncing the former administration and screaming for "change."

I was honored to participate as a speaker. What I had to say can be boiled down to a few bullet points, though they may have been garbled in transmission, given my meandering ways as a speech-giver.

The problem isn't just in Washington or Denver or in City Hall, I pointed out. It's with We the People -- and especially people who have double standard about government spending -- those who think "pork" can only be found in other congressional districts -- and can't recognize that everything Washington "gives" them, it takes from them with the other hand. "The bucks start here," I said, "and the buck needs to stop here, too, if we want to collar runaway government."

I said that change won't come in Washington until we in the hinterland begin to rediscover the old American virtues of self reliance, self-determination, and self-discipline. The second American revolution will only happen when we rediscover the virtues of limited government. The more we ask of government, the more it takes from us.

The second American Revolution doesn’t require violence or upheaval. It begins quietly, when each of us begins asking less of the government and looking more to ourselves for the answers and solutions. The first tea party, in Boston, was about the injustice of taxation without representation. Today the problem is different. Today we have over-taxation with over-representation -- meaning that Washington now wants to do for us what we should do for ourselves. We’re asking more than we ought to of Washington, which gives it license to tax us and regulate us at will.

Some people laugh off the idea of limited government as an anachronism. But limited government has a flip side, I said. Limited government is liberating to people. Unlimited government enslaves people. It's something the founders understood. And it's as true today as it was back then.

I had selected three quotes, from a varied (and bipartisan) list of luminaries, to underscore the point, but I wandered off the script and they never made it in. Here they are, taken from the archive of quotes we keep here at LLO.

John F. Kennedy: "Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people."

Ronald Reagan: ""Man is not free unless government is limited ... As government expands, liberty contracts."

And, finally, I had planned to use this beautiful quote from Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon here was writing about Athens, not Rome. But the lessons have universal relevance: "In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free."

Those are the points I tried to make today, even if something was lost in translation once my mouth began motoring. I hope the Taxpayer Tea Party becomes an April 15 tradition.

I didn't take a position on narrowly-defeated ballot measure 1C, which would have tweaked the TOPS funding formula to allow the city to devote a higher percentage of those sales tax revenues to park maintenance, as opposed to auto-pilot land acquisition. I had enough on my plate helping to defeat 1A. My past opposition to the TOPS tax extension, while running the opinion pages at The Gazette, would have made anything I wrote or said on the subject suspect. And I thought there were compelling arguments pro and con.

But the defeat of 1C has created this rather incongruous -- this rather ridiculous -- situation in which the city is voting to approve a new open space purchase, at a cost of more than $1 million, while also threatening to shut off a popular fountain in America the Beautiful Park for the summer unless citizens cover the operating costs with personal contributions. What bothers me more than the inverted priorities, though, is the cynical, almost vindictive attitude that underlies the city's actions when it comes to the fountains.

I indicated in earlier posts that I believe the Uncle Wilber and Julie Penrose fountains were being used as pawns in a game of budget and ballot politics. The city is strapped for cash. It badly wanted to get 1C passed in order to alter the TOPS funding formula and relieve some of the pressure. Threatening to shut off these fountains, both popular attractions in two of the city's best-known parks, was a way of getting the public's attention and making a point, just in time to influence the 1C vote. It isn't the first time parks have been used in this way.

The ploy didn't quite work with voters, who narrowly defeated 1C, but it did generate an interesting response from the public. One area philanthropist stepped forward to help get Uncle Wilber flowing again, and a similar fundraising effort was launched when the city announced that the Penrose Fountain would also stay dry unless the people pitched in another $25,000. Now the Penrose Fountain fundraising effort faces a deadline: Unless the funds are raised by Memorial Day, the Gazette reports, so sorry, Charlie -- it will be a long, dry summer at America the Beautiful Park.

Am I alone in reading a certain vindictiveness into these actions? It's almost as if the city is saying: "Okay, you stupid and mean-spirited voters, because you didn't approve 1C we're going to punish you by turning the fountain off this summer."

I've never gone over the city's parks budget with a fine-tooth comb, admittedly. But I simply don't believe it can't scrounge up the money it takes to run these fountains this summer. I think it isn't willing to find the money because insiders are angry about having to operate under budget constraints (like many of the rest of us do right now) and want to teach the people of Colorado Springs a lesson by cutting off the water. They want us to feel their pain, by inflicting a little pain on us, where they know it will be noticed.

The public, instead of reacting with anger to the situation, and instead of demanding that city officials find the money, even if it means cutting back somewhere else, diligently goes about the task of taking up a collection, in an effort to help the city out. Those who pitch in aren't really thinking of the city, though; they're thinking of the kids that won't have a cool place to play on hot summer days. And that's a tribute to the compassion and civic-mindedness of local residents.

Are city insiders worried about leaving kids high and dry this summer? Not as much as they're worried about preserving their budgets and protecting their employees and sending a message about how unhappy they are about having to operate on a tight budget and make hard choices. And that's the bottom line. When push comes to shove, government people are almost always more concerned about themselves than about the people they're supposed to serve.

Only a few weeks ago, Forbes.com, a fairly authoritative voice on business and the economy, ranked Colorado Springs as the 10th best city in America in which to do business and have a career. But instead of the usual fanfare, the news was met with a sullen silence.

Why? Because many of the movers and shakers in town -- some of whom always seem to moving the city in the direction of higher taxes and bigger government -- were still imagining a big win for their baby, ballot issue 1A. Highlighting the good news wouldn't have fit in with their gloomy story line: that the city will slide into economic oblivion unless the taxpayers hand over more than $51 million in "incentives" money for city council to dole out for ill-defined job creation activities. Highlighting the good news might make it seem as though the city of Colorado Springs just might survive, and could even create jobs on its own, without the guiding hand of City Council.

The voters didn't buy it, as we know, and overwhelmingly rejected the idea of cash incentives, 62 to 38. Yet backers of incentives just can't seem to let go. Here's something pulled from a story in today's Gazette:

"Mike Kazmierski, president and CEO of the Colorado Springs Regional Economic Development Corp., said absent government or community intervention, the private sector will seek the lowest cost to do business, and that often means moving out of the core business district. He said that suggests the government or the community must consider offering incentives to keep or attract businesses in the downtown area."

Perhaps this interview took place before 1A got thumped at the polls. Let's hope so. Otherwise, one might conclude that 1A backers didn't get the message. But an emphasis on the city's negatives, and the near-obsessive focus on increasing local taxes and offering taxpayer-funded incentives, seems to pervade much of what EDC does these days.

It's not surprising, then, that a new report commissioned by the group (at a reported cost of $150,000) mirrors many of these themes. The Colorado Springs Business Journal reported Friday that the study offers a predictably gloomy prognosis for the local economy. And not surprisingly, considering who commissioned it, the city's inability to offer cash incentives and its low-tax climate -- kept in check by TABOR -- are singled out as major impediments to economic development. Here's a relevant excerpt from the CSBJ:

Many of the threats arise from the strictures imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which has a “significant impact on the city, county, and State of Colorado’s ability to support local programs.”

With “limited incentives for new and existing businesses,” the region is at the mercy of its competitors.

“Civic and economic development leaders are using tax incentives and other inducements to an ever greater extent,” the report states. And while the region’s underlying characteristics might appeal to company decision makers, “the competitiveness of an incentive package will often be the decisive factor.”

The shock of 1A's resounding defeat may have not yet worn off for some supporters. They may need more time adjusting to the new reality -- that city taxpayers have no interest in playing the "incentives game." But it's time to give up on pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams and refocus our efforts on other, better, more achievable and politically-palatable approaches to improving the area's business climate. And it's time for a little more optimism about our economic prospects, since it's defeatist and ridiculous to assert that all hope is lost unless we reach into the taxpayers' pockets to pay business bribes.

That process begins April 30, when the Limited Government Forum, in partnership with the Center for the Study of Government and the Individual and Cheyenne Mountain Civic Solutions, hosts a day of business climate discussions as part of Limited Government Week 2009. A morning panel will discuss the findings and implications of the 2009 Colorado Springs Area Business Climate Survey, a study designed to identify some of the challenges and barriers facing local companies. An afternoon panel will analyze the meaning of the 1A vote and discuss the best ways forward from here, without incentives.

I encourage anyone interested in these issues to attend.

Here's a link where you can register for this and other Limited Government Week events.

The Denver Post is reporting that State Senate Leader Peter Gross, a school reform-minded Democrat, will be taking a job in U.S. Department of Education, "in a position that involves faith-based and community initiatives." And that's not good news.

The Obama Administration's gain will be Colorado's loss, since Groff, whatever else his politics are, is one Democrat who is willing to buck the teachers' unions and support school choice and education reform. His departure for Washington will strengthen the hand of those in the legislature who want to curtail choice, water down standards, shirk accountability and reverse the modest progress Colorado has made on school reform in recent years. It's unlikely that whoever replaces Groff will follow in those footsteps.

It's a great opportunity for Groff, of which he is certainly deserving. And it's nice to see another reformer going to work for the administration. But without him in the legislature, Democrats can wage open war on school reform in Colorado. So next year, watch out -- the teachers unions and other anti-reform reactionaries will have a field day.

The editorial in today's Gazette says a lot of what needs to be said -- of what I would say -- in the wake of 1A's decisive defeat. It's not the end of the discussion over economic development, or a death blow to the local economy, as some disappointed 1A supporters might argue. On the contrary, 1A's defeat is an opportunity to engage in a citywide discussion about how Colorado Springs can become the national model of a city that achieved economic greatness without succumbing to the sorts of corporate welfare shakedowns that would have become routine had 1A passed.

Having rejected this costly and risky shortcut, this city now has an opportunity to get back to the basics -- back to the reforms and innovations and business climate adjustments that will earn us national recognition as "the city that did it without cash incentives."

That's an exciting and challenging vision we can all rally around, no matter what side we took in the 1A fight. That's the vision we'll be pursuing at Local Liberty Action. It's part of what the Limited Government Forum calls "the Colorado Springs Model" -- part of its plan to make Colorado Springs the most liberty- and opportunity- and prosperity-oriented city in America. And The Gazette's editorial does an excellent job of articulating these concepts in the following paragraphs:

"While Colorado Springs voters were wise to defeat 1A, it's a sound bet most who voted against the tax favor employment growth, "jobs now," and other forms of economic development. Today, two days after 1A's death, business leaders, politicians and local citizens should start looking at holistic and sustainable plans for enhancing economic development. Today, Colorado Springs should work toward becoming the city known nationally for refusing to play the corporate incentives game, opting instead to get the heck out of the way of genuine success achieved on a fair and competitive playing field . . . .

. . . . . As Colorado Springs becomes the community known for refusing to play the incentives game, which has ratcheted out of control across the country, we should emerge as the country's pre-eminent free zone for prosperity, limited government and minimal taxation.

We should be the city that will never favor one business at the expense of others, and the city that will never play favorites by creating trouble for any business with a plan to succeed.

With the defeat of 1A, we should become the national model of a community that knows how to entice economic development without crude and unfair incentives.

Everything we do, going forward, should involve a concerted effort to get out of the way of reasonable business and development endeavors. That would put Colorado Springs in a league of its own, attracting the kind of sustainable businesses we want."

That, in a nutshell, is the vision that Local Liberty Action will be pursuing moving forward. And we invite all interested parties -- individuals, organizations, businesses, civic groups -- to join us in that exciting effort.

The editorial also notes that this will be a topic of discussion at two upcoming Limited Government Week events. On Wednesday, April 29, the program will be devoted to talking about civic innovation, and include a lunch at which a local "civic innovator of the year" will be honored. Thursday's panel discussions and lunch will focus on the release of a groundbreaking new business climate study, which is meant to identify some of the factors that could be holding the city back. A panel of local experts will also review the results of the 1A vote and discuss the best way forward, without cash incentives. Both days will provide a lot of food for thought on these issues.

You can get more information and register here. But register soon. Seats are going fast.

Last night's resounding defeat of 1A is a clear indicator that the city’s political and business elite are out of touch with average people on the issue of paying business incentives. Maybe now they’ll give up trying to reach into the taxpayers’ pockets and join Local Liberty Action in exploring other, better ways we can improve the business climate in Colorado Springs, without resorting to shortcuts. The voters wisely rejected this approach, but we can still have a great local economy if we consistently make improving the business climate a top city and county priority. Hopefully, supporters of 1A will put as much energy into that as they put into this. We hope to partner with them in these efforts.

I want to thank the many people who contributed to this victory for common sense; the volunteers who put up signs and handed out fliers; the people who wrote letters to the editor and opinion pieces; the people who shared their concerns about 1A with friends, co-workers and family members; those who offered words of encouragement and support. Daniel Cole of Citizens for Cost-Effective Government deserves special thanks, as do Jim Marvin, Joe Woodford and Jim Pfaff of Americans for Prosperity.

Finally, the discerning voters of Colorado Springs deserve credit, for not voting reflexively, or being seduced by catchy slogans and big promises, but for studying a complicated ballot and voting selectively. That local voters refuse to issue government a blank check is a source of incredible frustration for many movers and shakers in town. But I continue to see it as a virtue rather than a vice.

My biggest worry about 1A -- aside from how City Council might waste or mismanage the money -- was that economic uncertainty,a lot of campaign spending (nearly $170,000 at last count), and all the billboards and glossy brochures would lure voters to break with tradition and pick slogan over substance. But as I heard Dan Cole say during one media interview, the outcome proved that money alone can't get a bad idea passed in Colorado Springs.

Stories and commentary in today's Gazette seem to paint the outcome as completely predictable; as if 1A would have gone down without an organized opposition that raised questions, pointed out flaws, countered misinformation and offered alternative scenarios and analysis. But I don't think the outcome, on 1A or any of the other ballot decisions, was at all predictable. And we just weren't willing to leave that to chance.

Let's also remember what wasn't on this ballot, thanks to the organized efforts of some of the same team that defeated 1A: a total repeal of our city TABOR. Recall that the Holy Grail a majority on the Sustainable Funding Committee was really seeking, even more than 1A, was an end to the city TABOR. And unless an opposition had rallied to TABOR's defense, and constructively offered-up a narrowly-worded alternative that addressed the federal funds issue (1D), a repeal would also have been on this ballot.

Let's recall, just for the record, that issue 1D -- which passed last night -- didn't originate with the Sustainable Funding Committee, or with City Council, both of which were arguing that our city TABOR was redundant to the state TABOR and should be done away with. 1D originated with us, the constructive opposition. We did this city a favor by offering it up. It helped to avert a costly and highly divisive fight over TABOR repeal, which the city almost certainly would have lost, while putting forth an alternative that dealt with the federal funds problem in a timely and targeted manner.

Therefore, I also count the passage of 1D as a victory for the constructive opposition.

The battle over ballot issue 1A has been the focus of many recent posts - perhaps too many in the eyes of some readers -- but, hard as it is to believe, there are other things going on out there. We're approaching a potentially pivotal moment in the saga of the Southern Delivery System pipeline project, for instance, since Colorado Springs City Council must approve or reject a number of costly conditions attached to Pueblo County's approval of a necessary permit.

What does Pueblo want from Colorado Springs now? Here's today's Chieftain:

"The permit requires Colorado Springs to fund $50 million of projects for Fountain Creek through a newly created district, and to make $75 million in improvements to its sewer system by 2024. A total of $300,000 is set aside for a study of dams on Fountain Creek, and Colorado Springs is committed to several other projects regarding the Fountain under the proposed conditions.

It also sets up a 3,000-acre-foot pool of water in Lake Pueblo to augment the Arkansas River below Pueblo Dam in extremely dry times. The Pueblo Board of Water Works and Colorado Springs jointly will provide water for that pool.

There are numerous other conditions dealing with construction, roads and easement acquisition in the Pueblo County 1041 permit.

Formal acceptance of the terms and conditions by the Colorado Springs City Council is required for final approval of the 1041 permit by Pueblo County."

City Council will hold a meeting on the issue Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m. at City Hall. It will vote on the issue on April 14.

I can't imagine that City Council will balk at any of these expenditures or conditions, given everything else this city has done, and spent, in an effort to placate critics in Pueblo and pave the way for pipeline approval. Real progress has been made of late, after years of obstruction and delay. And too much is riding on the outcome -- a $1 billion pipeline which should help satisfy this city's water needs for decades to come -- to think that council will start quibbling now about paying-off Pueblo.

This would only be the tip of the iceberg, anyway, if you look at the big picture.

We started paying "concessions" to the city of Pueblo back in 2004, when we agreed to start flushing more of our precious water down the Arkansas in order to ensure that a kayak course in downtown Pueblo would survive the low-water months. What that has cost us in lost water is unknown: the folks at Colorado Springs Utilities don't like talking about it. But one local activist has put the cost at tens of millions of dollars. Whether giving up our water earned us the goodwill and cooperation it was supposed to is debatable, since the obstructionism and shakedowns continued until very recently.

Readers may recall that a major justification for City Council's unilateral creation of a city stormwater enterprise was that doing this would win friends and influence people downstream, who were threatening to hold the pipeline hostage. Council was in such a hurry to please downstreamers, in fact, that it bypassed a vote and imposing a still-controversial stormwater tax by calling it a "fee." I'm not arguing that we didn't need a stormwater program. Actually, I thought the case in support of it was compelling, and that it would have been approved if explained to the people. But City Council didn't have the patience to make the case. It didn't trust the voters to make the right decision. And it was feeling the pressure to "do something" about Fountain Creek, in order to help lower resistance downstream and grease the skids for SDS. It therefore took a shortcut.

So the creation of the stormwater enterprise can also be chalked-up as a concession of sorts.

Of similar motives was born the recently-approved Fountain Creek Watershed, Flood Control and Greenway District, a new nine-member board that will have some regulatory and taxing power in the flood plain from Fountain to Pueblo. Colorado Springs and El Paso County went along with its creation because we hoped this would make us seem like better neighbors to folks downstream. We thought it would help clear away hurdles to pipeline approval. And perhaps, in that narrow sense, it has worked, since we have seen some barriers to SDS falling, coinciding with the approval of this district.

This is how the Chieftain describes the district's function:

"Under the proposal, four district boundaries would be created with varying degrees of authority. While the full boundary of the district would include all of Pueblo and El Paso counties, any fees imposed by it would apply only to a smaller area encompassing the watershed.

The panel also would have some land-use authority, but only on a small tract right along the river.

Under the bill, the district would have the ability to impose fees, and place before voters in both counties a new tax to help pay for improvements.

The House committee approved an amendment limiting any property tax request to no more than 5 mills, which could raise about $30 million a year, Pace said.

The district also is in line to get about $50 million from a proposed Southern Delivery System mitigation fund, which Pace said likely would be used to get a matching federal grant, which could bring in another $150 million.”

What additional fees or taxes this district could eventually impose, and what sorts of regulatory powers it will someday assume, is uncertain. But you can bet it will quickly grow into a force to be reckoned with. Chalk that up, too, as a concession to Pueblo.

Let’s hope the concessions City Council will agree to on April 14 are the last we’ll have to make. But I wouldn't count on it. We’ve made them almost as if they were reparations for some wrongdoing on our part, though all we are doing with SDS is claiming more of the water we rightly own and pumping it north in a pipe. And people downstream now understand that all they have to do is raise a voice of protest in order to squeeze something out of us.

Exactly how much they've already squeezed out of us is an open question. The concessions I've mentioned are just the most obvious. There are others, no doubt, lurking in the small print of the many agreements that hold this thing together.

Perhaps these and other “concessions” to downstreamers were the right and necessary things to so. Perhaps we would never have been able to move ahead with SDS without making them. But one can’t help but wonder whether, in its eagerness to placate people living downstream, this city and its utility company allowed the people of Colorado Springs to be taken advantage of.

Perhaps it’s time that CSU did an honest tally of these “concession costs” and factor them into the estimated price tag of SDS, just in the interest of truth in advertising. It would be also interesting to have City Council, sitting as the water board, order CSU to produce a list of any other concessions hidden in the fine print of these agreements, along with the costs associated with them.

Then, and only then, will taxpayers and ratepayers know the true cost of the SDS system.

Those caught up in the heat of every campaign like to tell voters the outcome will be pivotal. Therefore, one risks sounding cliche, and a little like the boy who cried wolf, by saying this in regard to the city election now entering its final days. But I think the decision involving ballot issue 1A really could be pivotal, in at least two ways. That's why I've been working so hard to defeat it.

The most obvious problems with 1A, as a policy prescription, have already been highlighted here and elsewhere. No point in repeating them at length (click on the "panhandler in pinstripes" on the home page for more info). It's just not a smart way to do economic development. It will crack open a can of worms the city will have a hard time keeping a lid on. But it's a less obvious danger from 1A I'll focus on today. And that's the fact that it's a blank check.

It's a point of frustration with many local political and business leaders, but a point of pride for me personally, that voters in Colorado Springs and El Paso County have been notoriously reluctant to issue blank checks. When you step forward with a tax increase proposal around here, you had better have specifics to offer about how the money will be spent. Just crying poor won't cut it. And scare tactics can backfire, as those supporting a county sales tax hike found out last fall.

But if you do your homework, and if you make a convincing and detailed case, you'll be rewarded with a "yes" vote. We've seen that happen with RTA. We've seen it happen with TOPS. We've seen it happen with a cops and firefighter tax. It's unfair to say locals are robotically or reflexively anti-tax. They just have higher standards, and a healthier dose of skepticism, than a lot of voters do. They won't be played for suckers. They won't be stampeded by scare tactics. They won't be shamed into giving more of their hard-earned money to government than is necessary. And I think that's a strength rather than a weakness, a virtue, rather than a vice.

But that could change if 1A is approved. 1A is the ultimate blank check. There's no plan, and no specifics for how the money would be used. It's a half-baked idea, cooked-up by a few people on the city's Sustainable Funding Committee and hurriedly slapped on the ballot by City Council. Backers of the proposal are betting -- and betting big, given the significant money they're pouring into it -- that they can win without specifics, without a plan. They believe that glossy mailers, deceptive ballot language, big billboards and vague promises will be enough to get the taxpayers to issue the city a $51 million blank check, breaking with long precedent. They believe a down economy, and the anxiety it brings, might lead voters to suspend their normal skepticism, drop their guard and buy into the panacea they're pushing.

On Tuesday we'll find out if local voters will hold with tradition, and reject tax increases that aren't accompanied by detailed plans and specifics, or whether they'll break with tradition and issue blank checks. If it passes, 1A will have demonstrated that you can overcome the natural caution and common sense of local voters with an empty slogan -- "jobs now" -- and a slick media blitz. And that will indeed be a pivotal -- but not promising -- moment in local politics.

Gazette Columnist Barry Noreen today adds to the list of unanswered questions facing City Council about the unfolding USOC debacle. And his persistence in asking them has at least one member losing his cool.

Monday's closed-door meeting resolved nothing, apparently. There was no official explanation of the situation. No one on council or in city leadership stepped forward to present a plan of action. The mayor had to be chased into the parking lot by a local news station seeking comment. It wasn't a scene that inspired confidence.

And those on council who did speak had surprisingly little light or clarity or reassurance to offer. They indicated that the deal was still on and that the city was moving ahead. This despite a criminal investigation of the developer; despite a lawsuit against the city and USOC; despite talk that terms of the deal will have to be renegotiated; despite questions about whether adequate due diligence was done before the deal was struck; despite questions about whether USOC can still bail out; despite questions about whether the mayor had improper business dealings with developer Ray Marshall.

This is all red meat for local journalists, of course. But Noreen seems to have ruffled a few feathers with his persistent questioning. Vice Mayor Larry Small got so flustered during an interview that he called Noreen “infuriating.” Noreen points out that the same might be said of City Council.

Of particular interest to me, though, was Barry’s probing about whether the city is looking to the passage of ballot 1A as a possible bailout vehicle for the USOC deal – an issue I’ve raised in this blog and elsewhere.

Here’s the relevant passage:

“In the city election in measure 1A, the council is asking taxpayers for about $50 million to pay for economic development activities that could include future incentive packages. Is it wrong to question, based upon the current track record, how much city hall can be trusted to navigate the pitfalls of future incentive deals?

"People are trying to draw that connection. I wouldn't do that," said Councilman Scott Hente.

"I don't see a connection between the two," Small said.

If 1A passes, could money from it be used to back-fill the USOC deal?

Council members said no. OK, but if the deal may cost taxpayers more, where would the extra money come from?

After a series of questions, Small finally said, "You infuriate everybody."

Guilty as charged.

Isn't it true the council also infuriates people?”

Barry seems to have a few members of council on the record as saying 1A funds won’t be used for a bailout. Thank you, Barry, for pressing the issue. But he didn't interview all of them, as far as I can tell, raising questions about whether this is the consensus position.

And because there are no clearly established criteria for how those funds would be used, and nothing is backing the jobs “plan” but vague promises -- and because there isn’t any other readily-available pool of money from which a bailout effort could draw -- I’m not quite satisfied that this door is nailed shut.

It’s disturbing that some members of council see no connection between the incentives debacle unfolding with USOC and the anxiety voters might be having about approving a ballot measure – 1A – that will have City Hall cutting similar incentives deals for the next 16 years, using more than $50 million in taxpayer money. But if they did see the connection they wouldn’t admit it right now, when we’re in the homestretch of a 1A debate they want to win at all costs.

Here’s a prediction. I’ll publicly recant if events prove me wrong. If 1A is approved by voters and the USOC “deal” is renegotiated on terms that will cost taxpayers more, I say the chances are good that City Hall will reach for the 1A money as part of the bailout. It would be impossible to resist in the midst of a crisis.

Barry’s column gives voters some new questions to ponder as they rush to get their ballots in the mail. Do they want even more of their tax dollars going to bail out the USOC deal? Will they be rewarding failure by voting for 1A? Can this city be trusted to “invest” their tax dollars wisely, given its less-than-inspiring recent record in playing “the incentives game”?

There’s nothing more infuriating to some people than being asked questions they don’t have good answers for. But that’s all the more reason to keep asking them.

If you listen to the pessimists backing ballot issue 1A, you might think that this city is in danger of becoming an economic backwater unless the taxpayers reach into their pockets and start bribing businesses with cash "incentives" to come here or stay here. It's just the way things are done these days, we're told; unless you pay up, companies will look elsewhere. Unless City Hall creates jobs -- and jobs now! -- they just won't exist.

But if paying incentives is the secret to a city's business success and appeal, how is it possible that Colorado Springs -- a city traditionally reluctant to jump into the "incentives game" -- was just ranked in the top 10 American cities for businesses and careers by Forbes.com!

That's right. Colorado Springs -- the city that can't compete because it's reluctant to pay incentives -- ranks 10th on the list of the best cities for business, right up there with Raleigh, Des Moines, Austin and Boise. Here's a link -- Forbes ranking -- if you need to see it to believe it. And here's why we rank so well -- link.

And please take note: A willingness to pay business bribes isn't included among the factors that earned us the high marks.

The lessons seem obvious.

First: You can be a great place to do business and pursue a career without resorting to desperate measures such as 1A.

Second: Colorado Springs already has a national reputation as a pretty good place to do business, despite its reluctance to play the incentives game.

Third: Incentives matter far less than other factors do in determining a city's overall business climate.

Fourth: Colorado Springs can continue to rank high as a business-friendly city without resorting to incentives, if it focuses on getting other factors right.

The long-term outlook for the local business climate isn't as dire as backers of 1A say, obviously; how bad off can we be if we make the Forbes top 10? They seem to be downplaying our strengths, and exaggerating our weaknesses, in order to advance a pro-incentives, pro-tax, pro-government growth agenda.

You don't hear the backers of 1A out trumpeting this high ranking. Maybe that's because it might sow doubts about whether paying cash incentives is really critical to this city's economic vitality. It isn't, obviously, since we somehow earned national recognition by Forbes without them. And it's altogether possible -- indeed, probable -- that we can continue to earn national accolades without them, if we do the more critical things well.

Instead of surrendering to the incentives game, let's take the opposite tack, and make it a point of pride that Colorado Springs is one of the best American cities in which to do business that doesn't surrender to corporate welfare shakedowns. We can earn a national reputation as the American city that created a great business climate without paying business bribes.

I imagine there will be a lot of other American cities -- and a lot of grateful taxpayers within those cities -- that will want to follow our lead.