Save the OCC DDA
What you can do before Tuesday
What you can do now
What you can do
City Council takes the final vote on dissolving the Old Colorado City DDA on Tuesday, September 8. Three of the four below take less than ten minutes.
Council voted to dissolve. The ordinance now goes to Mayor Mobolade, and a veto would send it back to a Council that needs six votes to override.
The September 8 vote is behind us. The Westside still has business at City Hall.
Four things, in order of how much they matter
Where to put your time
- Show up Tuesday, and plan to stay. A full gallery is the thing councilmembers actually feel. The schedule this week makes that harder than usual, so read Tuesday's schedule before you decide when to come. If you would rather not speak, stand in the room anyway. Wear something that says Westside.
- Email all nine councilmembers. One address reaches the whole body: AllCouncil@coloradosprings.gov. We have started a draft below. Send it as it is, or put it in your own words — those carry the most weight.
- Ask Mayor Mobolade to veto. yemi.mobolade@coloradosprings.gov or (719) 385-5900. Overriding a veto takes six votes on Council. The dissolution has five.
- Hand this to a neighbor. The people who own Old Colorado City's shops and buildings are close to unanimous on this. Council needs to hear it from residents too. This page is built to print.
The draft email
The button opens an email to all nine councilmembers, copied to the Mayor, with the draft already in it. Edit it or send it as is.
If that button does nothing, your device has no mail app connected. Copy the pieces from the right into whatever you use.
To: AllCouncil@coloradosprings.gov
Cc: yemi.mobolade@coloradosprings.gov
Subject: Respect the OCC vote: NO on dissolving the DDA
I care about the Westside. OCC voters created the DDA at the ballot box in 2024, and I want it to have the chance to succeed. Please vote NO on dissolving it. Westside voters will remember who stood with us.
Adding one sentence about your own block, your own shop, or how long you have been here is what separates it from the form letters.
Tuesday's schedule, and how to work around it
Speaking at Council
Labor Day put Council's work session and its Regular Meeting on the same day. The work session starts at 9 a.m. The Regular Meeting opens whenever the work session ends, and the ordinance dissolving the DDA comes up sometime after that. Nobody, including Council, can tell you what time that will be.
Take the first reading as the warning. On Aug. 25 the DDA did not come up until the afternoon, and the Gazette reported that several Old Colorado City owners closed their businesses for the entire day in order to be in the room. Tuesday will be longer, not shorter.
If you want to speak
You can. Council's own rules say the public “shall be permitted to address the City Council… on other agenda items,” and nothing in them treats a second reading differently from a first. Comment is taken at the Regular Meeting only, never at a work session, and you sign up in person in Council Chambers — there is no online form and no advance list.
Sign up for the DDA ordinance by name. This is the part that trips people up: the open stretch of the meeting called Citizen Discussion is reserved for items that are not on the agenda. The DDA is on the agenda, so that is the wrong door, and asking for it can cost you your turn. Put the ordinance down as your topic.
Be in the room when the Regular Meeting opens. In practice that means arriving at 9 and sitting through the work session, which is the only way to be certain you don't miss the window. Bring something to do, and bring a friend so one of you can hold the room while the other steps out.
If you just want to fill the room
You can watch the work session and come down when it wraps. Both meetings are carried live on the City's website, on the Colorado Springs City Council page on Facebook, and on SPRINGS TV — Comcast channel 18 (880 HD) or Stratus IQ 76 / 99.
City Hall is at 107 N. Nevada Ave. and the Chambers are on the third floor. A body in a seat counts even if it never says a word.
If you can't be there at all
Email your remarks to AllCouncil@coloradosprings.gov ahead of the meeting. They go into the record without you being in the room, and they are read by the same nine people.
If you have never done this before
You sign up when you get there and you get about three minutes. Say who you are, where on the Westside you live or work, and what you want them to do. You do not need to know the statute. The councilmembers already have the briefing; what they do not have is you.
Then stay on the list
The next thing decided about the Westside gets decided the same way, in the same room, by the same nine people.
Sources
- City of Colorado Springs, City Council meetings, agendas, and public comment — coloradosprings.gov/city-council-meetings
- City of Colorado Springs, Office of the Mayor — coloradosprings.gov/mayor
- Rules and Procedures of the Colorado Springs City Council, Rule 2-7 (Public Participation) and Rule 2-2 (order of business) — published on the City's Legistar site
- FOX21 News, Carolynn Felling, “City Council to vote on Development Authority in OCC,” Aug. 31, 2026, updated Sept. 1 — fox21news.com
- Pikes Peak Bulletin, “Council votes to dissolve OCC DDA,” Aug. 27, 2026 — pikespeakbulletin.org/news/council-votes-to-dissolve-occ-dda/
Council and Mayor contact details verified against the City's own pages on September 4, 2026. The right to speak on an agenda item, the three-minute limit, and the rule that Citizen Discussion covers only items not on the agenda are quoted from Council's published Rules and Procedures.