Old Colorado City
The Westside voted. City Council wants to overrule you.
Council voted to overrule the Westside. The Mayor can stop it.
The OCC DDA is still standing.
Council dissolved the OCC DDA.
Council voted to dissolve the DDA. The City skipped the Mayor.
In 2024, Old Colorado City voters created a Downtown Development Authority. On August 25, 2026, City Council voted 5–4 on first reading to dissolve it — before it had been allowed to spend a single dollar.
On Sept. 22 Council voted 5–4 to dissolve the DDA. The Charter sends every ordinance to the Mayor to sign or veto. The City did not send this one. It published it as law on Oct. 1 and has given three different reasons why the Mayor had no say. The DDA board says an ordinance adopted outside the Charter has not been adopted, and is weighing whether to ask a court. The record, and the City's reasons, side by side →
On Sept. 22 Council passed Ordinance 26-48 on second reading, 5–4. Mayor Yemi Mobolade can veto it, and under the Charter he has five days from receiving it to decide. Overriding a veto takes six votes on Council; the dissolution has five. The City Attorney's office says the ordinance will not be presented to him at all. We checked that against the City's own signed ordinances. yemi.mobolade@coloradosprings.gov · (719) 385-5900
On Sept. 18, four days before the final vote, the director of the city's Urban Renewal Authority sent Council a letter saying the 2024 election can't be trusted. We put every claim in it next to the certified results, the pollbook, and the statute.
What a DDA actually is
A Downtown Development Authority is local control over local issues in its most literal form. The board is made up of people who own businesses and property inside the district — not City Hall. It decides what the district needs and pays for it with money generated in the district: sidewalks, lighting, storefront improvements, events, safety.
Historic downtowns across Colorado run on exactly this tool. Longmont, Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction and Fort Collins all have one.
It was never given a chance
Council took nearly a year to seat the board it was required to approve. The DDA's Plan of Development is still working through City review — departments have sent comments, the board is revising — and until the City signs off, the DDA cannot collect tax increment financing or spend a dollar. It has never received or spent one. Council delayed it, then called it useless.
Williams, to the Gazette: “If it's been two years and the traction and inertia has not been caught, it begs the question of what is it doing?”
Your vote should count
Old Colorado City voters approved this at the ballot box in 2024. Five councilmembers are about to cancel an election because they would rather decide for you.
How they voted — Aug. 25 and Sept. 22, 2026
- Lynette Crow-Iverson (President)
- Brian Risley (Pro Tem)
- Ken Casey
- Roland Rainey
- Brandy Williams (District 3 — OCC's seat)
- Dave Donelson
- Kimberly Gold
- Nancy Henjum
- David Leinweber
Two of the five voted to let you decide. In the summer of 2024, Crow-Iverson and Risley both voted to put the DDA on the ballot. Old Colorado City voted yes. Now they are voting to overturn the result.
All nine councilmembers can be reached at once at AllCouncil@coloradosprings.gov.
Where was Brandy Williams?
Councilmember Williams represents District 3 — Old Colorado City's seat on Council — and was appointed Council's liaison to the DDA. Here is the record.
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2024The Westside votes yes. That summer, Council — Crow-Iverson and Risley among them — votes to put the DDA on the ballot. In November, OCC voters approve it in a citizen-led election, after local business owners spent two years and more than $70,000 building it. Williams' predecessor in District 3, Michelle Talarico, championed it. A mill levy on the same ballot failed.
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2025Council stalls. Board candidates are put forward in March. Council does not finish seating them until December.
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June 8, 2026The push takes shape behind closed doors. In an executive session closed to the public, Council moves toward dissolving the DDA. Nobody tells the board. (The session and its subject are public record: the June 8 work session agenda lists a closed session for “legal advice regarding the Old Colorado City Downtown Development Authority” — Legistar file 26-239. What was said inside is not public. That part is United Westside's account.)
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June 24, 2026She takes a job helping a district she is about to end. Williams attends the DDA's June board meeting as Council's liaison and says nothing about dissolution. At the request of Trevor Gloss of the city attorney's office, the board passes a resolution confirming it has no debt — a box that has to be checked before a DDA can be dissolved. Nobody says why. The board then plans a November 2027 mill levy, and Williams volunteers to check with the city clerk about getting it onto Council's docket.
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July 8, 2026The board finds out from an agenda. Dissolution appears on a public Council agenda two business days before the July 13 work session. It is the first the board hears of it — from a posting, not from its liaison.
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July 14, 2026She votes against giving OCC time. Council votes 5–4 to postpone. Williams votes no, warning that the DDA might run up debt — the debt the city had just had the board confirm does not exist.
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July 29, 2026She says she has not done the reading. At the DDA board meeting, Williams says she has not reviewed the 2024 materials Council was given, or looked into how a DDA differs from the business improvement district she says she prefers: “It makes sense to me, but it doesn't make sense to you.” It takes another three weeks for her to call the district's consultant.
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Aug. 25, 2026She lectures OCC about reading, then votes to dissolve. From the dais: “For those of you who haven't been bored enough at night to really read what a Downtown Development Authority is…” The vote is 5–4.
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Sept. 8, 2026The final vote is postponed, so the public can be heard. Second reading was on the agenda with no public comment planned. Council votes 6–3 to take comment anyway, then votes unanimously to put the whole item off two weeks, to Sept. 22, because people who had asked to speak had been told they couldn't. In between the two readings, the DDA's board resolves to put one more mill-levy question to OCC voters in 2027, and to work with Council to dissolve if voters say no again.
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Sept. 22, 2026Council dissolves the DDA on second reading, 5–4, the same five and the same four as in August. Four days earlier the Urban Renewal Authority's director had sent Council a letter arguing the 2024 election couldn't be trusted; every claim in it is checked here. The ordinance now goes to Mayor Mobolade, who can veto it.
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Oct. 1, 2026The City publishes the ordinance as law without sending it to the Mayor. The Charter says every ordinance goes to the Mayor for signature or veto. The City gives three different reasons for skipping that step and declares the dissolution effective Oct. 1. The record, and the City's reasons, side by side.
What Old Colorado City is saying
- “The OCC DDA is an investment in our future.”Robin Frier, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory
- “It's throwing your local small businesses under the bus.”Kit Hutchinson, Heartshake Studios
- “The fact that we're all in agreement here, that the DDA is the right solution, is kind of a miracle.”Annie Trejo, Circa Vintage
- “Look at all these businesses out here. They're all local. Everybody's local. Everyone.”Craig Dominguez, Agave Lounge
- “There's absolutely nothing the DDA has done wrong. This is definitely the wildest thing I've ever seen in nearly 25 years of doing special district work.”Jamie Giellis, consultant on roughly 75 Colorado special districts
What happens if the DDA survives
The board finishes its Plan of Development, the City reviews it, and the DDA goes back to Old Colorado City voters and asks them to approve a mill levy — a small property tax, paid inside the district, spent inside the district. The board is targeting November 2027.
If OCC voters say no, it does not happen. That is the point. The Westside decides.
A petition to recall Councilmember Williams has been started by a citywide political organization that does not speak for the Westside, though some of the people circulating it live here. United Westside is not part of it and did not ask for it. The people who can answer for her votes are the District 3 voters who elected her, at her next election or on a recall they start themselves. That is the principle this whole page rests on, and it does not change because the target is someone we disagree with. The arithmetic, the history, and what a recall would actually produce →
One vote flips this. Tuesday, Sept. 22, 9 a.m.
One signature stops this. Ask the Mayor.
The Charter's last step was skipped. One request from the Mayor restores it.
Sources
- Pikes Peak Bulletin, “Fight to save OCC Downtown Development Authority,” Aug. 21, 2026 — pikespeakbulletin.org/news/fight-to-save-occ-downtown-development/
- Pikes Peak Bulletin, “Council votes to dissolve OCC DDA,” Aug. 27, 2026, updated Sept. 3 — pikespeakbulletin.org/news/council-votes-to-dissolve-occ-dda/
- Colorado Springs Gazette, Brennen Kauffman, “Old Colorado City DDA could be dissolved by City Council amid fight about its benefits,” Aug. 3, 2026 — gazette.com
- Colorado Springs Gazette, Brennen Kauffman, “City Council votes to dissolve Old Colorado City Downtown Development Authority,” Aug. 26, 2026 — gazette.com
- Colorado Springs Gazette, Brennen Kauffman, “City Council gives Old Colorado City DDA chance to make new case for staying in business,” Sept. 9, 2026 — gazette.com
- KKTV, Rachel Ramsey, “Old Colorado City DDA considers legal action after ordinance dissolving it skips mayor's desk,” Oct. 1, 2026 — kktv.com
- Colorado Springs Gazette, Brennen Kauffman, “City Council voted to end the Old Colorado City DDA. What comes next?” Sept. 28, 2026 — gazette.com
- FOX21 News, Carolynn Felling, “City Council to vote on Development Authority in OCC,” Aug. 31, 2026, updated Sept. 1 — fox21news.com
- City of Colorado Springs legislative records: Ordinance 24-87 (2024, placing the DDA on the ballot, with roll calls); file 26-239 (June 8, 2026 closed session notice); Ordinance 26-31 (July 2026, boundary correction)
- OCC DDA board agendas and minutes, including the June 24, 2026 minutes — public document folder, linked from oldcoloradocity.org
- City of Colorado Springs, City Council meetings and agendas — coloradosprings.gov/city-council-meetings
- City of Colorado Springs, Office of the Mayor — coloradosprings.gov/mayor
Quotes from Old Colorado City business owners and from the consultant are as reported by the Pikes Peak Bulletin. The 5–4 vote and the names on both sides of it, Crow-Iverson's and Risley's 2024 votes to put the DDA on the ballot, the November 2024 election, the July 14 postponement, and the DDA's inability to spend before the City approves its Plan of Development are independently reported by the Gazette. United Westside is not affiliated with any of these outlets.