Gallagher seems to think he acts as the council’s conscience but he is as big a politician as the rest of them, and most are quite round and large. The fact that he has made up his mind that his own ideas and projects are better and is not willing to listen to alternatives just the same as the rest of those blow-hards makes him no different than the rest of them. Were he able to better put together his thoughts in a coherent manner with documentation and thorough review instead of running his mouth to hear himself talk I would take him more seriously. None of the others on the council are any better. Each wants to say they were part of this groundbreaking event to provide for the future of the city and enable them to be better remembered politicians. I wouldn’t leave the CEO out of this group of ignorant blow-hards either. Every single one of them just wants to be recognized and remembered or known at more than a local level and this project along with so many others is merely seen as a means to that end. Others include “SMART-grid”, woody bio-mass (where’s the carbon count for that stuff, carbon neutral my ass), Neumann Systems Group Purestream and so many others. A bunch of spruce goose hoopla to make names for themselves at the cost of the ratepayers. How can a project led by a slimy lawyer and controlled by foolhardy windbag politicians ever have a chance of succeeding other than the fact that the ratepayers and citizens of Colorado Springs will be forced to foot the bill. As Gallagher so ineloquently pointed out, these thieves, deceivers and con-men need to be held accountable but it needs to be done with facts and figures not silly little hissy fits.

That said, now is the right time for Southern Delivery to be built as long as the work is contracted locally and the jobs are given to hard working Coloradoans and not some national company who will charge through the nose for substandard performance. This latest meeting was nothing more than another rubberstamp by a lame council who already approved of this project and were merely verifying a new timeline. They are not forward thinking or progressive and they sure don’t look out for the citizens of Colorado Springs, this council’s only agenda is to look out for themselves and they try to use the city as another route to doing that. This council, the city manager and Colorado Springs Utilities brought any budget shortfalls upon themselves. Sure the economic collapse could not be foreseen many years out, but it could be seen at least a year out and not a single one of their forecasts accounted for any change in business as usual, and even their latest forecasts are poor guesses at best. Hold these pseudo-leaders accountable for their own poor foresight, every last one of them. All any of them are doing is what they’ve always done, borrow money against Tabor guidelines for the next guy to pay off and they do it with the consent and support of the judiciary just to undermine the law. Not that Doug Bruce is anything more than a slumlord but he did bring at least one semi-decent thing into this world with Tabor.

Have you been to council sessions or utility board meetings. Not a single one of them actually says anything. They could just as easily sit and breathe and accomplish the same amount of work. The only difference is that then we wouldn’t be forced to hear them speak to themselves and pat each other on the backs for such poor performance. They aren’t standing on the shoulders of those who came before them, they’ve sat on them and crushed them with their fat asses and pompous speeches that don’t really say anything and the get the citizens of Colorado Springs to pay for it all. This is the right time to begin construction for Southern Delivery to ensure water for the future citizens of Colorado Springs, but the cost is inflated by lawyers and politicians looking to make a buck off of honest citizens to make up for their lousy forecasting. Sales are down, we better raise the price.