Yesterday's City Council Working sessions was, well, LONG. 130 minutes of presentations by Team City-Broadmoor which included 7 City employees, the Broadmoor's Jack Damioli, and Glenn Montgomery. A whopping 10 minutes was given to opponents Richard Skorman and Kent Obee. Here's a link to a video of the meeting. Item 8F on the agenda which you can click on and go directly there below the video. http://coloradosprings.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=444 We advise a little yoga or meditation prior to watching it. They even used a timer with a bell. Wow. While there were MANY items to question, we'll just point out a few glaring errors. Kurt Schroeder with Parks maintenance kindly shared the Broadmoor trash clean up pics with us again. The only problem was THIS time, he attributed those truck loads of trash to the Strawberry Fields parcel. If you will pull out the City hand out from the 3/30 meeting, you will see those clean up photos were, in fact, the Broadmoor trash. Oops. He also noted that only 20% of the trash was cleaned up -- this is odd given many people have been asking for months now about the trash conditions -- with open records request which showed no maintenance complaints in 3 years. Go figure. We heard from Karen Palus that this process was transparent and that they have been responsive to the public with 7 public meetings. There seems to be some disconnect regarding the definition of "transparent" and "responsive". The real estate gentleman says the appraisals are good, but we are going to get an appraisal of the appraisals. Hmmm. How does that work exactly? The lawyer advised us that they can find no evidence of a vote in 1885 yet we have several articles indicating there was. We'll be helping them with that. Glenn Montgomery closed out the show sharing some incredible pictures of a utility pole in the middle of the meadow which no one has ever seen and asserted that Strawberry was riddled with dog pooh. So, now, in addition to refrigerators and pits of broken glass 2 feet deep which have yet to be located, we need to give away Strawberry because of an out of control dog feces problem. He also tricked us by putting his address as Yemen in the petition. Bravo, there, Glenn. Oh, and charges of new graffiti at Party Rock daily -- really? We cannot find anyone who has seen this trend, and the area is visited quite frequently now by many citizens. We can call in the police graffiti team who are experts in this area should be able to date the tagging for us if we want. Jack Damioli took on Change.org. He's welcome to publicly attack this respected and wildly successful company in the petition space with 100 million users worldwide, but we believe their work is fantastic! We are not alone. They are the leader in their field with more controls and advanced algorithms for bot fraud and data checks than them all. They have Richard Branson's B Corp Certification (which is for companies doing good in the world and requires adherence to a set of high standards) combined with many notable success stories which makes Change.org the average person's greatest opportunity to have a voice with big corporations and governments around the world. 3 people, Donna Strom, John Spengler and Lara Rowell, addressed the Change.org issue with Council today: Donna shared one of the many Change.org success stories: "Good afternoon Council. My name is Donna Strom. And by the way I am the person who brought you the strawberries last night. I’ve returned here today to make a few brief comments about the Broadmoor Land Swap. But first, there’s a little bit of housekeeping to do. There are two entities which grant to the Broadmoor Hotel it’s coveted and richly deserved 5-star rating. One is Mobile Travel and the other is the travel arm of Forbes. To say that Forbes is a much respected organization would be an understatement. As it happens, Forbes has conducted a review of Change.Org. Change.Org is the petition site which Jack Damioli stood right here last night and so gleefully trashed. Please allow me to read just one paragraph from the Forbes review: “John Lauer, a seasonal firefighter in Custer, S.D., started a petition in May calling on President Obama to make seasonal firefighters eligible for government health care plans. They were denied coverage as temporary workers. Six weeks later he got a call from Change.org, asking to promote his petition. He agreed, having 1,000 signatures at the time. After returning from a fire several days later he checked the site: It had 94,000 signatures (and eventually got 126,000). In July President Obama directed federal agencies to make health care available to these firefighters.” I submit to you Council, that if Change.Org is good enough for the President of the United States of America, then it probably merits your attention on our behalf. That’s the end of the housekeeping. A reporter once interviewed JD Rockefeller about his land acquisition. The reporter said, ”Mr. Rockefeller, you have so much land already. When are you going to stop?” Mr. Rockefeller’s reply was this: “I just want a little bit more. Just a little bit more.” In Philip Anschutz, I give you the JD Rockefeller of the Rockies. There are 623,000 souls in the city of Colorado Springs who are the rightful owners of the 189.5 acres known to us as Strawberry Fields. And your Parks Department has had the temerity to offer up our land, in secret and without consulting us, to private enterprise for profitIf the rightful owners of this public land are being asked to relinquish it to the Broadmoor Hotel, I’m begging you to at least have the decency to ask us first. Stop the swap and put this issue to a vote of the people in April of 2017. And I thank you very much for listening to me." We thank everyone for speaking out -- have you emailed the Mayor and asked him to "Stop the Swap"? Please do so. He has the power. You can help him make this choice. Email jsuthers@springsgov.com and be sure to copy these people for transparency: AllCouncil@springsgov.com, news@csindy.com,news@kktv.com,foxnews@fox21news.com,news@koaa.com,krdonews@krdo.com, friendsofcheyennecanon@gmail.com,cory@medwheel.org, savecheyennemountain@gmail.com,jpaul@denverpost.com,miguel.bustillo@wsj.com,jim.carlton@wsj.com,news-tips@nytimes.com,scoop@huffingtonpost.com,lryckman@denverpost.com "You should never take more than you give. In the circle of life. It's the wheel of fortune It's the leap of faith. It's the band of hope Till we find our place. On the path unwinding In the circle, the circle of life."