MANITOU SPRINGS – Many people gathered at City Hall in Manitou Springs to learn more and weigh in on the city’s latest deal with the owner of the Cog railway to repair and reopen the famous attraction.
For months, the city has been working to develop a deal with the Broadmoor and its owner, the Anschutz Corporation. Since the railway shutdown, the Broadmoor has been adamant that the railway would not reopen without a deal with the city. A deal to include breaks on excise and use taxes worth millions of dollars, while paying the city a total of $2.25-million dollars while the repairs are being made.
News 5 spoke with a long time Manitou Springs resident who opposes the deal. Rick Lauranzi, says he doesn’t want to see Anschutz take over yet another iconic piece of the Pikes Peak region.
“Next week we’ll get together and have small conversations, small group dialogue and we’ll talk about some advantages and disadvantages of some proposals and some of the impacts such as the ones we’ve discussed here tonight. How do we solve the impacts and just keep moving forward to address the issues we need to address?”
The city council is scheduled to take an initial vote on the amendments at a special meeting on October 9th. A final vote is scheduled for October 23rd.
