COLORADO SPRINGS — The Karman Line annexation is now one step closer to heading to voters, but that process is being challenged by developers.
"We are reviewing those signatures before we make a final determination on if we will protest," said O'Neil Group's Andy Merritt, who is a Karman Line consultant. "We know a majority of the signatures were gathered by paid petition gatherers, and the ones we recorded that we're telling lies were paid petition gatherers."
Merritt and his team shared footage with me of petitioners they say were misleading people to sign. According to the footage, comments like "sign this to fix the potholes in Colorado Springs" were made to potential signees.
This footage was used as evidence in a letter written to the Fourth Judicial District Attorney (DA) Michael Allen, asking him to investigate the legitimacy of this petition process.
The DA sent us the following statement:
“We received a letter from attorney Scott Gessler regarding concerns his client has about the petition gathering process. As far as we are aware, no law enforcement investigation has been conducted into the concerns raised in that letter.”
Petitioners responded to the footage. Victor's Canvassing Owner Daniel Cole, the organization which assisted in signature collection, sent me the following statement:
"Many citizens believe that our municipal government will do a better job of fixing roads and potholes if it focuses on the city we have today, rather than on building new roads to serve flagpole annexations. I think that's what this petition circulator was trying to communicate."
Last month, one petitioner who lives near the Karman Line shared papers they gave to signees at petition stations, which included a list of arguments against the annexation. I brought this list to Merritt, who challenged these claims.
"I could just tell you right out of the gate, where will Colorado Springs get the water? Colorado Springs already has the water. Colorado Springs Utilities did a full analysis," he said.
When petitioners were asked about other claims in the letter, they sent a written response saying the letter contains "a number of inaccurate statements," adding:
"As for the assertion that circulators made inaccurate statements, many of those Mr. Gessler (Scott Gessler, the attorney who sent the letter) characterizes as false are easily debatable."
In spite of these exchanges, it's likely the request will head to Colorado Springs voters after the city verified more than 18,000 signatures, so I asked some potential voters how they feel about this potential annexation.
"I'm not sure there's enough water to cover the development," said Deena Todd. "We've been on water rationing for three years I think now... and Manitou is the same way, and it's not just the west side, I mean, it's all over the city. So, if they say they've got enough water, then they need to let the rest of us water our lawns if we want to."
"Just because we're building houses doesn't mean we're like, solving that problem," said Cali Nate when asked about the need to build more affordable housing in Colorado Springs.
"There's so many other opportunities and so many other places where living homes can be built, I think it's best to just go with something easier," said Leo Nate.
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