Though millions of dollars are getting poured into the April 4 Colorado Springs city election, voters apparently are bored by it all. As of Monday, one week before the election, less than 13 percent of voters had cast their ballots.
That’s just under 40,000 votes cast out of a possible 311,616.
Even though the mayor’s seat is open for the first time since 2015, voters aren’t in a hurry to vote.
There are a dozen people vying to be the city’s chief executive for the next four years, replacing Mayor John Suthers. Eleven others are running for three at-large City Council seats. Two are seeking the District 3 Council seat.
Votes must reach the City Clerk’s Office by 7 p.m. on Election Day.
"Anyone who knows me knows I am honest, passionate about our community...." Michelle Talarico
Michelle Talarico, District 3 City Council candidate, is again under fire from Integrity Matters, this time over whether she received a degree from Colorado College, as her LinkedIn page suggests.
Integrity Matters, a group that’s delivered strident messages during the campaign against some candidates, including Talarico and mayoral candidate Wayne Williams, took aim at Talarico, a caterer, once more, saying, “…we became concerned that her claims on LinkedIn to have earned a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature/Letters might be inaccurate.”
So the group went to a clearinghouse for college degree verification (most colleges no longer verify degrees themselves) and found that she did not graduate from CC but rather attended two years.
Integrity Matters, a group that’s delivered strident messages during the campaign against some candidates, including Talarico and mayoral candidate Wayne Williams, took aim at Talarico, a caterer, once more, saying, “…we became concerned that her claims on LinkedIn to have earned a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature/Letters might be inaccurate.”
So the group went to a clearinghouse for college degree verification (most colleges no longer verify degrees themselves) and found that she did not graduate from CC but rather attended two years.
We asked Talarico about it, and she says in an email, “I have never claimed I graduated from CC. I have listed on every survey that I attended cc from 82-85. My scholarships were not enough my junior year and my family could not afford tuition. I went to metro and UC Denver in the last part of 85-86. I truly do not understand why Integrity Matters wants to continue making me unfit to serve in office. Anyone who knows me knows I am honest, passionate about our community and I want to be on council so that I may leave (with my co councilors, a city )that my grandson would want to live in.
Other reasons IM has tried to undermine her candidacy relate to her cutting and pasting material from other sources to answer candidate questionnaires and her self-admitted lengthy client list after 34 years in business in Colorado Springs, which could pose conflict of interest questions, if elected.
After Sixty35 presented her with the LinkedIn information, Talarico said in an email, “It says that I studied at CC for those years in English etc. I have never claimed a degree from CC. I can see that the negative people at integrity matters would choose to read that differently.”
Asked if she ever got a degree, she wrote, “I was one class away from getting me degree l! I went to metro state and to ucd. I did not receive a degree nor have I ever claimed to have a degree. My linked In page is based on what I was studying for. An English degree which I would have finished had my family’s money situation been better.”
Her opponent is Scott Hiller, a geoscientist and neighborhood advocate.
Mayoral candidate Sallie Clark is among the first to file her March 31 campaign finance report, and it shows she’s raised a total of $611,796 and spent $483,159.
Donors included another $100,000 from Ron Johnson, for a total of $210,000 so far, and $25,000 from The O’Neil Group, for a total of $125,000.
Those two donors alone account for half of her campaign money. Johnson and The O’Neil Group are sitting on property that lies outside the city limits and can’t get city water extended due to a recently enacted water rule. One supporter of the rule is Williams, whose campaign is largely supported by Norwood Development Group. The new water rule, which requires the city to have 128 percent of water needed to serve the existing city and the parcel proposed for annexation before it’s annexed, gives Norwood a monopoly on master-planned developments, some have argued.
Norwood is the likely contributor to a dark money operation that’s hammering Clark for accepting developer money and portraying Williams as “protecting our water.”
Campaign finance reports for this cycle are due Friday, March 31.