COS City Council’s overrides Mayor’s veto of marijuana revenue ordinance – but why?
Colorado Springs City Council formally overrode Mayor Yemi Mobolade's veto of an ordinance that authorizes Council to seek grant applications and set up "buckets" to receive and use the $1.4 million the City expects to earn from taxes on recreational marijuana sales.
Prior to the vote, councilors who voted not to countermand Mobolade's veto questioned those in favor.
Henjum asked Council President Lynette Crow-Iverson who would be on any subcommittee Council might form to handle allocation.
"And how are we proposing getting the applications and what would be the process for the review of the applications we might get?" she pursued.
"That would be determined at a future date," Colorado Springs Deputy City Council Administrator Michael Montgomery replied.
"We're just waiting for the ordinance to be passed and, if Council deems … that an application process is needed, to then set up that framework," he said.
"So we're setting up the possibility of a framework with no further particular design as to what that might look like?" Henjum queried.
"We don't want to put the cart before the horse," Crow-Iverson said. "The only way to fulfill the will of the voters is to be able to fund two buckets that the city does not currently fund, nor should they. Then we will decide if those are the buckets we decide to fill for councils after us."
But the "buckets" to be filled were spelled out in a January 28 ordinance, Councilor Dave Donelson told the Pikes Peak Bulletin.
"When folks tell you we need that ordinance that we passed [on July 8] and the mayor vetoed, and then we overrode the veto - look at what we passed in January 2025," he said.
At the July 22 meeting, Donelson questioned whether Council wasn't already empowered to "create a subcommittee … [to] speak to different groups who would like funding to do work in these areas [of PTSD treatment programs for veterans, mental health services, and public safety programs], and then make a recommendation to the mayor's office to support these organizations?"
The City attorney replied that he didn't "see a reason why you can't put together a committee to review what you might like to use the funding for and offer recommendations," without passing an ordinance.
The Pikes Peak Bulletin sent a request for comment about the January ordinance to City Council but had not heard back at press time.
At the July 22 meeting, Council President pro tem Brian Risley said marijuana money should not go "into the abyss of the general fund and be used to plug things it wasn't intended for."
Donelson said it wouldn't because "the ordinance that was passed in January creates a mechanism for auditing that."
As Donelson argued against overturning the veto, Crow-Iverson pushed for a vote. Council voted 6-3 to rescind the mayor's veto. Councilors Nancy Henjum, Dave Donelson and Kimberly Gold voted against rescinding.
"The voters are being forgotten, the industry's being forgotten - because it's the industry that is bringing this revenue into the city, and the industry that spent the money to do the petition to put [recreational marijuana sales] on the ballot," Henjum told the Pikes Peak Bulletin after the vote.
"It's pretty goddamn disrespectful, if you ask me."
