During the Oct. 21 Manitou Springs City Council meeting, Councilor Nancy Fortuin called on Councilor John Shada to resign following a reported incident at the Dillon parking lot.
“Recently, a police report was filed by one of our residents concerning Councilor Shada,” said Fortuin. “The report details an encounter in the Dillon parking lot, where a discussion escalated to the point that the resident felt unsafe. This type of behavior is unacceptable under any circumstances and is especially troubling when it involves a member of the City Council.”
A redacted copy of the Manitou Springs Police Department report, obtained by the Pikes Peak Bulletin, provides additional details about the interaction. “According to [Victim], Mr. Shada told her that the City Council had agreed to withdraw funding from [redacted] for one year to assess the impact on tourism,” read the Oct. 17 MSPD report. “When [victim] asked what evidence the City Council had to support this decision, she stated that Mr. Shada became increasingly agitated. He allegedly stepped back from her vehicle, made a throat-slitting hand gesture, and said, ‘You’re finished, you’re done, you’re finished.’ [Victim] stated she perceived this gesture and accompanying statement as a threat to her personal safety, the safety of her staff, and her overall livelihood.”
Manitou Springs City Council has been focused on the impact of a budget deficit caused by lost recreational marijuana revenue for much of the past year. In June, Council accepted an amended budget that cut a summer part-time position and decreased professional services-nuisance abatement in the Neighborhood Services Department, decreased regular salaries and left positions vacant across departments, including MSPD, and other measures to reduce expenditures. That month, Council also approved a reduction in the sales tax on recreational marijuna in order to allow Manitou Springs’ two recreational outlets to remain competitive with Colorado Springs dispensaries.
In August, Council unanimously approved Ballot Issue 2A, which would increase the City’s excise tax on ticket sales and admission fees in an effort to boost revenue. This ballot question is part of the “balanced approach” plan for addressing the City’s projected $4.3 million budget shortfall advocated by Shada and Mayor Pro Tem Natalie Johnson. In addition to increasing the “amusement tax” from 5% to up to 14%, the City will also need to divert $1.9 million of parking revenue to the streets department. The measure has been vocally opposed by the businesses to be impacted.
During the Oct. 14 City Council work session, Shada asked Finance Director Rebecca Davis about economic development funds. “These amounts … are monies that are leaving the city,” he said. “They are money that we are appropriating that are going to other entities, whether it’s the Chamber of Commerce vis-à-vis business economic development formula. That’s been the traditional place where that has gone.”
Shada noted that the city will likely have to pay the Cog Railway $750,000 in 2026, per the city’s excise tax agreement. “That would mean to me that somewhere else, whether it’s in this cost center here, that we deal with the 750 that’s proposed here, or that we find it somewhere else, as expenses in the budget book. So to me, if it stayed within this cost center here, this means that this business promotional formula might be at risk, and as I understand, if we needed to attack that amount we would have to do that by ordinance.”
In the MSPD report, it was noted that the victim was “encouraged to file an official complaint by another member of the City Council.”
