This is part one in a two-part series. Part two will explore reactions to Wayne Williams’ appointment as the mayor’s chief of staff from other officials and the public.
Last Friday, I met with Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade and his new interim chief of staff, Wayne Willams, in the mayor’s penthouse suite on the sixth and top floor of the City Administration Building. Formerly rivals in the 2023 mayoral campaign, Mobolade defeated Williams to become the first elected black mayor and the first non-Republican mayor of the city. The City recently announced Williams’ appointment as chief of staff for the next year as Mobolade campaigns for re-election in 2027. The previous chief of staff, Jamie Fabos, stepped down in February.
OK, “penthouse suite” might be overselling it a little bit. The mayor’s office is a modestly sized workspace, with just enough room for a desk and a conference table. But it does boast a great view of the city – a view that might help a leader remember why they put up with the heartache and drama of politics: to serve the people living in that cityscape stretching out to the horizon.
Both men gave a warm welcome and we sat at the conference table for the interview.
Williams is white and 60ish, Mobolade is black and about 15 years younger. They’re both big fish in the Colorado Springs pond and not unknown beyond it; to wit, Mobolade and Williams each have their own Wikipedia entries. But their bona fides are quite different.
Mobolade is an independent who moved to Colorado Springs to start a church and went on to several entrepreneurial endeavors – including the Wild Goose Meeting House (now closed) and the still-popular Good Neighbors cafe. He did stints in Colorado Springs as the vice president of business retention for the Chamber of Commerce and as the small business development manager for the City.
Williams is a lifelong Republican who served on the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners (his wife, Holly Williams, is a commissioner now), then as the county’s clerk and recorder, then as secretary of state in the Hickenlooper era, and then won an at-large seat on the Colorado Springs City Council. He’s also an attorney specializing in employment and labor law.
I asked Williams why he wanted the chief of staff job, and Mobolade why he wanted Williams in that role.
“I care about this city,” Williams said, noting he’s been involved in local government since 1994 when then-mayor Bob Isaac tapped him to serve on the Housing Authority Board. “I’ve always been wanting to serve our city, and that’s why I served on city council. That’s why I ran for mayor … I’ve had a lifetime of being involved and caring about public service. When I was a student in college, I won the Truman Scholarship for students going into public service. So even in college, that was my intent. This gives me an opportunity to continue to serve my city and my community.”
Mobolade said, “When I assess the needs of the city, when I assess the challenges, when I assess the opportunities, and I compare that with an assessment of who the right person is that can help me take a lot of our deliverables to the finish line … Wayne is the right person.”
A line of communication was already open between the two; along with other community leaders, Williams has served as part of the mayor’s informal advisory council since shortly after Mobolade’s election.
Mobolade said he curated a list of about 20 “great leaders” as possible good fits for the chief of staff job.
“Wayne’s name was on there,” Mobolade said. He said he had a few trusted advisors who were skeptical of Williams as a potential pick but, after meeting with Williams, felt he would be a good choice.
Williams noted that winners sometimes brush off their rivals after they’ve won, but not Mobolade.
“He was willing to listen to my input … he was willing to find solutions. I think those are things that caused me to say, ‘yes, this is something that can work,’” Williams said.
Williams said he appreciates Mobolade’s focus on public safety and infrastructure.
“Those are things that are near and dear to my heart,” he said, adding that he (Williams) helped create the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority and secure the renewal of 2C, a voter-approved sales tax that funds road improvements.
Mobolade said he expects Williams to be a strong chief of staff who will bring alignment with various stakeholders including Springs Utilities (which is overseen by the city council), the County, the Housing and Building Association, and the Chamber and Economic Development Corporation (EDC). The Horizon Power Plant and airport development are two projects Mobolade cited as priorities in the coming year that Williams would be an asset in getting “to the finish line.”
I did a double take when Mobolade said Williams would also assist with the implementation of the “kick ass program” before realizing he was talking about KICAS, the acronym for Keep It Clean and Safe COS, a “coordinated City initiative focused on improving safety and cleanliness in priority areas of Colorado Springs” according to the City’s website.
I asked Williams about the work he’s done since the mayoral race concluded. He reminded me that under the ethical rules, he is not allowed to disclose client identities unless they have given permission. But, with that caveat, he was able to say he was counsel for Together for Colorado Springs and wrote the amicus brief filed earlier this year by the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC opposing a lawsuit brought by the Colorado Attorney General against the Trump administration regarding the relocation of U.S. Space Command. Williams said a significant portion of his work in recent years has been with the Institute for Applied Management and Law teaching employment law seminars “helping managers and supervisors do what’s legal.”
The chief of staff position is theoretically apolitical, but there are some obvious political shifts that could occur when an experienced and connected political player joins the administration of a former rival. I asked Williams and Mobolade if they thought Williams’ big-name backers in the last election – like former mayor John Suthers and Norwood Development Group – might soften to the current mayor in the ongoing campaign season with Williams on the team, or not.
“Not once have we even had a conversation about his backers,” Mobolade said. “To be honest, I don’t even know who they are. Wayne knows as much as I do that things evolve, things change … I can’t speak to even who his backers are. But that has never been a part of the conversation.”
Mobolade said that what Williams does bring to the table is “coalition building.”
“You can’t get anything done without coalition building. That’s just the bottom line,” Mobolade said. “His ability to work across partisan lines … he did it as secretary of state, he did it as a city council member. He did it over and over. The focus for me is the projects, the programs, the deliverables – and every one of those, you have people [with] different values and different party lines … I’m looking forward to him being able to build coalitions and to get us to the finish line.”
But it’s not just about projects and programs with these two. Both men have been public about their religious convictions, and I asked them if they felt this career move to work together was part of their spiritual paths. Both emphatically agreed that it was.
Mobolade recalled a meaningful interaction shortly after his election that involved Williams’ wife, Holly. Mobolade had reached out to her and all the county commissioners in an effort to build relationships with other elected officials.
“I met most of them at their office,” Mobolade said. “When I reached out to Holly, she wanted to meet me here [at the mayor’s office]. It’s not lost on me how important and powerful that was … Holly met me here, and we both talked about our faith … and how and how that was important to us beyond the campaign … because who we’re called to be as people of faith, that’s bigger than that.”
“We’re not called to love politics. We’re called to love all God’s children,” Mobolade said.
Williams had another story of how his and Mobolade’s paths had crossed in a way that was meaningful outside politics and careers.
“In December, my daughter-in-law naturalized,” Williams said. “I saw Yemi a couple days before the ceremony. I found out he was speaking at it.”
“I told him, he better do a good job, and he did,” Williams said with a smile. “We got a picture together afterwards.”
During my interview with Mobolade and Williams, I wondered if their cross-party coalition-building ethos is a sign of things to come. Perhaps Mobolade and Williams are pioneers of a political rethinking that is overdue but soon to be inevitable, as polarization leaves many in the middle feeling politically homeless – perhaps especially Republicans not in the MAGA camp.
Perhaps this is a pilot chapter in America’s next big political playbook re-write – or maybe not. Either way, the next year will show whether this coalition-first strategy yields success in Colorado Springs.
