The City of Colorado Springs is looking to dissolve the Westside Community Center Working Committee, which has worked with the City to lead the community space since 2021. In 2020, Woodmen Valley Chapel’s Center for Strategic Ministry, the former operator since 2010, told the city they would not be renewing their contract past 2021. In response, Westside community members banded together to save the space. Since then the working committee, composed of 10 volunteers, has worked to secure tenants and programming for the campus, generating revenue and maintaining a robust community hub that serves the neighborhood.
Mark Snow, the community recreation manager for the City of Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services, said the success of the Westside Community Center Working Committee is why it should be dissolved. “They’ve basically worked themselves out of a job,” he told the Parks Advisory Board during their Oct. 9 meeting.
“We believe that the [working committee] has fulfilled its mission of representing the voice of the Westside community in the recommendation of programs and services at the Center, with over 90% of the available leased space occupied (soon to be 100%) and 60+ hours of programming happening per week,” Snow wrote in an Oct. 6 email to the Working Committee. “However, the community will still have a voice in recommendations for the Center (as they do at all other centers), including directly with staff, with Parks Leadership, at the Parks Advisory Board (or connecting with PAB members), or even at City Council.”…