Mayoral candidate Wayne Williams has captured the endorsement from the Colorado Springs Professional Firefighters Local 5, a treasured endorsement from a group of public safety workers who generally garner respect and admiration from the public.
Williams, an at-large City Council member, former secretary of state and county commissioner, is vying in a field of a dozen hopefuls.
Among those is Sallie Clark, who has long relied on support from firefighters in her political campaigns after fighting to save a Westside fire station from closing in the 1990s.
Curt Crumb, Local 5 president, says Williams was chosen due to his executive experience in running a large organization, the Secretary of State’s Office, and his support of the Fire Department.
He says a panel of firefighters interviewed most of the candidates and made a recommendation to the membership, who voted. The endorsement comes with a $1,500 campaign contribution.
Crumb says public safety is one of the most important aspects of local government and that generally the public views firefighters positively, which lends credibility to their endorsements.
He says Local 5 has not endorsed in the City Council races thus far.
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Mayoral candidate Yemi Mobolade, a businessman who’s worked for the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC and the city, has put out a video that will be seen on TV and elsewhere. He’s also campaigning with text messages — perhaps an outreach to younger people, who typically don’t vote in city elections like older folks. Two years ago, less than 8 percent of eligible voters age 18 to 29 voted in the city election, whereas a huge percentage of people 50 and older cast ballots.
Mobolade’s campaign also wants to make it easy for people to track the money being dumped into the mayoral campaign. Check out the spreadsheet data here.
Here’s a sample, but other pages available at that link show more detail.
The City Clerk’s Office will begin mailing ballots on March 10 for the April 4 city election. If a mayoral candidate does not capture more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff of the top two vote-getters will take place May 16.
Have an item of interest in the April 4 city election? Send it to pzubeck@sixty35media.org