On August 30, I emailed the Mayor and City Council on questions I felt were still unanswered regarding Fire Evacuation in Colorado Springs. It is their duty and responsibility to provide for our safety in the event of a natural disaster.
Their lack of response to the email speaks volumes on their concern for us and the importance of fire evacuation in the city.
Below is the transcript of the email:
Dear Mayor Suthers, City Councilmembers, and Mr. Greene:
Based on Tuesday, August 24th City Council’s discussion regarding fire evacuation, I still have several questions that remain unanswered:
- The 2010 evacuation maps were public, why can’t we get the updated evacuation maps for the WUI Districts? What made the current maps different and inaccessible to the citizens? Evacuation maps are important in every disaster not just wildfires.
- Who determined the maps would be placed in the CSPD’s control and therefore a matter of security? The security concerns, in my opinion, is an illogical reason to withhold the information of routes to the citizens due to the vast amount of information on the internet and the remote probability of the use of these maps in an “attack” if these maps are released to the citizenry for their knowledge and safety in the event of a disaster.
- Whose responsibility is it to provide the maps and assurances for safe evacuation in a strong mayor environment? Does the Mayor make the final decisions or is it City Council or another City official?
- When were the Fire Codes and Building Codes amended to include WUI development and building construction criteria? Should these Codes be revisited after a comprehensive study on Clearance Evacuation Times is completed?
- As the leaders of our city, it appears prudent that you require a software program for the Office of Emergency Management and/or Fire Department that includes Clearance Evacuation Times. At a minimum, citizens should be aware of the time it will take to evacuate during a disaster event.
- Also on a side note, Senior Planner Katelynn Wintz’s tweets are disturbing. It appears that these actions by a city employee would be grounds for some sort of disciplinary action. It certainly supports the distrust that the citizens have in their local government and its employees’ lack of professionalism.
The derogatory comments about neighborhoods and citizens must be addressed. What are your proposed disciplinary actions for this type of employee conduct?
The Fleet Study should be completed for the citizens of Colorado Springs. It is not acceptable to wait a decade to update critical public safety plans. I believe people’s lives are important especially in this age of condescending government leaders and probably unconstitutional government shutdowns and propogandumb© information that is useless.
I hopefully will appreciate your willingness to address these concerns and look forward to your prompt response.
I hope to receive a response from our city leadership. These questions are too important to leave unanswered and we deserve our leadership’s full attention on these issues.
This lack of response from our our elected officials is clearly running down hill to City Staff as well!
PPRBD Official lack of response, clearly a demonstration of our local government culture:
PPRBD Senior Building official:
Gabe Sevigny,
I’m sorry I did not hear back from you after my message yesterday, which follows. In this message, I have copied stakeholders and included a shot from this morning.
As soon as property owner Frahm forged an opening between 1202’s old and new structures, it created one dwelling that cannot be occupied by the renters, who have been moving in for two days—without a certificate of occupancy and after the requisite passed inspections. As I stated yesterday, someone likely slept there Aug. 31–Sept. 1 night, because someone turned off the front post light, then drove away around 7:00 a.m.
Men are working on that property as I write, while renters were unloading a truck at 7:00 a.m., and the same vehicle as yesterday is there, first on street, now in driveway (today is Thursday, Sept. 2).
Also, per 7.3.105:
5. Exterior Access: All accessory family suites with an exterior access shall have a thirty-six (36) inch wide clear access path from the front property line or from the property line where the principal dwelling unit gains its access. The clear access path may be gated and may share a clear access path with the principal dwelling unit.
Is that present?
The fact that the questions asked don’t get answered tells us the city is broken. It appears to be broken down to the lowest levels. Regarding Ms. Wintz tweets, I was shocked she was hired after seeing her entire Twitter account which was conveniently taken down in January. The rampant foul mouth comments went back years. She made it clear she worked for the city, made political statements, but worse admitted she made things up because she couldn’t perform her job. Is that a reprimand or should it be a loss of her job. How can we trust her work? These were not one time incidents. The tweet about how she never thought she would have to think of evacuation was plain ludicrous. That should be a planners first thought.
Thank you for your comments. It will be interesting to see if the city staff takes any action in a positive way or changes their HR handbook to reflect ethical behavior on individual social media accounts.
Angela, the employee handbook on the city website lays out very clearly what is expected of an employee commenting on social media. If HR had done even a cursury background check, they would have seen 5 to 6 years of Ms Wintz vulgar language, political ideals and lack of job experience. A job title should reflect the skills required to perform such job. A senior planner for a large city would reflect someone with 5 years working alongside a senior planner in a large city. Not making sure farm land in NJ is correctly divided and taking children for flower walks. Just my opinion. Maybe she was the best there is out there. Then we really are in trouble.
Regarding Ms Wintz. She received a nice big promotion at the planning department. It is shocking to discover this. How can someone who lied, made up information, ridiculed the citizens who pay her salary and has a filthy F*** based language become a supervisor? I strongly believe Mr. Wysocki owes us taxpayers an explanation. She certainly can’t be the best available.
Well, well, well. KateLynn Wintz has been promoted to Planning Supervisor. She announced to the world via social media that she can’t do her job, made up information, out right lied to City Council, call citizens names and ranted foul language political views now is a requirement to be promoted in Colorado Springs Planning Department. A professional who acted and talked like her would be out the door if Planning Department was run as should be. Peter Wysocki and Ms. Wintz should both be escorted out to the street. Their behavior is not professional and all their work is tainted. How could a promotion happen when an employee broke nearly every rule in the employee handbook? Or as Ms. Wintz likes to say, it is merely a suggestion. My suggestion involves a steel toed boot connecting right into their Depends.