Once the shock wore off after Colorado Springs Councilman Joel Miller resigned his seat in District 2, a couple of politically active residents found the news to be a certain calling.

Larry Bagley and Kanda Calef launched campaigns to become the new District 2 council member.

Bagley, a retired Air Force officer and neighborhood volunteer, is working the telephones. Calef, a policy analyst and active member of the local GOP, is knocking on doors. Both are telling people about their ideas on city government.

Bagley, 71, views himself as a decision-maker with a demonstrated ability to work with people. Calef, 39, views herself as someone who questions the status quo.

The two, however, agree on some issues: Bagley wants voters to have final say on whether local tax money is used to help pay for a proposed City for Champions sports and events center; Calef also does not support a taxpayer-funded events center. Bagley would not vote to allow sales of recreational marijuana in the city because he says there still are too many unknowns related to marijuana use; Calef, too, would vote against it, but says it is because residents in District 2 did not favor Amendment 64, the state law that allows cities to regulate recreational marijuana sales.

Here is where they differ: Bagley supports a review of the governance of the Colorado Springs Utilities. Now, the City Council doubles as the Utilities board of directors. In recent months, the newly formed Colorado Springs Forward group has pushed the council for a review of the Utilities governance and suggested the board be privatized or be a hybrid of private board members and City Council members. Calef says the City Council is directly accountable to citizens. She wouldn’t change it.

Miller resigned his seat in November to run for mayor. He said he gave up the seat early to give residents in District 2 time to put together a campaign.

Bagley took advantage of that move. He was among the first residents from District 2 to put his name in to temporarily fill the seat. He and nine others went before the council in December and made their cases. Bagley won the appointment.

But, he said, he had in mind all along that he would run for the seat in the April election and viewed the temporary appointment as on-the-job-training.

“It seemed like a good opportunity to get involved and get a little more knowledge of what is going on,” Bagley said.

Calef did not try for the temporary seat. Instead, she made her decision to run for the remainder of Miller’s term – roughly two years – over the Christmas holiday.

“I’m a pretty realistic viewer of life,” she said. “I have a tad of optimism. But I know realistically how to get there.”

The race has become a bit of a David and Goliath in terms of money and endorsements.

Bagley ran for the District 2 seat in 2011 and lost to Angela Dougan. Back then, he used his money, roughly $1,600, for his campaign. This time around, Bagley has picked up endorsements and about $12,500 in campaign contributions from the Housing and Building Association, Colorado Springs Forward and the Regional Business Alliance to add to his total of $37,900 in contributions.

“I think they are very valuable,” Bagley said about the endorsements and financial contributions. “Building and networking with groups that participate in developing out city – the various associations and the Alliance – we’ve got to work with them to plan for the future of the city.”

Calef has a different take on endorsements and campaign donations – and she doesn’t discount a grassroots uprising, she said. She recalls the 2013 District 2 election when incumbent Dougan raised $30,000 to Miller’s $9,400 and Dougan lost.

Calef counts among her endorsements Michelle Malkin, columnist and television political commentator, state Sen. Kent Lambert and state Rep. Dan Nordberg. Calef has raised $4,277.

“Yes, he has out-fundraised me through special-interest groups,” she said. “My fundraising has been through individual citizens who have buy-in to my candidacy.”

District 2 is immediately east of the Air Force Academy, an area that grown with new commercial and housing developments. With that growth has come clashes, including a 2013 battle between residents and a developer over a 7-Eleven store in the Flying Horse neighborhood. Residents lost.

The neighborhood and development issues have both candidates talking about the need for an update of the city’s master plan. Land issues are among those in the City Council’s purview.

Calef says the answer is to ensure that developers who make promises and agreements stick with them.

“They made a contract with property owners and they broke their contracts,” she said of the Flying Horse/7-Eleven issue.

Bagley said the City Council needs to “do some serious master planning with the mayor … of where we want to go with the city in the next five to 10 years.

“I think we need planned growth and planned development, not necessarily controlled, with infill being part of the plan rather than expanding further into Kansas.”

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Contact Monica Mendoza: 636-0187

Twitter @Mendo1987

blog, City Hallways