Colorado Springs residents do not need more speeches. They need steady leadership, clear lines of accountability, and decisions that align with the rhetoric used to justify them.

That is why the Mayor’s posture on recreational marijuana tax revenue and his recent victory-lap press conference around the downtown Clean & Safe program deserves public scrutiny.

When City Council established a framework for allocating voter-directed marijuana tax dollars, Mayor Yemi Mobolade vetoed it. He framed that veto as a principled stand to protect “public safety” and “core services,” warning that Council’s approach risked diverting funds away from essential needs.

Yet months later, the Mayor stood before cameras to celebrate the very use of those same dollars for the downtown Clean & Safe program, a program he did not initiate, did not design, and that exists largely because of private investment and City Council’s ultimate budget authority.

That disconnect is not leadership. It is credit-taking.

Here are the facts residents can verify. Clean & Safe is publicly described as roughly a $2 million initiative through 2026, built primarily on commitments from downtown businesses, partners, and private stakeholders. The City’s contribution is meaningful, but it is not the majority share. That contribution was not funded because it was the Mayor’s idea, it was funded because City Council, exercising its budget authority, placed the necessary dollars into the adopted budget after the Mayor vetoed the broader allocation framework.

Absent that action by City Council, there would have been no city funding to celebrate.

Holding a check-signing press event under those circumstances is disingenuous. It implies ownership of an outcome that required City Council approval and relies heavily on non-city dollars to exist at all.

The hypocrisy becomes even clearer when viewed alongside the veto itself.

In July 2025, the mayor rejected Ordinance 25-59, publicly asserting that marijuana tax revenue must be guarded for public safety and core services. That argument was used to justify blocking City Council’s attempt to create clarity and predictability around how voters’ dollars would be allocated.

But later, that same revenue stream was rebranded as a celebrated expenditure for private security and downtown “Clean & Safe” functions, a convenient redefinition of “public safety” once the optics changed.

You cannot have it both ways.

You cannot veto an allocation framework under the banner of protecting core services, then claim credit when spending from the same bucket makes for a favorable press moment. And you cannot oppose City Council’s role in structuring voter-directed revenue while simultaneously benefiting from the budget authority only City Council can exercise.

This is not about personalities or style. It is about governance.

Strong-mayor cities depend on consistency and trust. When principles shift depending on the audience or the camera angle, residents are trained to doubt every justification that follows. Governance becomes a contest for narrative ownership rather than a disciplined pursuit of outcomes.

If Clean & Safe is worth funding, and many believe it is, then the public deserves four things.

First, honesty about who is paying. The City is a partner, not the engine.

Second, honesty about what the program is. Private security and ambassadors can supplement public safety, but they are not a replacement for core capacity and they require transparency and coordination to justify public investment.

Third, outcomes, not activity. Counting contacts and responses is not the same as reducing chronic problem areas, improving conditions for workers and businesses, or creating durable improvements downtown. Voter-directed tax dollars demand measurable results.

Fourth, integrity in governance. If the Mayor believes City Council “overreached” by establishing an allocation process, then he cannot treat those same voter-directed dollars as an achievement to be rolled out via selective press events.

Colorado Springs can handle disagreement. What we cannot afford is inconsistency, shifting definitions, selective principles, and a politics of credit that prioritizes optics over accountability.

Stop governing by press conference. Stop redefining principles after the fact.

And stop pretending one signature represents the work or the funding of an entire city.

Colorado Springs deserves leadership that is consistent when the cameras are on and when they are not.

Lynette Crow-Iverson is an At Large Councilmember elected in 2023. She was elected by the City Council to serve as the Council President in 2025.