The Colorado Springs Urban Renewal Authority is asking the city to help them bring private security onto South Nevada Avenue to help businesses feel more secure.

URA Executive Director Jariah Walker presented to the Colorado Springs City Council during the work session Monday morning. Walker asked the council to provide $458,000 from the city’s retail marijuana sales tax revenue to help cover the cost of security guards working on South Nevada.

The request would be a version of the ‘Clean and Safe’ program currently running in downtown Colorado Springs, but solely focused on safety instead of including the homeless outreach and ambassadors in the downtown program.

The South Nevada Avenue Urban Renewal Area was approved in 2015. The proposed security teams would cover the businesses in that district between Interstate 25 and East Cheyenne Road, as well as Dorchester Park and a few other neighboring hot spots for homeless residents.

Walker said the current businesses in the area were in a shaky place and that it was hard to convince new businesses to invest there due to the “safety concerns.” Walker said that some site selectors for businesses refused to get out of the car along parts of S. Nevada Avenue.

“We’re no longer going to tolerate open drug use on the sidewalks and undesirable activity in the area that we’re trying to redevelop,” Walker said.

The URA plans to bring in six security officers from Fidelis Security, as well as a private security drone that would fly above the area. Slides provided to the City Council estimated that the annual cost for the extra security would be $757,000. The Business Improvement District for the corridor would largely pick up the remainder of the cost.

Retail marijuana sales tax revenue has to be spent on either public safety, mental health services or posttraumatic stress disorder treatment. As of the most recent sales tax report, Colorado Springs brought in $3.4 million in marijuana tax revenue since the sales were legalized last April.

Private security guards cannot make arrests. Walker said the guards can provide some enforcement of the sit-lie ordinance that now covers the South Nevada streets and encourage people to move along. They will also make referrals to service providers and direct people to places like the nearby Springs Rescue Mission.

“The idea for that is that instead of being the first touch, the police can be the second touch, if they need to come down at all,” Walker said.

Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez told the City Council that the security presence would hopefully be a supplemental stopgap for a few years while the department hired more officers.

Walker said the goal was for the businesses to pick up more of the cost for the security over time as new companies invested in South Nevada.

Councilmembers asked some hard questions about the logistics of the proposal. Ken Casey asked how they would measure the success of the additional security, which Walker replied would be based on decreased police calls and increased business investment. Roland Rainey asked if the presence of the Springs Rescue Mission would always give the area a larger homeless presence.

Dave Donelson said he was concerned about limiting this additional safety effort to one neighborhood in Colorado Springs.

“We’re not applying the law evenly throughout the city. We’re really going to enforce it here and it’s going to be enforced less in other areas, my district for one,” Donelson said.

Other council members said the request made sense as the next step in addressing the broader issues around homelessness and safety in the city.

“The reality is we’re dealing with humans and it’s just more complicated than that. This is an elephant-sized problem and you can’t eat an elephant at once. The way you eat an elephant is one bite at a time,” councilmember David Leinweber said.

The funding request will go up for an official City Council vote at the July 28 meeting. If the council approves the funding on schedule, Walker said the security patrols could start as soon as September.