Please attend the upcoming Fort Carson expansion town hall meeting at the Antlers Hilton on January 14. Let the pro-military, pro-business representatives know what you think about making Colorado Springs even more dependent on poor paying jobs, predatory businesses, and skyrocketing social problems. Only developers, car-dealers, pawn shops, strip clubs, liquor stores, social workers, jails and mortuaries benefit from a higher soldier population. The rest of us suffer increased crime and their children’s behavioral problems in our schools. Plus can you imagine the Army is going to use an expanded Ft Carson as pretext to seize Pinon Canyon for their maneuvers?
 
Has there ever been a city to prosper by hosting military bases? Colorado Springs is awash with Defense Department facilities and look where it’s got us! El Paso County is cutting services left and right. Soldiers reduce the tax base, they pay fewer taxes, they register their vehicles out of state, and their spouses require more social services. As a result, El Paso is scaling back its County Health Department. For starters they’re closing the STD clinic by next year. More soldiers = fewer STDs? I don’t think so.