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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Decision April 2009 is less than three weeks away.

The election is mail ballot only. All ballots are due by April 7 at 7 p.m.

Voters can begin dropping off ballots Monday, March 23, at one of the following locations: the City Clerk's office, fire stations number 17 and nine, the Colorado Springs Senior Center or Cottonwood Creek Recreation Center.

Issue 1B would allow the city to keep up to $1.2 million for essential city services such as police and fire -- money the city overcollected last year from property taxes.

"When we set the mill levy for 2008 we made an assumption that property values would drop to a certain level and they did not, so there was a slight overcollection, so we are kind of in an unusal predicament that even though we collected more, we are still having severe budget issues," city council member Scott Hente said.

Issue 1C would alter the TOPS (Trails, Open Space and Parks) tax. It would allow the city to use 15 percent of that money on the maintenance of existing parks, even those not built with TOPS money.

"We are quite honestly in the position of potentially spending money on new parks, open space and trails but not being able to maintain what we currently have," Hente said.

Issue 1D would allow the Colorado Springs Airport and other city enterprises to compete for and receive federal grants and funds without impacting Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR).

It would also replace the definition of "enterprise" with the same definition in the Colorado constitution. 

"Passing 1D will not affect the taxpayer at all, but it will allow the federal government to continue to give those monies to Colorado Springs so that we can use those for improvements to our airport," Hente said.

Last week FOX21 News looked at both sides of Issue 1A. Ffor more information on that ballot measure click here.

Click on the movie camera/video icon to view the story as it aired on FOX 21 News.