COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- The new Colorado Springs city council was sworn in Tuesday afternoon during a ceremony at the Pioneers Museum.

Seven city council seats were up for grabs this past election: five at-large seats, the District 3 seat, and the District 2 seat.

Of the nine seats on council, more than half will be filled by first time council members, which they said means fresh ideas and a fresh start.

Mayor Lionel Rivera thanked previous council members and welcomed six brand new ones at the ceremony.

"They were true public servants, some of them serving well over eight years," Rivera said of the council members on their way out.

At-large council member Jan Martin was re-elected for a second term this month and will rejoin incumbent District 1 Councilmember Scott Hente, and incumbent at-large Councilmember Bernie Herpin, who were not up for re-election this year.

"It's very different this time. Last time I was the only new person elected amongst the eight other incumbents, and this time we have six new council members, which is really exciting," Martin said. "I feel like it's a new day here at the city with some new ideas, fresh ideas, and a whole new group of people to work with."

The other new at-large council members are Tim Leigh, Val Snider, Brandy Williams and Merv Bennett.

"I can't say how excited I am and how thrilled I am," Martin said. "The voters did a great job on election night. It was really clear that they had paid close attention to the ballot, and they knew what they wanted for our city."

District 2 and District 3 seats also were filled by new members, Angela Dougan and Lisa Czelatdko.

The new council members said they were excited to get started and to start making some real changes in Colorado Springs.

"I'm planning on being a facilitator for us, just having really great communication amongst one another, and especially with the community," Czelatdko, the new District 3 Councilmember, said. "I'm personally gonna make sure that I'm educating the citizens, letting people know what's going on, you know, meeting personally, emails, social networking, I'm gonna be utilizing all those things, all those tools."

Leigh said he wants to move Colorado Springs forward 20 years and has some exciting ideas to make the city attractive to young people.

"We have a shareway program going, which is an extension of roadways to cyclists, we've got a boat house conversion project on Prospect Lake, an amphitheater project in Memorial Park, so we have a lot of really interesting fun things to look forward to working on," Leigh said.

Mayor Rivera said the new council and the new mayor, which is still yet to be decided, will have a good place to start.

"All the things that were cut back on that may have given us a little bit of national publicity, and not so positive are really back," Rivera said. "When we hand over the city to the new city council and the new mayor, we'll have a fund balance at it's highest level since I've ever been as mayor."

New council members said they want to change the perception of Colorado Springs nationally and locally.

"This really is a time where we all should be excited, very enthusiastic, and we need to get behind one another and support this community, show everybody how great Colorado Springs is," Czelatdko said.

The new council held their first meeting Tuesday afternoon, where they elected Scott Hente as city council president and Jan Martin as president pro tem, which is similar to a vice president.

"I just want to say how excited I am with the new members of city council and I think there's a bright future ahead for the city of Colorado Springs," Martin said.

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