City Council Regular Meeting — July 15, 2025

Great. Good evening, Fort Collins, and welcome to the proclamation portion of tonight's meeting.

The time is now 5 p.m., and we have one proclamation.

Everyone in the audience who would like to come up and help celebrate the year of philanthropy, please do.

If you want to, you don't have to. You're most welcome.

You can just stand wherever you like. It's perfect.

Thank you for coming. Oh, it's our pleasure.

Okay, ready?

Whereas in 1975, a group of dedicated community leaders in Port Collins saw the need to establish a community foundation to receive gifts and make impactful grants to improve arts, cultural offerings, and people's experience in the growing community. And whereas the Lincoln Junior High was converted to the present-day Lincoln Center with help from the New Fort Collins Foundation, which contributed more than $300,000 to its construction. And whereas over the years the foundation grew to include five more communities and six more counties, and is now known as the NoCo Foundation. And whereas the Fort Collins Community Fund, made up of donors' gifts specifically meant to improve Fort Collins, has contributed $5.3 million through more than 1,100 grants

to support the nonprofit sector serving its residents and natural environment. And whereas the NoCo Foundation is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025

and is recognizing the thoughtful generosity and long-term investments from individual donors in the communities where we live, such as Fort Collins.

Now, therefore, I, Jenny Art, the mayor of the city of Fort Collins, do hereby proclaim the year of 2025 as the year of philanthropy. Congratulations. Would you like to say a few words?

Thank you so much, Mayor. My name is Kristen Todd, and I have the honor of serving as the president and CEO of the NOCO Foundation.

And we are so honored with and by the partnership that we have with the city of Fort Collins.

And there are countless projects that we have worked on in partnership together over the years. And we would not be the organization that we are without Fort Collins and those partnerships.

So we're so grateful and grateful for the recognition. And just want to thank my colleagues and board members for being here with me today to celebrate the year of philanthropy.

So thank you so very much for the honor and recognition. the year of philanthropy. So thank you so very much for the honor and recognition.

Great. The proclamation, excuse me, tonight we just had one proclamation so that

great the proclamation excuse me tonight we just said one proclamation so that portion of the our meeting is now ended please stay tuned for the regular City Council meeting beginning at 6 p.m.

Give us two minutes.

Okay, we're live. We just have a name tag

switcheroo up here, but that's okay.

Sure.

We'll wait just a second to do the Pledge of Allegiance.

Colonel Sanders.

Melanie and Julie are switched. They're switched. They're switched last time.

Thank you. Great. Thank you very much.

The time is now 6.01 p.m. and I call the regular meeting of the Fort Collins City Council to order.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Will the clerk please call the roll? Deputy clerk, what is your title? senior deputy city clerk senior deputy clerk please call the roll aren't here

Francis here Olsen here here Canonica here Pignatero here Gutowski here great everybody's here we appreciate everyone

who has joined us either in person or virtually everyone is here for the same purpose which is the future of our community we have something we all care about i know that we'll all be respectful and listen while people are speaking and afterwards everyone will have a chance to be heard will the city manager please provide a review of today's agenda yes thank you

mayor good evening everyone um we have just one change to your published agenda um that is that we have added a motion to call a special meeting on august 12th um in your other business section Beyond that the agenda is as was originally published and presented we have 19 items on the consent calendar And we'll have a staff report on urban wildfire readiness. We have one discussion item tonight related to a citizen initiated Petition relating to the Hughes Stadium property and then finally At the end of our meeting there will be a motion for an executive session related to water in northeast Fort Collins

Great. Thank you very much There are no community reports tonight, so will the staff play the public participation video?

Line via Zoom or by phone.

Anyone who wants to speak during general comment or for any particular agenda item should sign up in advance at fcgov.com slash council comments.

You can comment on any topic, including other agenda items, during the public comment period.

Or you can comment on specific items when they are brought for consideration later in the meeting.

However, you may only speak on an agenda item once, either during general public comment or during that item-specific discussion.

The mayor will call by name those who have signed up to speak, in the order they signed up.

Connect to the internet on your computer or mobile device and join the Zoom meeting.

The link and instructions are on the meeting agenda and at fcgov.com.

Click the Raise Hand button and leave it raised until called on.

Dial the number shown on the meeting agenda and enter the meeting ID.

Press star 9 to raise your hand. Please note that public comment is not permitted about any items that could be appealed to city council.

like certain kinds of development projects. Information and resources about how to participate

in the development review process are available on the city's website.

Finally, please remember that public comment is not a question and answer session,

and all comments should be addressed to City Council, not to individuals.

All speakers and audience members should treat everyone with respect and dignity,

maintain a welcoming environment, and avoid actions that could be distracting.

please enter and exit council chambers quietly if the meeting is still in progress

great the council will now hear public comment tonight we have six people who signed up by the deadline so you'll all have three minutes if you're currently a member of the city board or commission please identify yourself and indicate if you are speaking on behalf of yourself or the board or Commission let's go straight to public comment we have when the green light goes on you'll start speaking say your name tell us roughly where you live and then you'll have three minutes at two and a half there'll be a yellow light and that's 30 second indicator and then when you're done it'll be red light where you should step aside and let your next person have their chance to have there speaking so let's start with Deborah James hello my name is Deborah

James and I live in the City Park neighborhood and I wanted to address an event that occurred there on July 4th 2025 at approximately 9 35 in the evening I'm speaking about the fireworks and the effect they have on my neighborhood several reasons I would like you to consider the negative impact that they have firstly they release contaminants such as carbon monoxide carbon dioxide sulfur dioxide they create a toxic haze of particulate pollution considered the most hazardous toxic compounds of copper barium and other substances fall on the water of city park pools, city park lake, and the grass people sit on when they're eating at the food truck rallies. Wild animals become shocked and frightened and can abandon their habitat and become lost. The noise is unpredictable to them and they feel out of control. I can't imagine what it's like for them. Owners of domestic animals, many owners of domestic animals can attest to the fear and anxiety that they cause within their own home. Veterans experience can experience them as a trauma reminder and they can cause flashbacks. Some have reported that they use alcohol and drugs to relieve the stress response and their instinct is to avoid the holiday that celebrates the freedom that they fought for. It's twisted irony. No fireworks policy is in the city of Fort Collins. And, you know, nobody likes the do as we say, not as we do policies. They're never well received, which could be why many people ignore not doing fireworks. And I don't want to be a Debbie Downer. I won't take away everyone's fun, but they could be moved to a less densely populated area. They are highly invasive. Some communiques have gone to laser spectacles, and drones are being touted as something pretty awesome. They do not emit particles. They lower noise pollution they are less invasive to the people and animals around they have minimal debris and litter I really would like you to consider looking at this and thinking that maybe the no fireworks in the city of Fort Collins should pertain to everyone thank you thank you very much pedal on remotely

no Linda well I I don't you could just speak a little bit further back if you'd

like from the microphone can't you just turn it down I don't know nobody back there again. I'm Linda Hall, 80526. I helped circulate the past citizen petition. Please adopt the proposed ordinance without alteration tonight. Nobody was stratified. Everyone is

given a chance to sign. We were everywhere night, day, sunburn, rain, weekend, LGBTQ+, young, old, rich, poor, male, female. They were all represented equally. One person, one vote.

Please adopt your proposed ordinance without alteration tonight.

The PAS initiative covers all of these supermajority outcomes. They're all included in the ballot issue for PAS. And I would go over this, but I don't have an hour. I only have three minutes. But it's already in there. There is already recreation up there. and thank you Mike Foote wherever you are.

I thought you screwed us, but you didn't. Okay, we'll just move on.

At the Super Issues meeting on June 23,

the Civic Assembly delegate said to prepare for the Civic Assembly, she trolled online. Online trolling is the act of deliberately posting inflammatory,

provocative, or offensive content online to upset or provoke a reaction from others. Trolls often hide behind anonymity and aim to disrupt online communities and conversations. Trolls seek attention and emotional response.

She also put forth the bike park to be voted on separately than the other multi-uses. She blamed it on time restraints.

Marty Tarkassian, if he's alive or dead, I don't know, I haven't been able to reach him for six months, he got what he wanted.

he has a program on the cable channel of Fort Collins. It's called Wicked People, Wicked Problems.

And because you just did not follow their instructions,

but rather paraded them around different places,

they took advantage of it. They took advantage of you and everybody else. They liked the attention. They got it. Wicked problems, wicked people, and it worked. so pass the initiative with Nick and the dog. Thank you. Next up is Adam.

Hello, Mayor and Council. My name is Adam Hirshhorn, and I'm just speaking off the cuff tonight because I'm running for mayor. Right now, I'm still in District 3, and I've noticed that the ecology is quite beautiful and one of the things that I very much appreciated seeing is the dragonfly. I spoke to you guys maybe a couple months ago about the keystones of healthy Fort Collins ecology so vitally important right now with the climate changing and And I mentioned, of course, the Keystone, Preble's Field Mounds. I mentioned the pollinators who were being threatened.

And I mentioned aquatic invertebrates. If you don't know what an invertebrate is, it's like most politicians. They don't have a spine.

Just a joke.

Anyway, as I'm running, I find that there are candidates that I deeply respect for their stances on the ecology and some that I would question, especially as late as the last work session.

When we consider what we're going to do with the Hughes land. And I think it's important for me to underscore that I am definitely in support of the Arapaho and the Cheyenne having a carte blanche as to what ecology, what practices are used on that land.

And if there's a bike park on that land, that's fine. The whole point wasn't to be exclusionary.

I'm running to save your bacon. I'm running to make sure that we don't make mistakes like we did at City Park 9.

Could I have the slide, please?

Sent to agendas.

I'm sorry. I don't know that we received that.

Okay.

So, being straight to the point, since there's only 30 seconds left,

Pam the ram's horn snail is an aquatic invertebrate that lives near City Park Lake and also near City Park 9 where we had the Samora treatment that killed all the grass.

More importantly, Samora kills aquatic invertebrates, and I do not have any tolerance for doubling down on the Parks Department's treatment within our respects.

Thank you very much.

Next up, we have Rich Stave.

Rich Stave, average citizen of Fort Collins, 80525. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, counselors. I was thinking as we're going through, I rode my bike up here today going like,

well, I wonder what's going on along the Mason Trail.

A couple of items that are pet peeves perhaps, which maybe not everybody's pet peeves, is I've noticed a definite increase. I'm not going to say it's homelessness,

but I'm going to kind of lean more towards what I call vagrancy. And I think that usually hits on some people's agendas because basically what I see is it kind of degrades the quality of the experience for most people that are on that path. And I see, you know, encampments under bridges and on pieces of property where maybe the city doesn't have full responsibility. But I don't think that that's the intent of trying to help people that are homeless. I think when I see them, they don't look like CSU students that are kind of out of session. They kind of look like a bunch of people that may be my age or somewhere in that neighborhood.

So I just wanted to bring that up because when I was going down the path the other day, I did notice some people that were in distress.

And I did turn that into 911, not knowing what else I was supposed to get done. But it's kind of an issue.

the other issue that i that i thought about was i was writing down is gee you know we got an awful lot of motorized vehicles on a bike slash walking path i saw things that kind of looked like an electric motorbike you know and they just sit on them and boom boom boom they're gone and i'm peddling away and there's no there's no common sense or common courtesy associated with that they don't tell you they want a signal to pass they just almost run you down in the process the last thing I wanted to talk about was I you know Fort Collins has gotten kind of big I've only lived here a little bit

and I've seen quite a bit of growth associated with it I like Fort Collins a lot and I'd kind of like to keep some of the same qualities that Fort Collins used to have and I sometimes think we put perhaps too much emphasis on we got to cram more people in here we got to find a way to get them all in here and I'm not sure I fully understand where that thinking is going but thank you for your time. Thank you very much and then our last one is Ms. Younis?

Ms. Hi there. Thank you very much for your time. I'm a constituent in 80525.

I would like to talk about my desire for a city ordinance requiring visible identification

for all law enforcement operating in our city, including federal agents. around our country we're seeing federal agents specifically speaking of ICE agents without

proper identification working around and basically abducting individuals. There is not a proper way, there's many instances where they are not properly identified and have no, there's no way for people to properly identify that they are federal agents other than just by word of mouth. Here with the university in our town, we have students as of a few months ago, I know the number was 10, it may be more now, whose student visas were revoked. We know that our community will be vulnerable to situations like this. And so I think for the safety of our community, there should be some sort of ordinance to require all law enforcement, including the police that may be working with ICE agents with a proper warrant to have visible identification.

There are instances around the country as well where we have seen people impersonating ICE agents and involved in abductions and abuse of people. And I would like to keep Fort Collins safe, all of our community members safe. And so I think that this is a very important issue right now to protect our citizens from or our community members from harm and abduction.

And that is what I'd like to share. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That brings an end to public comment. And there are two people signed up under the item for discussion. We'll get to you then during that. So does anyone on council have any follow-up to public comment?

Yeah, do we have someone here can provide a response about the identification and what we can do and

Frank I don't know if that's something that you might be willing to come up and just talk a little bit about Fort Collins Police Services

policy around

public identification for all of our

police law enforcement personnel. We wouldn't be able to speak to any sort of ability to enforce

that for other agencies, but we certainly can talk about what we do with police. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to answer the question.

Frank Barrett, Assistant Chief with Police Services over our Investigations Division.

So our policy requires that we, any officer acting under their official authority, identify themselves, be visibly identifiable. And then if there's any questions or if a committee member has questions, if that's legitimate uniform or if they're legitimately part of the law enforcement, they can request to see our identification. And so all our officers are required to have the identification card. They could also call into dispatch to verify our status. And then as far as any undercover officers that we have, which I oversee, if they are doing any operations where they're doing search warrants or contacting community members, they have to identify themselves. They will don't any clothing that identifies them as law enforcement.

Thank you very much. Any other council follow up?

Melanie. Thank you and thanks to everybody who came out. You brought up some really important issues. I am guessing that Rich is aware of access Fort Collins, but I wanted to throw that out there. If you don't have that app, I have found it, you know, with regard to things like encampments or graffiti, things like that, the response time is really quick. So just to save you from having to meander around to different avenues to report concerns I think that seems to be the quickest so highly recommend great anyone else okay

seeing none does anyone on council wish to pull a consent item for individual discussion if so please explain why Oh Kelly also thanks mayor I'd like to pull item number 10 please okay can you just give a brief explanation yeah I've just

got a couple questions that I didn't quite some things didn't make sense to me I'm sure there's a good explanation and its first reading that relates to also item 11 and 12 but I'm not going to pull three items when the questions are the same so I just some clarification and maybe follow up between first and

second reading okay great anyone else seeing them let's pull ten and is there motion to approve items on the consent calendar minus item 10 yes I move to

adopt items 1 through 19 minus 10 second second by Pena Terra further

discussion seeing none will quickly assist the deputy clerk please call I

wrote it down Canonico yes pin you taro yes getowski yes aren't yes

Francis yes Olson yes yes great that passes 7-0 do council members have any comments on the consent calendar councilmember Pinotero yeah I so I'm

curious if this is gonna fall into what councilmember Olsen is bringing up but I did have some questions about items 10 11 and 12 and I'm wondering if either It may come out in his but I'm just going to throw the questions I had out there What is this the type of thing we anticipated using the 2050 tax on? Because I feel like we did some pretty prescriptive planning with the tax and I don't remember this particularly And I'm kind of wondering so I know they're all interconnected if there could be a synopsis of all the money moving around and how they're interconnected on 10 11 and 12

We do have individuals from the finance team who? in planning development and transportation, we could either bring them now as part of consent follow-up or under the pulled item that we'll be able to speak to this. And we can do some follow-up between readings if needed.

Let me just ask, Council Member Pimentaro, do you want the answer now or do you want it under the context of the time? Why don't we wait and see how it all works? We'll do it all. Thanks. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Follow-up on? Okay. Will the city manager please introduce the staff report?

Yes, thank you. So we have three individuals here this evening who are going to join us to talk about something that we know is of great interest to the community. It's a timely topic around urban wildfire readiness. So again, this is both an interagency and certainly an interdepartmental effort to do this. So I am going to turn it over here shortly to Dennis Day. who is our program manager for emergency preparedness to kick us off. He's joined by Katie Donahue, our natural areas director, and Derek Bergsten, our fire chief. So Dennis, I will turn it to you to get us started.

All right. Do we have the presentation? Excellent. Good evening, Mayor Arndt, Mayor Pro Temp Francis, council members, city manager, and staff that are present. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight. My name is Dennis Day and I'm here representing emergency preparedness and security. We're going to provide a brief staff report on urban wildfire readiness. And I will present the first couple slides and I'll hand it off to my partners that are going to be going with me.

All right. Through collaborative planning, Fort Collins is actively reducing wildfire risk in the wildland urban interface

by engaging city departments, regional partners, and applying science-driven strategies.

From the city's participation in a multi-jurisdiction local hazard mitigation plan

to proactive efforts by natural areas and environmental services, along with Poodle Fire Authority's comprehensive wildfire protection plan.

Every piece of the puzzle supports our shared goal of safeguarding people, property,

and ecosystems through preparedness, partnerships, and smart mitigation efforts.

Every five years, the city participates in a multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan. The upcoming slide actually references our 2021 plan. We'll be starting our 2026 update later in the fall. And this is conducted throughout Larimer County with all the municipalities and our county partners.

So the plan had Fort Collins ranked as a medium wildfire hazard due to a blend of risk factors that warrant attention, but don't reach the threshold for a high priority.

The city has significant wildland urban zones adjacent to natural areas, but its proactive mitigation efforts like fuel reduction projects,

interagency planning, and PFA's wildfire protection plan all help to reduce the potential severity. While wildfires are possible and can be disruptive, Fort Collins benefits from strong preparedness and strong mitigation efforts.

All right. I know City Manager DiMartino wanted me to give an update, so I'm the third pick to be here tonight. So Chief Butler is on deployment on the Himalaya Fire north of Fairbanks, Alaska. It's about a 50,000-acre fire. And then Chief Garcia and 11 of their members are on the Colorado Task Force 1 that are deployed down in Kerrville, Texas, managing about 160 members doing search still for victims from that flooding.

So that's the reason why I'm here. The slide that we have up now is just a map that shows some of the typical wildland urban interface that we have within our community. Also outside the city of Fort Collins that covers the district.

We roughly have about 230 square miles of area that we cover.

When we look at our community wildfire protection plan, we broke it down into three categories. The purple area is development such as structures that are mixed within wildland interface area, like horse tooth area. And then also the occluded interface, which is the orange color, is areas within the city that we have natural areas. So that's just kind of an explanation of that map. And that was brought, approved by the Poudre Fire Authority and been published. last update was 2011 so it was completed this year and appreciate all the community input and engagement through that process

the community wildfire protection plan that we talked about updated our hazardous risk analysis it really created a sense of collaboration with all the stakeholders within our entire county

between the sheriff's natural areas all the other emergency responders and mitigation efforts to go impact had several meetings that developed that and really reinforced the partnership and awareness of what risks that we have within our community. And also it played a big part of the community engagement, especially in the WUI area, the wild urban interface, especially up in the horse tooth

area. So people are aware of that. And just mostly it's to improve our community resilience. That leads to the next one. Part of the education that we do is we provide a HISA, home environment, blanket on the Z. Hesler. Home ignition zone assessment, sorry. So we are currently doing that with our part-time members that work at Station 9 up at Horsetooth that go out to the community members and do an assessment of their home. And then also we have our outreach and education team that provides materials and a home inspection just to identify risks that people can mitigate that on their own.

In addition, our planning, we continue work. Like I talked about, Chief Butler's on a deployment. We send many crews out on national responses. They bring that knowledge and experience back of what are the impacts of the wildfire, how they impact that interface between the residential areas and the wildland.

And then the public education one, we really put a lot of focus on. And then hazard mitigation And then prescribed fire burns is something that we used to do as an organization and we support other Natural areas if that's something that the city wants to explore We don't own any land, but we support the operations that take part with the mitigation and the suppression piece of that

Okay, and natural areas is here because we're a huge landowner in the city. And I know that a lot of you get questions about wildfire mitigation, about concerns for folks that live near natural areas. So we wanted to kind of give you that perspective about how we fit into the wildfire mitigation picture. And as many of you know, wildfire risk and mitigation are close to my heart. So our mission in natural areas is to conserve and enhance habitat, provide recreation, but really to conserve those open spaces and to protect the species, the non-human species that live there. So we are part of the wildfire mitigation formula here, but it looks a little bit different on a natural area than it does like in a private homeowner's property in a backyard or in an office park or something like that. So we can talk a little bit about that. We have a wide range of fuel types throughout the natural area system. We have about four dozen that are either in town or really coming up against city limits. We don't have a lot of treed properties. Those are more of our regional properties like Bobcat. In town, you see some tree fuels in the foothills. You see a lot of trees along the river corridor, for example, or riparian areas. But for the most part, our acreage is grass, flowers, some shrubs. It's really a more open fuel type. And each of those fuel types has a different approach for, one, how you prepare it to receive fire, how you prepare it to not spread fire to another location, and then how you can keep it healthy throughout lots of different seasons and conditions. One thing I think is really important to note, we get a lot of questions about this, is that we manage for the dominant moderate conditions. We are not managing for extreme wildfire conditions. A lot of examples you'll get are about the Marshall Fire. Fires like that burn through golf courses. They burn across multi-lane highways. Things that normally provide good fuel breaks don't work in those scenarios. So we're not trying to manage for that situation. it would be impossible. We'd have to pave all the natural areas, which I think at least one council member would probably not like very much. So we have a bunch of tools in our toolbox to try and reduce wildfire risk in those moderate dominant conditions. One is we do some mowing. It's pretty limited and it's very specific in locations where we think it's the best tool or the only tool that we can use. We really work on invasive weeds. cheatgrass is a species you may be familiar with. It cures out very early, it loves fire, it will burn early and for a lot longer season. So that's a species that we aggressively manage to remove from the landscape. We really try to promote native species that have the ability to stay green longer in our more arid environment and those can be a little bit less promoting, less carrying of fire. We are working on building our grazing and prescribed fire toolbox. Those are things that we don't use extensively now and we have some challenges in the urban environment using them but we're working towards that. We're part of the Northern Colorado NoCo Fire Shed Collaborative Group which is a group of practitioners using a lot of fuel mitigation tools so we're kind of keeping track of what else is working in the region and building a community of practice and then we are partnering as the chief mentioned with pfa so especially when folks have concerns along natural areas we go out with pfa and we help promote the mitigation efforts that they can make based on what the fuel conditions are around their home so that's just a few things

that we're doing in that area so this slide is uh contributed by our environmental services partners we did reach out to them and looked for some comment that we wanted to add and they noted that you know climate change does intensify uh wildfire risk here in the city of fort collins it alters the seasonal patterns and the fueling conditions and those shifts underscore the need for adaptive strategies to keep score with the evolving climate and in closing uh this is this slide just kind of reinforces what you've heard tonight about our preparedness strategies we referenced the collaborative efforts of various city departments working together along with PFA adopting their new plan and looking at new hazard mitigation efforts so we do want to open it up if anybody has any questions or comments to the panel here great thank you very much council

have any questions councilman thank you mayor and thank you for the presentation this is something

that several of my constituents have brought up with representing a district that's adjacent to

the foothills. So I guess I have two questions. First, for Chief Bergsten, if there are folks

who would like more information or that kind of assessment that you were speaking about, about how to mitigate risk on their own properties, how would they access that? That is on our website.

You can go to putrefire.org and it'll create a link that you can do a message and then our outreach and education team will reach out to you to schedule that visit. Okay. Roughly takes about 45 minutes to an hour. They'll walk around your residence and just give, you know, direction on what would mitigate if there was a wildfire that came into that area.

Great. And just kudos to your staff in that I've talked to some neighbors who have taken advantage of that and they felt like it's really valuable and have really appreciated the opportunity for dialogue with officers or with firefighters. So thank you for that. No, you're welcome. And then the other questions for Katie.

I know the five feet mowing buffer, especially for people who are directly in that WUI area, feels really small.

I think it's a balance because there's so many benefits to living directly adjacent to a natural area. And I know that folks also feel like five feet might be an insufficient buffer. If people have concerns about their, I guess, proximity to a natural area, what would you recommend they do?

I would say they can reach out to us. They can contact the natural area's main number. We go out and visit with a lot. We know a lot of our next-door neighbors. We go out and talk to them. We try to work to help them understand how we see the fuel conditions on the natural area near their property. We'll help them understand things we may be doing that they aren't seeing. And then we do talk to them about that five-foot mowing. One of the challenges of mowing is that it seems like a great idea, but what you're kind of doing with that green fuel is instead of having it standing up, you're laying it down and drying it out faster. So you're just changing the fuel as opposed to removing it in a lot of cases. If you bag and remove grass, which a lot of us do in our yards to keep them clean and that kind of stuff, it really disrupts the nutrient cycle. So this is one of those places where it's difficult and nuanced when we're trying to meet habitat goals and community safety goals. But it is a tool that a lot of folks take advantage of, of being able to have just that extra kind of feeling of security right next to their homes.

Okay. Thank you so much. And thanks to all of you for being available to residents. It's a really big deal. I think just understanding better what is happening what they can do I think puts some people's mind at ease. So thanks so much Anybody else Tells about

Thank you for the presentation and thank you to the fire department as I was driving in this evening I saw a lot of fire trucks in action over by the environmental learning center. Was that a grass fire prescribed burn?

That was not a prescribed burn that was a grass fire that got an outside building burnt also So we're still determining the cause and origin of that fire

Thank you for that

Any other comments or questions comes from Kentucky you know question about just could you review? where the the burning of the irrigation ditches fits into our You know are dealing with with urban wildfires

Sure. So that was one thing that really came to awareness after the Marshall fire. We updated our city ordinance working with the legal team that right now inside the city of Fort Collins, because your home rule on a red flag day, we can prohibit them from burning. Prior to that, they still could burn, which created a lot of anxiety and nervousness for residents within the city of Fort Collins just because of the close proximity of structures to some of those waterways. So now on red flag days, we do not allow them to burn within the city of Fort Collins. Now, if it's outside the city, we do not have the legal right to stop them from burning. They can at their own risk.

And just for my benefit, what would constitute a red flag day? What would cause you to say, can't burn?

So every morning we... We look at the characteristics going to that. It has to do with relative humidity, temperature, and wind. And that determines if we're going to say if it's allowed to burn or not. Am I missing one? Okay.

Anyone else? Seeing none, thank you so much for the presentation and all your work.

Thanks for coming, Chief. You're always number one for us.

okay do council members have any reports

council member Gutowski

a couple of things go forward well as I mentioned at the at our last meeting speaking of Poudre Fire Authority had their graduation and it was at a new venue and it was just beautifully, a beautiful setting for graduation. They were at the Alumni Center over at NCSU. It's part of the Canvas Stadium. And it's always wonderful to see how excited the families are as they watch the badges being pinned on their son, father, you name it, the relationships of the family that's there. And I thought the unique thing was that they have a bell. There's a lot of tradition to the bell. But when everybody was all pinned and all, they rang the bell. And upon ringing that bell, everybody was on duty. I mean, just like that. And we had new firefighters. So it was a very, very, very fun event, and I love going to those. um fourth of july parade a lot of us were participating in uh in riding um vehicles or whatever the whatever our our way was of getting around um at the parade but lots and lots and lots of people i don't even know whether we had an estimate of how many people attended i don't know thousands thousands i hope you were there because it was the weather was beautiful And it was just to see all of those folks, the kids and moms and dads and grandmas and everybody lining the street. It was like, you know, hometown USA. And I had the joy of riding one of our snow plows. And our driver kept honking the horn and the kids were screaming. And it was a lot of fun. We also attended the Heligan Flow model at CSU. And several of us attended that as well. Halligan is our, let's see, the Halligan expansion, the dam expansion, is meant to store water in case of drought. We were able to see what would happen if it overflowed. And they worked, you know, by certain cubic units and everything. It was very good to see the graduate students and the work that they do. And they're so proud of their projects. But it was a good experience, very much so. And final one was the Adelante Youth Internship Program that they had this past week. And it was a group of about 24 immigrants from many, many countries, representing many, many languages. But it was fun for them to take an eight-week course, learn about the city. And the session that we attended as council members and several of us were there was to tell them about municipal government and encourage them to participate and encourage them maybe ultimately to run for city council. So it was a really, really cool event. Thank you.

Great. Any other council members? Council Member Pagani.

Thank you, Mayor.

And Susan was very, she hit all the highlights.

But I was just going to shout out a city program. I think it's really nice to highlight all the things that we're doing for residents. I'm currently pursuing the Healthy Homes Assessment through the city. And for those of you who aren't aware, we have city staff with a lot of expertise who, for free, will come out to your property, do a very thorough review of the inside of your home to determine anything that might be

negatively impacting your indoor air quality. They'll give you a radon test. And then thereafter, I just found out they will send out somebody to check out the efficiency of your furnace and also your weatherproofing. And I just like going through this process. I'm like, what a super cool resource. So just really recommend, especially if folks are concerned about their indoor air

quality or their energy efficiency of their home take advantage and you can find information on our city website under our air quality sub tab it's it's very cool and very informative and made me realize I have a lot of work to do on

my house so great anybody else oh Susan again well no just to say I had that same assessment done with our home I agree with you it is most amazing thing I would encourage everybody to do that. The things that we learned were super valuable. The radon test helped. There's just a lot. It's a wonderful program. Great. Okay, next up we will consider

item 10 pulled from the consent calendar for individual discussion. Is there a staff presentation?

We don't have a staff presentation, but I am going to invite Annabelle Phillips and Monica Martinez Annabelle is our assistant director at transport Monica is our senior financial analyst I may not quite have that title right manager from planning development and transportation and would be happy to answer any questions I know I'm council member Pignatero you queued up a couple if councilmember Olson wants to also expound on his interest though they're

ready great so first we'll go to the public is there anyone in the audience who would like to comment on discussion item 10. Go ahead. Come on up.

Like I said.

Rich Stave, Average Citizen of Fort Collins, 80525. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilors.

Thank you, Councilor Olson.

I did read this, and I scratched my head like, what the heck does this mean?

There's a lot of little numbers in there. didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I kind of asked the basic question is, having ridden transport sometimes in the past, what is the priority of the transport system?

I know it shuttles people around from place to place, and it does help some people that need help, but I'm not sure I see a huge ridership whenever I ride it, So therefore, are we getting the right equipment to the right place at the right time? So when we go, what is the priority here?

I would say, you know, rider safety is probably a big one. Being on time probably goes in there. Comfort and convenience, I'm not so sure.

after going through COVID, and I think I did get COVID once or twice riding the public transportation, I haven't seen any place in the nation that's really addressed the safety of the rider when it comes to people coughing and that kind of thing.

So I would say when we talk about equipment,

are we really trying to identify the issues that we need to really be solved? But thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there anyone else? Please go ahead.

I ride transport quite frequently besides the sneakers.

Could you say your name again just for the record?

Oh, yeah. My name is Adam Hirshhorn. Thank you.

I do ride transport quite frequently. Aside from walking, that's the way I get around. and maybe Rich hasn't seen the afternoon on the max.

That's quite the busy full bus you've got going there and a lot of people need to get home after a long day at work or in class.

So it's a blessing. And I don't want to sell that short at all. I love transport.

a lady talked to me about the security while we were riding and they were a little bit hard

on her she has a blood clot in her leg and so she put her feet up at the stop and security was on her like a bonnet as though she were some kind of vagrant and so she took that personally and she linked that to housing.

And she got quite upset to the point that she thought the people that were responsible owe the things that she would do to them.

I didn't even tell her about any other thing related that might incite her. I just said, I love your energy. My name is Adam Hirshhorn, and I'm running for mayor.

Anyone online would like to make a public comment? Okay. Let's see. Council members have questions. Now's the time.

Council member Olson.

Thank you. And again, if you don't want to deal with these tonight, we've got two readings. Maybe touch on them a little bit tonight and then maybe some follow-up between first and second reading. And I should have pulled item 11, but let's just pretend I did because they're all related. And on that item, it mentioned, well, the first thing I start with when we did the transit tax as part of that package, and I won't ask tonight what year the 2050 tax ends. I won't make that mistake again. um so uh so on the uh we i kind of envisioned either more routes uh longer hours uh days that we weren't covering those kinds of things i didn't expect that we'd be using the 2050 tax for um matching grants because we always somehow had the money for all of the matching grants we got we're probably going to have fewer of those in the future than we had anyway so i'm confused why we're using 2050 tax i don't get that because i saw it going for different things but then i must be misreading this it says we're going to use that fund for matching grants for a fiscal year 2020 which was five years i mean three years before the tax even started um or four um in 2022 and 2023 so I don't understand. Didn't we have to provide those? It's on me. I'm owning it. I'm probably reading it wrong. Didn't we have to provide those matching funds before now for 2020, 2022, and 2023? And it's just a use of the tax that I didn't see happening as I laid out. I thought it was going to be used for other things, and we somehow always happen to have matching funds from our existing transit budget.

Yeah, please go ahead. Thank you for the question. Monica Martinez, finance manager with PDT. It's a good question. And what I would say is that this is in part due to timing. So some of what you're seeing on here, not the 5310s, but the other ones were to be appropriated in the 2026 budget.

We realized we needed them earlier. and because of where we are in the year, the 2050 tax is what we have available at this time to fund those local match sources.

I will also note that part of what we're running into at this point in time is that we have had expanding expenses within the transit system, and our revenues have not grown at that same level. So there is more of a challenge in finding those additional resources, especially mid-year.

Specific to 2025, we are at a place where we're not projecting over revenue for this year, so it's not that we have additional new revenue that could be used for these grants that we would like to appropriate at this time. In relation to the stuff from 2020, we are finishing cleaning up. We do not have to have the local match appropriated at the time of the grant award. However, we do have to have the local match designated and appropriated at time of expense.

So because we are now moving forward on some of these expenses, that is when we have to go ahead and identify that. And again, we don't have additional new revenue from other sources that would allow for that appropriation at this time.

Sure. So is it anticipated then that next year when you do have funds that you will pay the 2050 tax back?

I know that our accounting team has been working hard on our reserve balance. So once we have some clarity around reserve balance and where we're sitting better at the end of this year, yes, we would access the reserve balance as much as is possible.

Okay. And that's, I just want to add, I mean, I did not anticipate that our 2050 tax would be paying for things like this. So I was a little confused as well. I don't know what that looks like going forward. I was about to say quite a few future forward, la, la, la. But I think it's just something to note as we continue to use the 2050 monies for things that maybe we haven't discussed as an entire council.

Yeah, I think one of the places where we're going to have some great opportunity for further council conversation about this is as we bring forward the transport optimization study. because as we look at how we're going to optimize that system, the existing cost pressures on not only the existing service but the planned and desired expansion, we will be looking at some different scenarios with 2050 tax. So it's coming in October 28th, Annabelle says. Thank you.

Any further questions? All right. Seeing none. Do I have a motion?

Yes. I move to adopt my first reading of ordinance number 118, 2025, making supplemental appropriations, appropriating prior reserves, and authorizing transfers of appropriations for transit replacement enhancement and maintenance of assets.

Second. Seconded by Paddyandi. Further comments, questions? Will the senior deputy clerk please call the roll?

Can you Tara? Yes Gutowski yes aren't yes Francis yes Olsen yes Patiandi yes Canonico yes

That passes 7-0 We'll move on to item 20 Is there a staff presentation?

I do believe we have a planned presentation for this item and City Clerk Dillon Coldiron is joining us at the staff table to provide that overview

Okay, good evening mayor and City Council Dillon Coldiron City Clerk

On the other side of the table tonight

Happy to present to you a sufficient citizen petition related to the Hughes Stadium property

so this effort actually started back in April early April where the petitioners brought to us a notice of intent to circulate a petition we were able to get that petition approved to form on April 10th we helped them put together 450 petition sections each with the ability to get 30 signatures and they started circulating right around that time they brought that back to us on June 10th, which was a day before the deadline, they estimated when they brought us back 317 petition sections. They estimated that they got 7,300 valid signatures and they needed 5,070 for the petition to be sufficient. So what does 7,000 signatures look like? So we wanted to give you just a little bit of an overview about what goes into checking signatures on petitions.

People are so surprised when they want to come in and check signatures and look over packets and they look at that volume of information and their eyes grow. So it's fun to kind of show them what that looks like. But I want to let you know that we touch every signature on that petition packet, right, on all those sections that come in.

so this is not a copy of one of our petitions but it collects the same kind of data so it asks for a signature it asks for printed information it asks for the address and I put this on here just as an encouragement for people if you're going to sign a petition make sure to get your data on there as legible as possible because we have to look at each one of those signatures so if you really want to make sure that your vote or your signature is going to count, we need to be able to read it, right? So we need to be able to read your printed information. We need to be able to match up your address. And if we can't do that, likely your signature is not going to get counted. So just an encouragement for people that are out there to take time when you're signing petitions so that we can make sure to align your data, right? So this is just a screenshot of our database

that we use to check petitions. So a few days before we know a petition is coming in,

we work with the Larimer County Elections Department. We get the most recent version of the registered electors for the city of Fort Collins, and that data gets loaded into our database. And then we use this database to do, to try to find the voter information for every signature. So this gives us a chance to enter by name, to enter by address. We can do custom searches if we can't quite read something, trying everything that we can to identify that voter. If we find a voter in the records, we're able to enter the petition section. So there's that

space in the middle there where it says petition section. We can identify the petition section they've signed. We can identify additional petition sections that they've signed so we can make sure that they didn't sign twice, sometimes three times or four times, and only

count one signature that's on there. So this is the way that we catch that information. So this is kind of our first round.

So, and these are the things that we're looking for. So we

look at each signature and apply codes to

every one of those lines. So we're looking to make sure that people are registered within the city limits. We're looking to make sure that their registration address matches the address that's listed on the petition. We are looking to make sure that they didn't sign the petition before they registered. We're looking to see if there's just easy ones. You know, I live in Loveland. I live in Timnath.

I live in Wellington. Those just automatically get thrown out without much of a check.

We look at if people were old enough to sign a petition. We look for petition irregularities.

So if a petition was taken apart and we can tell that, that entire section gets thrown out.

So if it had 30 signatures on it, 30 signatures go away.

So these are kinds of the things that we go over with the petition reps before they ever go out for circulation to help them understand what we're doing.

And then if you look at the form on the other side, we give every signature some kind of a code. So if you get an R, that is golden because we have found you in our database.

You're a registered voter. But for the other ones on there that are listed, NR, that means you're not registered or we couldn't find you.

AD means there was an issue with your address.

Those kinds of things get done as part of our first round of review, and then it goes to the next team.

So second round I call scrubbing. So we have another team of people that take those initial sections,

and we do a double check on any of the addresses that are listed that they couldn't find or that were not in the city limits. We verify that to make sure that they actually weren't in the city limits. We now, this team has access to the Secretary of State score database. So we're able to look at additional registration information for people.

So if we didn't find them within the city of Fort Collins, what we might find is that they're registered, but they're registered outside the city limits. So we're able to see those kinds of things.

And then we also do a double check on the circulator's affidavit. So we check and make sure that that affidavit was dated. We make sure that it was notarized. we make sure that those dates match because you'd be surprised that those sometimes don't. And if there's irregularities in a notary, that throws that petition section out.

So that's really, really important that that gets done right.

And then we take a look at the date that the petition section was notarized, and we check and make sure that there's no additional signatures that were added after the time that it was actually notarized. Okay, so that's second round that we do.

Then our final third round effort is that we work with Larimer County on triple checking

the names that we couldn't find. We get back to them.

They look at them and either verify that they're not registered to vote or they're registered outside of Larimer County, or they verify for us that it was a confidential voter and that they're eligible and we can add them. So we don't have access to that list. So this is our final effort to make sure that the voters that have signed these petitions get counted the way that they're supposed to.

So it is a very rigorous process, and I just want to help people understand that we don't take those in and just look at how many numbers are there, right?

We do a lot of checking and make sure that those are right signatures.

Okay, so back to the use petition. We started checking the signatures on June 10th when they turned them in. We checked over 7,500 signatures.

We found just over 6,300 signatures that were valid. And so that is why it's so important to collect extra signatures, right? Because if you just collect the amount, you're going to have a number of signatures that get thrown out because of the issues that we just talked about. So again, 5,070 signatures were what was required. So on June 25th, I did issue a sufficiency statement related to the petition, and that's opened a protest period. So people had until July 2nd to file a protest. We actually did get a protest. and I talked to the protesters when it came in because it included a lot of information, most information about campaign finance issues. And so when I talked to the petitioner or the protesters about that, I told them we have another process for that and that campaign finance isn't typically what's discussed during a protest hearing for signatures, right? And they told us, well, because of your rigorous process, we know that we can't do anything with signatures, so we're just going to withdraw. So they withdrew it at that point. So I did tell the petition reps at that point that the protest had been withdrawn and that the item would be coming forward to council tonight on July 15th. So council, you have two options tonight according to code. So you can either adopt the ordinance as the citizens wrote it without alteration. So it has to be exactly how they wrote it. Or you can opt to adopt a resolution that will actually forward the item to the ballot for people to vote on in November. So those are the two options that we're looking at.

So if you want to do the ordinance, it would be ordinance 126. And again, we've just set it up. We've really just provided the number. The ordinance is exactly how it was written and and proposed to us from the citizens.

And so this is your option one, is that you could adopt that tonight.

It works like any other ordinance. You would have a second reading, and then it would go into effect 10 days after second reading.

Okay. The second resolution is 2025-73.

This, again, would adopt the ballot language and the submission clause that would be part

to send this item to the ballot. And then does just that. you're recommending that this item go to the voters in November this year.

So this was the proposed language that was put together by staff based on the information

that had been submitted. And this was the initial one that was included in your packets.

So City Code does allow for protests related to ballot titles and ballot submission clauses. The protest deadline was yesterday at noon.

I didn't receive any protests yesterday, but I did receive one from one of the petition reps today by noon.

So when I received that, and they had concerns about the submission clause in particular.

They did send an email to city leaders.

We did make copies of their information. It's provided to you at the dais.

So at the time that they sent that in today, I let them know that the protest period had expired,

but they would be able to provide comment as part of public comment on the item. and council could consider the changes that they wanted to see.

All right, one more. There we go. So their protest really raises three items. The first item argued that this item clarifies versus modifies the 2021 ballot measure. Staff does have some concerns related to this item. the second one argues that the order of city actions should be changed to reflect what happened so that the rezoning should be first uh followed by the yeah sorry excuse me since

there wasn't a protest that was filed on time i'm not sure if it's appropriate that we go over what was submitted via email or since there we would normally go over that if there was a protest that was valid and since there isn't one i think we should just continue with the item

Okay. So, yeah. So what I did here was just change the ballot language based on what they were asking for, which they're going to talk about, but you can consider. So basically tonight, when you consider the resolution, if you don't want to do the ordinance, if you don't want to approve the ordinance, you decide that you go with the resolution. If you want to entertain their changes, you can do that. You can do that by just changing the original motion that puts the approval on the floor. Or you can do that by approving the resolution and then making modifications to that as you want to.

Yeah, and at that point, those would be our own amendments. Yes. That would be council initiated because the protest period is over. There's no protest. Thank you.

Yeah. And so with that, we're back to your options and I give it back to you guys.

Thank you very much. Are there members of the public? I think there are. Who have signed up, who would like to speak on this item? Rich, you're up first.

Rich Dave, average citizen of Fort Collins, 80525. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, counselors. Who would have ever known that turning this piece of property over to the citizens would be so complex? I have gone through the property on a bike. It's pretty nice. I kind of like it the way it is. I didn't realize it was contentious among the citizens as to the intended purpose. I didn't even consider when I voted for it in the past that the language was perhaps to use a word, squishy, that allowed the redesignation on the fly of the use. I think the voters deserve a chance to go back and say, was this intention a natural area exclusively? and I would say then it kind of gets it out of all this realm of everybody trying to define a new and better use for it. I would say that probably, at least in my mind, was the original intent. Why not just say, well, maybe we did vote for it and we are in the process of paying for it. I believe it's not done yet, but that was a tax. enabled to add a natural area to the city of Fort Collins. And I think perhaps they need the opportunity to help the rest of the people in Fort Collins understand what the intent was. Thank you very much. Thank you. And then we have Melissa.

I did bring handouts that Rupa said.

Pardon me?

Rupa said I could bring some handout material.

Sure. Uh-huh.

Thanks, Tyler.

Okay, please go ahead and state your name and tell us where you live and you've got three minutes.

Good evening council members. My name is Melissa Rosas, 80521. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the Friends of Hughes Natural Area Petition Representatives. I would like you to consider changes to the Submission Clause ballot language which is published in tonight's agenda for this discussion item. the petition representatives and friends of Hughes natural area issue committee have three objections to the city submission clause one the use of the word modifying to the order of the words acquire and rezone and three the wording of 100% as a city natural area and exclusion of the term designate first the word modifying in the first sentence of the submission clause language does not fully reflect the intent of the ballot measure. A more accurate word is clarifying. The purpose of submitting the 2025 Hughes Initiative is to clarify the intent in the face of questions and discussions that arose after the passage of the 2021 Initiative. The intent is clearly written in the recital clauses of the 2025 Initiative that was included in the petition initiative. To classify the 2025 initiative as a modification without necessary context about clarification is misleading and could lead to further voter confusion. Second, the terms acquire and rezone should be reordered to accurately reflect the chronological order of actions following the 2021 initiative. This could lead to confusion among voters as well. Third, the city submission clause inserts the term 100% when no such language exists in the 2025 initiative and is not necessary to accurately reflect the initiative's intent. It also excludes the term designate, which purposely appears in the initiative. The petition representatives did not intend for the submission clause to include the term 100% or exclude the term designate. The term 100% does not appear in the initiative language and is unnecessary to substitute for the petition representative's preferred language. The petition representatives did not choose the term 100% but instead chose the word entire. The same applies to the petition representative's use of the term designate. The intent and effect of the initiative will be clear to voters by using the language submitted by the petition representatives and not modifications proposed by the city. Although the city wrote the submission clause, it should accurately reflect what citizens wrote in their initiative. If council chooses to refer the initiative to voters, I respectfully ask council to adopt the proposed changes to the submission clause in the handout before you. if council does not have enough time to consider the changes to the language tonight

thank you very much thank you thank you okay uh any other members online would like to comment no seeing that no one else okay do council members have any questions or comments

council member goutowski i would certainly like to entertain some discussion in response to Melissa's presentation. Pardon me? I said I'd like to entertain some discussion among the council regarding Melissa's presentation.

Sure, we can entertain that if you'd like to. Do you have a question or a comment?

No, I would just like to find out if anybody else has any thoughts on, like, for example, number one, is that something that would be amenable to council members?

the first well i'd like to just clarify one thing with the clerk because i received the emails today and read them and they said they weren't aware of this but um i would like to just know the process and the procedure of engaging and the responsibility of the people who submit the signatures to know about the protest period can you clarify that for us so the pro as far as the ballot title protest

period correct that was included in the executive summary of the ais so i i let them know on july

3rd that the item would be coming forward to council uh on july 15th so i my assumption was that they'd be waiting for the council agenda to be published and that they would get the information that way um i reached out yesterday uh to give them the link because i hadn't heard anything reached out yesterday to make sure that they had a link to the council packet and just reminding them that they had a deadline of noon yesterday to file any protests that they had. In hindsight, you know, I would probably do that a little bit different and maybe send them a link from the get-go, just reminding them that it was going on the July 15th agenda, but I did not do that.

But you did tell them initially? Yes. Whose responsibility is it? Is it incumbent upon the city clerk or is it incumbent upon the petition submitters? To know I'll look at I'll look at the city attorney on that one It is not incumbent on the city clerk and one thing I will point out is that in order to file a protest one would need to look at the resolution That council would be considering which is what was published with the agenda on Thursday. Okay. Thank you

Thank you for that clarification. Okay, so your email is more of a courtesy. Yes. Thank you very much

I just wanted to clarify that and that wasn't at all what I was questioning I realize you're absolutely you know did the correct thing I was saying that just to respond to the person who presented their suggestions for changes Council Member Wilson

sure I will yeah I think council we're not required to or anything, but we can change this if we would like. And we get advice from a lot of people in the organization on what we should or shouldn't do, and I'd be the first to say I don't always take that advice, but I appreciate it. And in this case, I agree with what some of the suggestions are, that the second change and the third change are not significant and are perhaps clarifying actually even but the first one perhaps would would not be um appropriate the first change so i would support the second and third changes but not the first since you wanted some discussion

anyone else councilman pinotel yeah um i don't have any issue with number two i think for number three i mean the average person does not know the difference between a natural area or an open space and in fact many people think that it's a natural area right now but it actually is full of that cheatgrass that we just heard a lot about in the wildfire presentation um and so i think uh if if

it doesn't say 100 i think it does need to say something about completely or something that is what they are saying was the original intent which was um for it to only be a natural area so there i feel like there needs to be another word in there if we're going to get rid of 100 but i would opt for just keeping 100 as much clearer that's exactly what it is it is 100 it is only it is all is what they're requesting

um madam mayor protest yeah i had a question about the designated um because aren't wouldn't we be rezoning the proper I think it is a little confusing because it without the designation it reads that that's what it's currently a natural area now we're just saying 100% of it is a natural

area the the one thing that I would interpret the term designate to do is in our code provisions that set the regulations for use of natural areas there is language there that makes that Those provisions apply to areas designated as a natural area. So it does in some ways correspond to that It would not be necessary in order the city for the city to operate the property as a natural area

I think it's just helpful for voters because it would be either rezone Would it be rezone would that be an appropriate word or is it just designate?

There actually is not a zone district. That's only for natural areas. Thanks for that reminder. So I think I

I think to me, designate and use 100% of the city natural area would be fine.

Yeah, I also like the, I think 100% makes it clear that complete intention to the voters, right? And I think that's been the point of confusion or contention. I would say contention. I don't think people are really very confused. The first ballot initiative was very clear that it was multi-use. this one is saying a hundred percent natural areas so I would keep the hundred percent I would not adopt the first suggestion and if we want to adopt the second one I would go that'd be fine with me that's my opinion but council member canonical I would be fine with that as well

council member Gutesky sure just and I'm curious why number one would not be acceptable I'm sure there has to be something that's that's for example when when you said mayor that you wouldn't is there a reason why you wouldn't accept

the first one that I mean that the difference between the the two words modification and clarification I mean does it mean anything different or should we just keep it as it is correct I don't think we're clarifying if we were

clarifying it would mean a different thing we are proposing something we're not simply going back and clarifying i feel like that if we wanted to clarify then it'd be multi-use it was clear in that right so some of the verbiage around legislative intent and that sort of thing feels like that word clarifying is getting at that but the first battle language was absolutely crystal clear the way it was written and i don't think that that's necessary to throw that into

the mix now okay well yeah thank you for that clarification yeah oh well i don't know if i

clarify i just basically restated actually uh councilmember poniani i'm i'm in line with most

of the folks who have spoken i i don't support the first change i think the second change doesn't really enhance understanding but if that is something that for some folks would assist with clarity i think that's fine but i would like it to say so as to require the property to be designated and used 100 as a city natural area i think that's very clear as to what the outcome would be which is what's most important i think for voters okay anybody else has everyone's weight

in I think we can we don't have to stop we can keep talking I have one suggestion

mayor that is if we make that change if council makes that change to the question that will go on the ballot there are a few places in the resolution where corresponding changes would be needed including the title of the resolution I can capture those it's fairly obvious where those would be but just wanted to point that out because we would want to make it consistent

throughout correct oh yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely I think that the motion would probably capture that but yes thank you for that councilman yeah sorry

just to clarify if we were to keep 100% in is it redundant to have entire It seems like we should strike entire and include 100 percent. Okay.

Great. Okay. Are we ready for a motion?

No, we haven't talked about.

I don't think we've talked about what option people would like to do.

That's true.

I suppose if we adopt the resolution that insinuate, is that true?

If we adopt the resolution that insinuates we'd be sending it to the ballot are there two decision points here

Council could take action to postpone indefinitely or vote down the ordinance if you choose

The way this was presented I think would allow you to just adopt one or the other though, okay

You could just make a motion to adopt the resolution as amended I

I just like council feedback first. Correct. Let's do that.

Before making a motion. Yeah. Go ahead. Council Member Pina Taro.

Yeah. I feel like it needs to go to the ballot for clarification so that we can truly know what those that voted for it four years ago or however long ago that was meant. Okay. Other further discussion? Council Member Cunonco.

I would also support. I support it going to the ballot as well.

Pandya, anybody else? I also support it going to the ballot. It started the ballot. Let's ask the people again. Okay.

Okay, great.

One question. Where will the change in language be noted?

Well, hopefully if I do it right in the motion.

Okay, super. Thank you. Okay.

I move to adopt Resolution 2025-073, submitting a citizens initiated ordinance requiring that the former Hughes Stadium property be used 100% as a city natural area to a vote of the registered electors of the city at the regular municipal election on November 4, 2025, modifying the proposed ballot submission clause to read, an ordinance modifying the citizen initiative ordinance approved by the registered electors in April 2021, which required the city of Collins rezone acquire and use first specified purposes that approximately 165 acre acre parcel real property formerly home to the Hughes Stadium so as require the property be designated and use 100% as a city natural area and updating the resolution in the title in section C second second by pinotero

further comments or discussions I just have one congratulations on getting the

signatures and all the hard work that takes for people are committed to the effort and the issue I mean it's really a big task and I also want to thank our clerk for a clear presentation of the careful work you do and checking signatures I think I know how they do it at the state but I didn't know how we do it here and I really think that people the more they know how it works I think the more they understand and are impressed so thank you very much for

that. Those are my comments. Council Member Petoskey? I'll say to Dylann, yeah, that the visual of the pile of balance that you had to look over. I love the fact that you said we touched every signature. You know, it is a huge task, and I personally do appreciate all the work that you've done on that. It was monumental, and your staff, of course. Yes, yes, it's a team approach for sure.

Thank you.

Okay, seeing no further comments, we have a motion that's been seconded.

And will the senior deputy clerk please call the roll? Of course.

Gutowski?

Yes.

Arndt? Yes. Francis? Yes. Olsen? Yes. Pagyandi? Yes. Canonico? Yes. Pignatero?

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0. we'll go on to other business to council members have any items of other

business to come before council sure in accordance with section 2-29 of the city's municipal code I move that council call a special meeting to be held on August 12th 2025 at 300 the port of Avenue and council chambers starting at 5 p.m. for the purpose of consideration of a motion to go into executive session for legal advice related to federal grants second second

about Canonical discussion.

I'd just like to make note again that's at five,

and our meeting will start at six. So we're trying to keep it consistent for the public on the meeting scheduled at six. Okay. Do we have a second? I forgot. Okay, please call the roll.

Arndt. Yes. Francis. Yes. Olsen. Yes. Patiandi. Yes. Canonical. Yes. Pina Taro. Yes, get house key. Yes passes 7-0

Is there another item yes, I move that city council go into executive session pursuant to city charter article Roman numeral 2 section 11 to City code section 2 dash 31 a 2 and Colorado revised statute section 246 402 4b for the purpose of discussing with the city's attorneys and Appropriate management staff the following one specific legal questions related to potential litigation related to water service in northeast Fort Collins And to the manner in which the particular policies practices or regulations of the city related to water service in northeast four columns may be affected by existing or proposed provisions of federal state or local law second

seconded by

Members of the public Anybody saying none council members for the discussion saying none senior deputy clerk please call the roll

Francis yes Olsen yes Pachandes yes Canonico yes Pignataro yes Gutowski yes

Arndt yes we will now go in Oh that measure passes 7-0 We will now go into executive session There will be no further business after the completion of executive session This ends the broadcast For the evening

No it says broadcast

Podcast

podcast. We won't have a podcast either. And the broadcast is closed too. Thank you.