City Council Regular Meeting — August 19, 2025

But you're welcome to the... Okay. Are you going to stay? You don't have to come. That's fine. You can do whatever you like. Okay.

All right. Good evening, Fort Collins. Welcome to the proclamation portion of tonight's

council meeting. Tonight we have one proclamation, so we'll get right to it.

whereas the women of the United States have continuously worked to gain full rights and privileges public and private legal or institutional as citizens of the United States

and whereas women in every state and every culture and religious group work to secure women's right to vote and whereas Congress has designated August 26th the date the 19th amendment was certified as women's equality day and whereas recognizing women's equality day is

a day of celebration throughout the country emphasizes the importance of women's work for democracy.

Now, therefore, I, Jenny Art, Mayor of the City of Fort Collins, do hereby proclaim August

26, 2025, as Women's Equality Day, as a national day celebrating the importance of the women's suffrage movement and the work to secure and expand equal rights today. Would you like to say a few words?

Well, thank you, Mayor Art. That was lovely.

And my name is Julie Stackhouse.

I am a vice president of the League of Women Voters of Larimer County, along with several of my colleagues here tonight, including our president, Pat Berger. On behalf of the League of Women Voters, I would like to thank you for this meaningful proclamation recognizing Women's Equality Day.

As the mayor noted, it commemorates the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and reinforces our shared commitment to advancing gender equity in Larimer County and beyond. This proclamation is a powerful reminder of the generations of women who have fought and continue to fight for equal rights, access, and representation. We will have a recognition event this coming Thursday evening, and we will recognize one of Fort Collins' own former Mayor Pro Tem and now Larimer County Commissioner, Kristen Stevens. Among other accomplishments, Kristen will be honored for her work in promoting voting rights, serving as past chair of the Fort Collins Election Code Committee, adding transparency to the election code, educating citizens on how to participate in local government, and participating in community organizations that seek to enhance women's status, opportunities, and health care. We will also recognize our longtime League member, Anne Thompson. So we hope all of you in the community will consider joining us and visit the League's website for more information. So again, Mayor, I'd like to thank you for this proclamation, your leadership, and for standing with us in support of women's equality. Thank you very much. Thank you.

just to show them.

Go on. What if we go?

Okay, so we don't have the podium in the way? Okay. Hold up the proper meeting. Oh, yeah. Good idea.

Once you get in the middle.

There you go. Do you have any in it or not? Yes, fine. Okay. Okay. All right.

One, two, three. Okay.

One, two, three. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Good choice. Kristen's awesome.

Have a great celebration Thursday night. Thank you.

Can I keep the folder so I don't bend it? Okay.

That concludes our proclamation portion of tonight's meeting. Please join us at 6 p.m. for our business meeting.

Good evening, Fort Collins. The time is now 6 p.m. and I call the regular meeting the Fort Collins City Council to order. Will you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Arndt? Here. Francis? Here. Olson? Here. Potjandi? Here. Canonico? Here. Pignatero? Here. Gutowski? Here.

Great. Everybody's here. That's all seven of us. We appreciate all that you have joined us, either in person or virtually, and we're all here for the same purpose, which is the future of our community. That's something we all care about. I know we'll all be respectful and listen to each other while we're talking both before during and after be thoughtful about others and 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 do have just a couple changes to the published agenda and that was um regarding the attachments for items 26 and 27 there are updated versions of resolutions that were sent out yesterday. Tonight's consent calendar includes 24 items as published. I do want to note that the Foothills Metro District public hearing on the service plan and related public benefits agreement have been withdrawn by the applicant. So that was previously on the agenda is no longer there. And we do have three discussion items tonight. The first will be consideration of the civic assembly recommendations on the use of the Hughes, former Hughes stadium site, submitting for a vote at the November election to extend the CCIP, Community Capital Improvement Program, a quarter cent sales tax measure, and then also submitting for a vote at the November election for a citizen-initiated ordinance to continue the existing open space sales and use tax. And I do want to note that there were no protests filed before the new deadline on Monday for items 26 and 27.

it great thank you yes there are no community reports tonight so will the staff play the public participation video there are three ways to

participate in city council meetings in person in council chambers online 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 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.

file 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 welcome council will now hear public comment as a reminder council rules of order are to sign up for public comment at 5 30 so that we can have a list of people who wish to speak at this point we have 38 people who signed up to speak before 5 30 and that includes remotely and in person. So the rules of the chamber are we give an hour and a half for public comment at the beginning of the business meeting. And if it goes over, we go to the end. Usually we give three minutes, but in order to accommodate all 38 people, I think we should reduce it to 30 so no one has to wait until the end of the business meeting. So you can all count on two minutes and then we'll get everyone heard by the time we start into our consent and discussion items. Let's see. So when you can look up, the list is up there. What helps the most is if you alternate microphones and get ready to speak when the last person is done. When it's your turn to speak, please state your name, roughly where you live. You'll have a green light. At yellow light, you will get 30 seconds left. And at the red light, I will promptly and politely ask you to let the next person have their two minutes. So we are ready to go. Again, during open general public comment, you can speak on anything on the consent calendar, the discussion calendar, or any topic you like. If you'd like to save your comments for the discussion calendar, that's fine, but please no duplicates. Okay. So we'll get started with Sue.

Hi, I'm Sue Ballou, and I live in District 5.

So I've been volunteering in housing issues for about 11 years, and currently I'm on the board of Neighbor to Neighbor and volunteer with One Voice for Housing.

And I'm still always the least knowledgeable person in the room, but I've learned a few things.

One is that the people who are building housing, affordable housing in this county are amazing. The Harkside community just opened from care housing with houses from Habitat. Habitat provides first-time housing for people who otherwise wouldn't be able to own a home. Neighbor-to-neighbor houses tons of people and helps people stay in their homes, helps people buy their first home, and Housing Catalyst has done tons of great projects, including permanent supportive housing. And you know all this, but I'm just... And workforce housing, those kinds of things. And given even all the things they're doing, we're only helping 25% or 50% of the people. I think maybe it's 25. I got it wrong.

Kelly could correct me. But that are applying.

that are asking for help. I mean, we have a real crisis. It's gonna be worse given the bill that just passed in the feds and all those kinds of things. So I know I've been told by people that there's not a lot of money.

I want you to work on money, but also use these great people.

Use One Voice for Housing as a resource because I know there are other solutions too. and we need to pull things together. You guys have great ideas. They're in the trenches. They know what they're doing. Let's fix this as best we can. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next up is Jeffrey.

Madam Mayor, Councilmembers, I have some slides prepared. I'm not going to read them all. I'll read as fast as possible. If anyone would like a copy of this information, please come see me at the end. I'm Jeff Shumway. I live in District 3. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old and a baby on the way. My goal tonight is to bring maximum attention to the city's mosquito spraying program, the harms and dangers it's causing to our environment, our public and your health, and see if we as a council could do something immediately to put an end to this. Next slide. Just by quick way of background, the city is spending over $400,000 a year on West Nile virus management. It's my opinion that this is a far overreach, not needed. The chemicals they're spraying on us, I've provided many studies to show they're harmed to animals, pets, et cetera, and human life. It's called permethrin and TBO. As of Sunday night, next slide, the city has sprayed blanket areas of our neighborhoods for the sixth time in the hopes of combating West Nile virus. It's probably hit your neighborhood. Next slide. There's a myth out there from the manufacturer that this is a harmless pesticide that immediately dissipates in the air. That is not true. I have several EPA studies showing that this is extremely harmful to humans in low doses and it does accumulate in our environment. Next slide. from the manufacturer's own label they say that this poison is highly toxic to bees pollinators extremely toxic to fish all aquatic vertebrates the pbo exposure in women can cause malformations and birth defects in children next slide there's a myth that this dissipates in the air that is not true as well i found numerous studies showing that at our high altitude this stuff can blow everywhere it settles in the waters and in soils and it can have half-lives for several weeks bioaccumulation the worms everything in our city is eating it next slide we can skip right to that I already read that references next slide

again the city this is just to show in our budget we don't have enough money to put traps in certain part of the city so they're exempt next slide next slide next

Next slide.

The literature from the own company, VCDI, excuse me, VDCI, they say their biggest challenge

is that insects are becoming more and more resistant to their poison.

Their guides say their solution is to use more poison, switch to different poisons. Next slide.

The crux of my argument are basically that in the last 20.

Thank you very much. Just as a reminder, you can email your presentation to us and everyone can write to us at cityleaders.com and we do read those and get them. Thank you so much. If anyone would like to see my research, please. Okay. Joy?

Good evening, Council staff. I'm Joy Sullivan, President and CEO at United Way of Larimer County. Great to be here with you this evening.

I want to extend gratitude to City staff for the outreach and Council for your work in evaluating all of our communities' priorities as you consider the CCIP tax renewal. For over 65 years, United Way has raised and distributed funds in our community to address the most pressing issues.

We have raised funds through golf tournaments and galas.

Many of you have been to them. Donor campaigns and workplace giving. Our community is incredibly generous, but it's not enough.

We are seeing needs surpass what demand and philanthropic dollars can fill. And as you evaluate the allocations for the tax renewal, I implore you to think about the nice-to-haves and the must-haves.

The Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If families don't have places to tuck kids in at night, if they don't have homes to rest their heads and their weary bodies,

We don't have a workforce. We don't have people who can mow our parks, who can pave our pickleball courts, who can keep our open spaces vibrant and fresh. So as you look at the allocations, while $10 million of roughly 10% of the allocations is a step in the right direction, it's not enough. housing is our top infrastructure priority you all have articulated that in this housing strategic plan and more than 10% really should be devoted to

that bottom must-have in a time where we don't have a luxury of nice to have so thank you again as you make these decisions appreciate your work thank you

very much next is Mara Johnson

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Mara Johnson, and I serve as the Chief Development Officer of Fort Collins Habitat for Humanity. I'm here tonight on behalf of our organization and in alignment with One Voice for Housing and the MB Coalition.

First, I want to thank you for all of your leadership in recognizing housing as a critical community priority. The proposed $10 million allocation towards housing and the Community Capital Improvement Program is an important step forward.

but as you know it falls far short of the scale and urgency outlined in the housing strategic plan a plan that this council unanimously adopted and one that reflects our shared vision for Fort Collins for the families that we work with every day housing affordability is not an abstract issue it's a difference

between stability and crisis between building a future here in Fort Collins and being forced to leave the community that they call home at Habitat we've seen how transformational access to affordable homeownership can be not just

for individual families but for the long-term health and vibrancy of our city. The renewal of

this existing tax presents a unique opportunity to meet core community needs without increasing the burden on residents. Our neighbors have consistently said that affordable housing is a top concern. To not reflect that in this package would be a missed opportunity and frankly a

contradiction of the values and objectives that we all share. That's why we're asking you at minimum

to reallocate all excess tax collections from the expiring CCIP into the housing fund. We understand those collections will exceed $14 million by year end. Coupled with the proposed $10 million allocation, this brings us closer to the $25 million for which we and many others have long advocated. This approach strengthens the housing fund without diminishing support for other community priorities. A win for Fort Collins, and more importantly, a win for the families who are counting on all of us to act with urgency.

On behalf of Habitat and the families that we serve, thank you for your consideration and for your commitment to making Fort Collins a place where we all can thrive.

Thank you very much. Mary Alice Grant, remotely? Don't see? No. Okay. Kelly Evans.

Hello. My name is Kelly Evans. I live in District 4. My organization, Neighbor to Neighbor, owns affordable properties in District 1, 4, 5, 6, and in the county. We provide local housing services like emergency eviction prevention. So we know that we are in a housing crisis. Housing is the foundation for success, so when people can't find or afford homes, outcomes are not good. Many of the people here tonight may not personally feel the impact of the housing crisis, but the thousands of people needing neighbor-to-neighbor assistance do. We used to be able to meet most of the emergency housing needs in our community, which was good for landlords, clearly good for families avoiding homelessness. But now the majority of local renters can't afford to live here, and with so many people facing housing instability, we're only able to meet about 25% of the need. America is short 4 million units. So what we need is government officials to promote serious development of affordable housing. Housing is great because it's something we know the solution to. Renewal of the existing tax provides a perfect opportunity to address our community's number one need, affordable housing. The current budgeted CCIP housing allocation of $1 million per year does not adequately address this need. Increasing the allocation from the previous four million to 10 million over the course of the tax while rental housing costs have soared over 60% in the just the last 10 years is not responsive to the needs of so many residents and doesn't enable us to meet our own housing strategic plan. increasing the budget to 20 or 25 million for housing is responsive and while it won't create all of the units needed it's a crucial step in this

crisis thank you thank you very much Melissa Abrams next hi I'd like to

address the Hughes Stadium site. The council ballot measure, as far as I can tell, is based on a very small group of citizens compared to a petition from a large group of 6,301 valid signatures representing a large group of many people, many citizens. Petitioners do not want buildings, bathrooms, and parking lots where people of all ages go to hike, run, horseback ride, sled, play, disc golf, and many other outside activities. I don't think it's really a reasonable measure to put on the ballot to compete with a natural area thing that we put on the ballot. It's as if you are not happy with the overwhelming support of a natural area and have decided you prefer your ideas and to make them a reality despite what your electorate would prefer. this is the third petition we have passed on to you and the voters yet you keep trying to avoid the issue of hughes by promoting building and attracting large crowds to fort collins some of these ideas are just not in tune with what a majority of us would like to see on hughes um yeah on hughes and have let you let know that on petitions and ballots that you seem to reject maybe we should all keep things in perspective when oh sorry when my husband and I moved here in 1991 they were around 80,000 89,000 people now they're 170,000 and I think that the beauty of I'd like to remind you that you're working you're representing us and our wishes and please listen to the majority of us and make you stadium a continue a continuation from our natural area to the next one on those magnificent foothills thank you thank you sorry could you just state

your name for the record it's melissa abrams perfect district five oh thank thanks a lot okay

good evening i'm linda stanley and i also live in district five and i'm here tonight to represent yes to natural areas it all started in a fort collins living room in 1992 with a plan to put a citizen initiative on the ballot to protect the disappearing natural areas in and around Fort Collins. All local funding initiatives that year were rejected by voters, except for this one, the one-quarter cent sales tax, dedicated to purchasing and providing access to natural areas. 33 years later, the Natural Areas Program is a model for conservation, restoration, and outdoor access. Yet unlike most city programs, it relies on sales tax revenue that can disappear if not renewed regularly by the voters. So for two months this spring and summer, local volunteers gathered over 9,300 signatures to qualify a citizen-led initiative to continue the one-quarter cent natural area sales tax without expiration. Some of those volunteers are in the audience tonight. tonight. We're asking tonight for your yes vote to place citizen initiated ordinance number two on November's ballot, item 27. As background, this past year, Yes to Natural Areas worked with Natural Areas staff and the city attorney to ensure we have ballot language that will work for citizens, for the Natural Areas Department, and for the city of Fort Collins, and of course, for the natural areas themselves. We would like to thank staff for their willingness to work with yes to natural areas. In addition, we would like to thank the city clerk in our office for their professionalism and their helpfulness in moving through the petition process. In summary, by placing this initiative on the ballot, we give voters a chance to preserve our natural areas legacy forever while protecting even more critical wildlife habitat, expanding access to nature and recreation and restoring conserved lands thank you thank you very much next up we

have am I gonna say this right is that as Raya

good evening mayor and council my name is is Raya Steyer from district 3 I'm here tonight to talk about section 15 108 of the municipal code which reads in

part. No solicitor shall enter or remain upon any private premises in the city if a no soliciting sign is posted at the entrances to such premises. If an occupant of a multi-unit dwelling wishes to prohibit door-to-door solicitation, the sign prohibiting solicitation must be posted at or near the entrances to the occupant's individual dwelling. Now I think it's pretty clear that the

intent of this section was to require these signs to be placed on the individual residence doors. But I have been struck recently by the number of apartment complexes, including my own, that place no solicitation signs at the entrance to the complex itself, effectively prohibiting solicitation

throughout the entire complex. And I understand that many people dislike door-to-door solicitation. I respect that. I have no problem with someone putting a no soliciting sign on their own door.

And I think that everyone who goes door to door should respect those signs. What I do have a problem with is someone putting a sign for someone else's residence. And that's effectively what a no soliciting sign on an apartment complex does. It precludes every resident in that apartment complex from making their own decision. So Mayor Council, I'd like to let you clarify that section of municipal code to reflect your original intent and allow residents, not property managers, to make the decision as who knocks on their doors. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next.

Yeah. To avoid confusion, I should have relabeled it voter education. The city clerk's office is working on what is being called a voter education document. Could you just state your name for the record? Oh, I'm sorry. Paul Patterson, District 2. Thank you. The city clerk's office is working on what is called a voter education document that will be available online at some undisclosed time before the election. Some questions regarding this document. Voters are familiar with the blue book for the statewide elections, which explains ballot measures brought forward by the legislature and by citizen initiative. Voters are given a pro and con statement submitted by the public for each ballot measure. Will the city conform to this standard or not? And if so, what will the process be for approving the pro and con statements? Next, will the city staff educational text be presented to the council and subject to public comment and therefore not in a work session and more germane to the upcoming and germane to the upcoming election. Will the document include a section that educates voters on the competing ballot measures on the future use of Hughes? Thank you in advance for any answers you can provide.

Thank you. Rory King. Hi, Mayor and Council. Thank you. My name is Rory King, and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of United Way of Lamar County and with the One Voice for Housing Coalition. Affordable housing consistently rises to the top of our community priorities, and yet we're still only funding affordable housing through the community capital improvement tax at $10 million. I do understand and appreciate that this is an increase from the $4 million proposed, but still not nearly enough, as my colleagues have said, to address one of our community's top infrastructure needs. investing more in affordable housing through renewing a tax is a critical and strategic interim measure while Longer term solutions to funding affordable housing are addressed. Many of our organizations in the One Voice for Housing Coalition, including United Way, exist to serve families who are struggling to make ends meet. And when I look at the current CCIP list, I have to wonder whose priorities do these actually reflect? Who's missing? And what are we saying we care about as a community if we vote to spend our money on making Fort Collins auxiliary for some rather than livable for many? According to the new Colorado Alice data, one in four households in Larimer County are struggling to afford basic needs, housing being one of the most costly. When it comes to taking care of our community and ensuring that the most vulnerable of us are able to continue to live here, especially in a time when critical basic supports like SNAP and Medicaid are being slashed at the federal level, we have to prioritize needs over wants. I urge you to find the funds to invest at least 25 million in housing through reallocating the 14 million dollars left over from the expiring CCIP tax. Thank you. Thank you, rich

Clarification I saw I was up twice up there and those comments later should be for later time Rich Dave, Average Citizen of Fort Collins, 80525. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Counselors. Item number 17, battery storage. Is this really a PRPA need? What is about the use versus the cost? The tenant is PRPA. The landlord is the City of Fort Collins. This is a flag lot within the city boundaries. There's a lot of sublease clauses, so it's not like PRPA is going to do all the work. It's just going to farm it out forever. Now, there are financial repercussions from that, and ultimately that comes back to the landlord. So there's non-interference clause that is kind of weird because I say, what about Fort Collins granting interference if somebody needs to enter a homeowner's residence? The city of Fort Collins granted that. So it's $10 a year. I want some property with a lease of $10 a year. On item 19, the sales lodging and liquor tax, my question is, CSU shows up as a basically inside the Fort Collins boundaries, but I'm not aware of any taxes they pay to the city of Fort Collins. Item number 22, the widening of the runway at Northern Colorado. There's a whole lot of building that goes along in that area. Who's collecting all the taxes on everything that gets sold out of those buildings? Does the city of Fort Collins share in that? Or does that all go on to the city of Loveland and other entities? I think we're missing out at times when we're asking for us to cough up a lot of money, but we're not asking other people to help pay for the bill. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next.

Good evening, Council members. I'm Karen Avila from District 5, and I'm here representing Hughes for Everyone, a committee in support of Agenda Item 025, Ordinance 141. I want to sincerely thank Council and City staff for embracing the will of the voters from 2021 ballot initiative and the thoughtful recommendations made from the Civic Assembly process. Your dedication ensures the opportunity for Hughes as a site to be used for parks, recreation, open lands, natural areas, wildlife rescue, and restoration. This site represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Fort Collins. Together, we can restore land impacted by nearly five decades of prior use. to create a collaborative space dedicated to natural areas, conservation, and education, to demonstrate and restore critical grassland wildlife and habitat, and expand recreational opportunities accessible to all citizens, and close to my heart, to provide a place for wildlife rehabilitation. As a citizen of the Hickory Apache heritage, I also thank you for your efforts to involve the Native and Indigenous communities in shaping this vision. Through your leadership, you are creating a community where renewal is a place of life and making hues for everyone a place to connect, conserve, and recreate. Thank you again for your service to our choice city.

Thank you very much. Next.

Nuke Danielle North King Niega. Nuke Nu. My name is Danielle North King. I'm Chimwevi in Lakota. I'm from District 3, and I'm here to make some comments on the Hughes Stadium site as well.

I've been made hopeful by the formal recommendations of the Civic Assembly regarding the Hughes Stadium site.

The diverse needs of our community, as identified by the supermajority topics,

reflect an overwhelming desire to live in right relationship with the land and her beings. What is also clearly identifiable is which path forward to take.

Repeatedly and with great specificity, the Civic Assembly participants recommended that,

and I quote, indigenous groups be consulted in each step of the development of the entire property, end quote. Going down the list of the remaining supermajority topics, without fail, they address the need to heal and respect the land. They demonstrate that they were keenly aware that this calls for thoughtful and intentional impact

by structures, artificial lighting, and trail usage. Within the details, they repeatedly express a desire to create spaces and offer opportunities

for the exchange of knowledge and wisdom from the Native American community. This only makes sense and has been a long time coming. Records show that 13,000 years ago, water flowed freely and cleanly.

The air and sky were clear and supported the health of all those living on the land.

The soil, plants, medicine, food were freely given and gathered. All that lived in the area, including the humans, and in service of one another, supported the area and its health. Perhaps this is why the members of our community recognize the urgency and need for the original stewards of this land

to teach what living in right relationship with the land and her beings looks like.

I assure you that can't be taught in a few hours, allowed on a day-use permit. It cannot be conveyed on placards. A way of existence, a value system, must be immersive and accessible.

This requires no less than unfettered access to a safe space for Native Americans to begin the work of rebuilding the connection. Thank you. Thank you. Next.

Good day, my relatives. My name is Andre Dunn. I'm a common person. In many ways, it becomes clearer each day that our efforts to rematriate sacred lands have been woven into a greater endeavor to have our legally held rights as indigenous people, American Indians, acknowledged and respected by the local government.

The entire concept of land back would be unnecessary if we as Native people were respected in the rights we hold to freely practice our traditional and spiritual practices. This means planting and harvesting traditional foods and medicines, asking only the Earth Mother for her gifts of life. This means building and maintaining a traditional sweat lodge, holding four-day ceremonies and traditional rites of passage for the youth. I'll offer some homework for the city staff to consider about upholding the Constitution and respecting the civil liberties and human rights of indigenous peoples, known as American Indians, under federal law.

the Indian Non-Intercourse Act of 1834, the Spring Canyon Archaeological Site Studies of the Prehistoric Occupation of this Hogback Water Gap of Larimer County,

the Treaty of Horse Creek in 1851,

the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Protection Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. There are many more.

The decisions recently outlined by the city in regard to Hughes do not represent the values and recommendations put forth through the civic assembly process,

and it seems clear that the city has no interest in conducting meaningful consultation among local or historically displaced indigenous communities. The city's commitments to indigenous communities are intertwined with the responsibilities we have to conduct tribal consultation

in effective and meaningful ways. I please ask that the city take their time

in doing this consultation process and do it the right way. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mary?

Hello, Mayor and Council. I'm Mary and I live in District 3. I'm an aspiring graffiti artist here in Fort Collins and wanted to talk to you about creating an outlet for legalized graffiti in the city. I am very respectful of the laws and private property, and I would never graffiti without prior permission. Sadly, that leaves me very few opportunities to practice my art. Fort Collins is a welcoming place for many types of art, allowing legalized graffiti adds to our city's cultural diversity. I wanted to propose one of the city's underpasses, such as the one on College or Timberline, for a legal graffiti zone. I think the underpasses are ideal for several reasons. First, they are pretty ugly to begin with, so even if you dislike the look of graffiti, I doubt it will make it worse. Second, they are out of the way, so if some people dislike them, it should be easy to avoid. Third, they are separated from other buildings or surfaces, so there is little chance for things to get out of hand. Fourth, there is plenty of space inside for multiple artists to paint. I know there might be some worry that graffiti might encourage crime by making the underpass look unmaintained. I think a small sign to indicate that this is a community art project would suffice. I think the underpass will make a good candidate for a pilot program, but I am also open to ideas if anyone has any concern about this location or has a different location they would prefer. The important thing is that we stop making graffiti artists have to choose between following the law and creating their art. I think it's time for Ford Collins to create a safe, legal outlet for graffiti to work in this city. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Patricia.

Hi, everybody. I'm Patricia Babbitt, District 6. And last night, I attended the mayoral forum at the Visitor's Center. and unfortunately within minutes, I forgot pretty much all that I had heard. Most candidates, except one, spent lots of time talking about themselves and very little time answering their randomly selected questions. Only one candidate spoke about how the decisions we make here in Fort Collins can have a strong impact on bigger world problems, such as environmental destruction, climate change, human conflicts, and so on. As candidates indicated that they wanted to give back to their communities, all I could think was how too frequently their communities seemed to be the investor, developer, and special interest group communities. Many spoke of their interests in affordable housing, public transit, environmentalism, and marginalized communities, including indigenous people whom they, and most members of the Civic Assembly have lumped together into a single group, even though among these groups we can find lots of diversity and historical traditions. Per usual, the least represented group was the wildlife dependent on the Hughes land. Please do not create a new ballot measure to confuse your constituents more than they already are. please let them vote yes to make Hughes a natural area or no to let it become a high-impact recreational developers, investors, and special interest groups dream. Thank you.

Thank you. Next.

Your turn. Hi. John Gascoigne. I'm a local lawyer and as such I was one of the three designated representatives on the 1992 petition to keep open the open space.

That's about it. That's all I have to say. It's an important, important issue.

You folks know what you have to do.

So that's my short speech. Thank you.

Next up is Linda H. Is there Linda H? Seeing no. Terry Clark?

I don't see Terry Clark. Okay, Kimberly Connor? Kimberly Connor, DSA, member of the Human Services and Housing Funding Board, but not representing the board at this time. On July 28th, two Israeli human rights groups declared the war to be a genocide. The fact that you continue to be silent on this issue while our own city is directly involved shows that the most peaceful place in America, title that Fort Collins recently received, is not due to lack of disturbances, but rather due to apathy, a sort of pleasantville where our leaders are silent in the face of injustice. Any person in a position of authority who has not spoken out to end the genocide in Gaza lacks the integrity required to be in their position. This includes military officers, judges, police, political party leaders, you as elected officials, and anyone else who can affect or enforce government policies. If you can't even say the words that genocide is bad and do something to stop it, how can we trust you to protect anyone, especially now? Now that our federal government is coming after local residents and citizens. To be silent now is the same moral equivalent as staying silent during the Holocaust. The confirmed child death count in Gaza is over 18,000. Remember, this is the low base number. It is likely much higher. If we were to use the Lancet method, the estimated child deaths would be at 92,000. That's more than the child population of Larimer County. So my thought experiment for you to get you to understand just how horrific this genocide is. Today, until the next city council meeting, I would ask that you visualize the children you meet in our community as the murdered children of Gaza.

Every single child, every time you meet them, because it's almost guaranteed we've killed that many children. Every child in your neighborhood, every child in every school in town. That is what we have done to Gaza. That is what we continue to fund in Gaza and empty platitudes will not wash the blood off our hands. Only actions can even attempt to do that. Call for a ceasefire and arms embargo.

Okay, Sid, remotely, please go ahead.

Good evening, council members. My name is Sid Pudgate. Can you guys hear me? Yes, please go ahead. Yep. My name is Hurt Padke and I live in District 6. I want to speak about the chronic nuisance property at the Fort Collins Mennonite Fellowship. For nearly two years, this property has been under an abatement agreement and a revised agreement. Yet, despite those measures, violations continue. I have personally documented these violations for over a year. Last Friday, while walking my dog at 10 p.m., I began recording yet another violation, individuals on the property after the 9 p.m. curfew, when I was assaulted by someone who threw a glass bottle that shattered on my leg. This is not an isolated incident. In just the past 30 days, this block has seen an arson, a weapons violation, multiple disturbances, trespasses, noise complaints, and other city court violations. I now no longer feel safe walking on the 300 block of East Oak. And it's a shame when residents cannot fully enjoy their neighborhood and their public spaces because of this ongoing safety concern. So I have three clear requests for counsel. Number one, enforce the abatement agreement and its revisions, which are now nearly two years old. Number two, the perceived responsibility for monitoring and documenting after-hours violations of the abatement agreement should not fall on citizens. Number three, the police department should be fully informed of the abatement terms so that officers can identify and respond to violations appropriately. Currently, when a neighbor calls, non-emergency staff often indicate they are unaware of the agreement and suggest that reporting the issue on the property is not the responsibility of a nearby resident.

Thank you very much. I'm sorry. Two minutes goes quite quickly. Thank you for your comments. Adam, you're next.

Hello, my name is Adam Hirshhorn and I'm running for mayor. Last night it was a real wet blanket. Tonight I want to bring the faith to beat the odds. I listened to and I like your ideas on synergy and densification. I want to renew our commitment to North Fort Collins equity, let's exceed expectations.

We need affordable housing. I propose we build a more easily funded resilience and sustainability campus and sprinkle that housing on top like Spice Bay.

Here's the plan. Vertical mixed use towers with angular solar exposure.

Shop space for local business. 700 units of affordable housing with local finishers. You get locally stylized homes keeping construction dollars local. Community and farm-to-table greenhouses, food security, unique dining opportunities, and stronger production to retail relationships. Cooperative ownership options shield us against speculative investors, growth we can hold on to. Public plazas and amphitheaters, stormwater and microgrid resilience building to keep lights on and the taps flowing.

Prestige architecture to solidify our legacy.

A charter school for sustainability as a cultural engine for promoting regenerative agriculture.

Closed loop systems, green design, a definite standout for families aligned with our values.

Transparent water and energy dashboards, living metrics that make sustainability visible for residents, researchers, and policymakers.

makers, deep immersion in sustainability for an entire community, food forests, pollinator

gardens, so much more, and all that affordable housing. The genie's out of the bottle. Beat it, beat it with a stick, but the idea is out there.

I'm Adam Hirschhorn, and I'm running for mayor. Thank you. Ellie?

Hi, I'm Ellie Souter. I'm 13 and I live in District 5. I'm here to encourage our city council to prioritize a 35-acre bike park

because I've never been to a bike park. The reason being that my parents would have to drive me to another city,

the closest being 35 minutes away.

And I don't know about you, but my family tries to stay in Fort Collins as much as possible because we love our city and we prefer to keep our tax dollars here. Another point I'd like to make is that a bike park is a great place for younger kids to start building confidence in their mountain biking skills. In conclusion, our cities should invest in a bike park. Thank you.

Thank you. Mac?

Hi, my name is Mac Tudor, and I think it would be great to have a bike park

because we don't have very large ones in Fort Collins.

I've been wanting one like Burstead or Valmont, so I think it would be a great

to have a new bike park. Thank you.

Thank you. Poppy?

Hi, my name is Poppy and I'm 10 years old.

I am part of the Wolfpack Biking Club here in Fort Collins.

I want to bike park in Fort Collins so that I can have a place to spend more time with my friends working on technical skills.

Also, a bike park is a safe place to ride away from cars.

Andrea?

Hi, my name is Andrea, and I live in District 5. You've just heard from my three children. My family is very actively involved in the biking scene in Fort Collins. This event, this city council meeting, is the third event my children have biked to just today. We've been to the doctor and the dentist and now to see Mayor Jenny. I'm here to urge you as a city council to keep the proposed bike park at the full 35 acres at the Hughes Stadium site.

It is a large plot of land and 35 acres is a very small percentage of that. I would also like to encourage you to keep the predetermined monetary allotment that's already been discussed dedicated towards this project. A 35-acre bike park will provide enough space for riders of all ages and skill levels, including my children who are just growing in their mountain bike skills. For comparison, the two nearest bike parks, which my oldest daughter referenced in Berthoud, is 20 acres and 42 acres in Valmont. Berthoud's population is 13,000 people. Valmont, outside of Boulder, their population is at 106,000. These are both substantially less than Fort Collins' population. Shrinking the acreage of our bike park would limit its impact and fall short of what our bike-centric, our platinum bike city community truly needs.

This bike park will be a safe, positive space for children just like mine, teens, adults alike, a place where health, community, and outdoor recreation come together. Let's keep this vision bold, keep the acreage intact, and keep the funding where it was meant to go for the children of Fort Collins. Thank you for your time tonight.

Thank you. Kevin?

Hi, I'm Kevin Krause, District 1. Council, thank you for taking initiative to listen to the community, including in really novel ways. We really appreciate it. I'm here speaking to the significance of how far the community conversation has come with regards to this community-scale bike park, and that's really exciting. We all know the history and that this came up to Council about 15 years ago. Now there's been unprecedented engagement and feedback that you all received and you're in a position to bring voices of the community to concrete actions. You heard the needs in the Parks and Rec's master plan. The bike park feasibility study that you put forth as an initiative got the specifics to come from the community as well, including the appropriate scale for Fort Collins. You received incredibly thoughtful multi-use recommendations coming out of the Civic Assembly, which really represent our community's values. These are all clear indicators that a bike park is a priority now and not later for the city. We thank you again for listening to all the voices, and we really want to see those outcomes not be diminished at this point in time. This includes the Civic Assembly recommendation to retain 35 acres for that use. And it should be noted, as previous presenters pointed out, that it is right scale for our community. It also should be noted that other facilities, such as Valmont noted, are mostly grassland in those types of areas. Additionally, please ensure that the CCIP package includes the $5 million for the bike park planning and development. There will be trade-offs and that's understood, but the community has made it clear that the time is now for this priority. We really have an opportunity here to create an amazing and safe place for kids of all ages, for community members of all ages. And we should really lean into this. This is so exciting that we can create this. Thank you.

Thank you. Forrest? Is Forrest here?

No. Okay, Ethan.

Thank you. Good evening, Council. I'm Ethan Billingsley. I'm from District 4. I want to share my support of the allotted size for the mountain bike park and the funding that had been discussed previously. If you'll allow me, I'm going to share a little bit about my background because I think it's going to add meaning to my comment.

I'm employed at the local university here as a faculty member in the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources Department. I teach in natural resource recreation issues and have for about 15 years.

My undergraduate and graduate education were from that same department.

So long-time Fort Collins resident here. I've worked as an environmental educator for many years.

and the meaning that I hope to express through that is the pro-environmental behaviors that we

become more comfortable with our environment, we become more loving of our environment the

more time we spend in it. And so let me just briefly share a recent study in the journal Earth just this year cited that our human connection to the natural world has declined

60% in the last 200 years. And if you think about our population and where we live in 1900, 40% of folks lived in cities. That's now 80%. So you can imagine our connection to the natural world

has diminished greatly. Here's where I get to tell you that I think a bike park and the size of the

bike park is a great venue for our youth and people of all ages to build and maintain a connection to

our natural world. And so I hope that you'll continue to support the size of the bike park and the funding for the bike park in hopes of maintaining those connections. Thank you so much. Thank you. June?

I'm sorry. I have to enforce the rules. There's no clapping in the chamber.

Hi, my name is June Porter. Our family has been trying to get a bike park nearby for year. But no luck. My dad owns a biking website called YGR. He talks about how we've been trying

to do this since 2011. That's five years before I was born. Kids need a place to bike, yes, but so do younger kids. There are not much places for them. They get sent out to the road, which is not

as safe as it could be. And you can't just go out on big jumps right away. You need to work your way up but there aren't much places to to practice biking year-round is not easy in Fort Collins but most bike parks are built to be able to in the winter to be

able to ride in the winter kids my age are mostly staring at a TV screen but with a bike park, they could learn they love biking more than a TV. Thank you for listening. I hope you have a good day.

Thank you very much.

Let's see. I've come to my attention. Two people that I called earlier weren't here. We're just going to put you at the end tonight. So that would be Forrest and Terry. I'll call you at the end of the list. So we'll go to Michelle.

hi my name is michelle hastings and i am a parent and a resident in district four i have three young boys 12 6 and 8 and they're over here um we moved to fort collins about eight years ago and we just love that fort collins really valued outdoor spaces outdoor

Ways to get outside, to bike on paths, to bike on roads, to walk on paths, to walk in parks, all those things we love. And we've appreciated them. A bike park would, I think, greatly add to this community. It would also bring other people in. And I feel like as a parent, I want my children to be able to engage with nature. And biking is also a lifelong skill. We may not all own cars in the future, and we may not all own cars in college or wherever. And so we encourage that skill in our children, and we would encourage that here.

So I would ask that the council would continue to push through what the people of the city has shown they desire to keep the 35 acres and to keep the budget that you've discussed.

Thank you so much for listening to our comments. We appreciate you guys. Thank you. Next up is Brad. Hi, good evening. My name is Brad Pippenbrink. I'm a proud Fort Collins business owner of Recycled Cycles. I'm also an active member of the Overland Mountain Bike Association, but I'm most proud to be here as a Fort Collins dad,

and I'm here to advocate for more opportunities for my kids and their friends to safely ride bikes and enjoy what we call the promised land of Fort Collins. I can tell you firsthand as a business owner that our customers, your neighbors, are moving off the pavement due to the safety risk. Our customers are constantly asking our advice on safe places to ride bikes. This bike park and the connected trails can be that answer. The site can be the crown jewel for Fort Collins as a recreational hub, and frankly, the community deserves it and has been asking for it for many decades. The return on investment for our community and local economy is a no-brainer. I urge you to each support the Hughes Civic Assembly process that clearly puts a bike park in their recommendation. with a 35-acre perimeter. We're talking about less than a quarter of the Hughes property. Fort Collins is a bike town, and we can prove that with the $5 million in funding to truly design something special for our community. If you put these measures on the ballot with the recommended 35 acres and the $5 million in funding, I promise you that parents in this community will come out in full force in November and make sure that we are all successful. This project can be an incredible legacy for this council, and I hope you support it. Thank you for your time and your service to our wonderful community.

Thank you. Krista?

Hi, my name is Krista Pipe and Brink. I am a mother of two young children who love to bike. Four years ago, we were fortunate enough to move to Fort Collins,

to this beautiful town known for its world-class bike infrastructure. The only thing missing besides a few safer intersections is a bike park. Currently, we have to drive to surrounding towns to find a safe space for our kids to ride bikes. Biking has helped our kids to create community. The kids here this evening, none of them go to school together. They have all met solely based on the fact that they love to ride their bikes. They all share the love of being outdoors and spending time on their bikes, which as parents, what more could we want? They aren't glued to a screen. They're spending time outdoors developing healthy exercise skills, building relationships with others in the community, and gaining confidence learning new skills. Keeping the bike park apart of the recommendation on the ballot will provide a safe area for these kids to continue to do all these things. We thank you for your support.

Thank you.

Patterson?

Hello. My name is Patterson Hastings, and I live in District 4. I am 12 years old, and I love biking. I think that it's super fun and it's good for you.

Most kids, as June said, they spend a lot of time on screens, the time that they could be spending biking.

Biking is a good and healthy activity.

Not everyone can take the time to drive a long way to get to fun, safe bike parks.

One super close would be much better for families with little children.

We...

Thank you for it. Thank you.

Thank you. Asad?

Hi, good evening.

My name is Asad Aziz. I'm a resident of District 6, and I've been a resident in Fort Collins for about more than 40 years. And despite my bike helmet here, I'm not talking about the bike park. I just rode my bike here. I'm here to support my neighbor, Sid. You heard from him a little bit earlier. This has been a problem that we have addressed or attempted to address with the city, and the city staff has worked very hard to put the nuisance ordinance in place and the agreements in place. But I think that what we're learning is that's not enough. We also have to put an enforcement mechanism in place. The idea of a neighbor being attacked is horrific. I have daughters who visit, their friends visit. They do not want to cross the street on that block. We hear screams all the time. And I think the concern that sometimes when we call code compliance,

we are told that they don't work past 5 o'clock. Well, what's the point? Most code violations are in the evening, late at night, and so on.

So I think it really needs a bit of a discussion to see, you know, are the mechanisms, as Sid said, are the mechanisms that we have in place, are they doing what we need to do? You know, is code compliance's, you know, regular workday hours,

are they what the community needs? Well, it's clear that in our community, in District 6, it's not working.

So again, I would like to just support my neighbor and all my neighbors and the city staff by asking that we assign resources, we reprioritize. Thank you very much.

Jen, remotely?

We don't have a Jen remotely. Okay. Terry Clark.

There you are. Hi, I'm Terry Clark. I live in District 2. Live where you work and work where you live. This is an item of discussion.

It's great advice I was given. I've given it to my kids.

The struggle for many, what is considered affordable housing, it's kind of unattainable

in our community to a large chunk of our work industry, including mine.

I was once a rent burdened single mom, one income earner, three school-aged kids.

The opportunity with Habitat for Humanity had allowed me homeownership, which was the

most stabilizing event for myself and my now thriving 20-something-year-old college-age

graduates. They're local leaders in our community and in their work industries, and as well as my own career.

providing homeownership contributes so much to our community yet the median home income prices

make the homeownership out of reach in the 10 years since i built my home the cost of my same

home is doubled in value or in cost here so we're asking that you please fund the ccip for affordable

housing at the 25 million to match the goals that your adopted for collins housing strategic plan

has allotted because home is key for thriving residents in our community. As you can see, everybody loves the idea of the bike park too, which I totally support. So thank you.

Thank you. Forrest.

Thank you, elected officials. I apologize for my delay. I have three young kids myself, one a sick baby at home and a wife that works in healthcare. So there was a childcare transition. I noted we had a lot of youth here speaking about that. And I'd like to mention something told to me by Senator Hickenlooper at the outside summit in Denver in May. On average, 14-year-olds in our country spend an average of seven minutes outdoors a day. That's less than incarcerated people get allotted. I'm not here today to talk about the youth, though. They've spoken for themselves. The parents have as a parent. I agree. What I'm here is to educate the elected officials on the value of progression recreation infrastructure for all ages. It's very important to realize that recent psychology studies have shown when studying rock climbing and mountain biking, that the combination of physical and mental skills development and problem solving creates the greatest return on cognitive mental growth and maintenance, all ages. That's very important for children, but it's also very important for my age, older. It's also important because in addition to that is the emotional growth, the confidence growth that comes with skills development. Now, the issue here is we're talking about shrinking a bike park. To have proper progression infrastructure, you have to have a certain amount of size. You have to have the full spectrum from the beginner introduction to the expert. For the disabled to the regular abled, it has to be fair and inclusive for everyone. So it is very important for progression infrastructure to have enough size, features, and infrastructure to suit all and create a linear growth curve for skills development that will go through. Additionally, other returns of progression recreation infrastructure include creating vested conservationists and environmentalists because they get exposed Those are the outdoors. They are enticed to get there. They are enticed to return. It creates business and employer attraction and retention for a community. Because what do you want in your community? Do you want people that want challenges and are problem solvents? Because that's what the businesses want. So the businesses are going to go where the infrastructure is that attracts the families and the people that have that desire to grow, be stronger, and better themselves. And I would think any community would want that like ours.

Thank you very much. That brings our public comment for this post. Again, you can comment on any consent item or a discussion item or I'm sorry just discussion item coming up if you'd like to so I will go to Anyone on council for public comment follow-up

Good all right. Well, I have two things because I think we're gonna have opportunities to discuss more in depth

Some of the topics later this evening, but as always I wanted to thank everybody who came out

I know that all of you probably had more fun things you could have been doing than speaking here at council But it's so important and for our youth who are in here You all certainly had more fun stuff

You could have been doing tonight than sitting in council chambers and we're really really grateful to hear your voices and see your faces in here

So thank you for for taking taking a school night to hang out with us

My other question is I'm just hoping that maybe our City Clerk could speak to some of Paul's questions about our local blue book.

I think it's a great opportunity and I know people are anxious to hear some details.

Sorry for making you run all the way up. There she comes.

Well, thank you for the opportunity to speak to this. We are putting together the first blue book. We're working on it right now as we speak. We do plan to have pro-con statements in there How we get them we're still kind of looking at I'm going to use the ordinances and resolutions as a first place to start We'll look at the Civic Assembly recommendations as well as a first place to start We'll look at feedback that we've received from people through emails and different things To try to get all perspectives shown We only have so much real estate, right? So we'll have to summarize some of the comments and you know, it's not going to be word for word from everybody but we are going to do the best we can to give information about the items give people an opportunity to hear both pros and cons and Put that together as a resource for people

Thank you Dylan are there going to be any other folks who would be reviewing that language or is it just an internal process with the clerk's office?

Right now it's just an internal process. We've been working with the city attorney's office, of course, and we do have an outside third party who's helped other communities with the same kind of what he's called factual summaries. And so we'll be looking at those kinds of things. I would welcome feedback from people, though. So if people want to send me emails and different things, like I said, I will use feedback that I've heard and seen already. but we'd love to get more feedback from people both ways pros and cons for the items that are coming and then I do plan to send it out at least to the for the citizens who have initiatives they will they will get a chance to look at it and get it get a chance to weigh in I think that's important all right thanks for

answering those questions and thanks for the hard work I think this has been an ask from the community for a very long time they just want to have that I appreciate they really want to have the understanding and be informed voters and You know, it's a heavy lift. So thank you. Yeah, you're welcome

Go ahead. Yeah, I'm wondering I don't know if we have someone here to talk about the Mennonite Church But can we get a follow-up memo on could because I know that they have been in violation of the public nuisance ordinance and then where they are in any enforcement issues and

More information. Yeah, I'm happy to provide a follow-up on that It is an area that we continue to actively enforce and follow up on and so I do think a memo Would be helpful there to just explain the extent of that great. Thank you Go ahead council member canonical Yeah, I'm wondering if we have someone here who could speak to Jeff's questions about the mosquito spraying I know that we've seen a few emails with concerns about this

Yes, we do. Thank you This is a program that has been in place for several years now and has had a lot of research and policy work that's gone into it. So I'm going to ask Matt Parker, who is our ecological stewardship manager for the city, and also is currently overseeing the West Nile program to speak to that. So Matt? Yeah, thank you very much. And I appreciate

the opportunity to talk about West Nile virus. It's been a really challenging year, as was two years ago, also a very challenging year. And I just want to highlight That two years ago, the challenge was really in mosquito abundance. And this year, it's really in an infection rate. And so those are two different aspects of how we measure the risk of West Nile virus. And, you know, we do have a meaningful budget. Each year, we go out and we do a lot of proactive work, and we're doing a lot of larval control. Jeff mentioned our budget of $400,000. All of that is on larval control and data development. So we're trapping mosquitoes and testing them and understanding what rate those mosquitoes have West Nile virus and what risk that presents the community. It's a very challenging problem to have. I mean, every year is so very different. And, you know, we're constantly checking resistance and, you know, toxicity is a concern of ours. That's just like any pesticide that we use. We have to be very diligent in how we do that. And so, you know, we're very cognizant of the dosage and the timing of the application. As a natural areas ecologist, one thing that I'm always looking at is what is the impact to non-target pollinators? And one thing that I've seen this year, and this is very anecdotal, but we track this and observe, we have more pollinators visiting gardens in homes now than we ever have, right? That follows the emphasis that we've had as a community. And that is a wonderful thing. And one thing that I see is that different species of bees leave flowers at different times in the evening. And so one thing that we've adjusted this year to accommodate that is moving that spraying back even further because you know Honeybees are actually a little bit earlier to leave and we have other native bees that leave a little bit later So that's just an example of we're constantly looking to improve the program and how we approach this

Thank you for that follow-up

oh do i did want to ask about um the question about the no soliciting sign if we could get

more information on that oh okay so before we switch topic while he's here oh we had a cat

sorry don't go away yeah let's we'll stay on the same topic go ahead council member gintusky

that's okay um just a quick follow-up since we have you here might as well ask a couple of

questions. I, you know, since we've been spraying, I have worried about the bees and the critters and,

and, you know, the, the, the water, all of the same things that, that were mentioned in the, in the comment. But I also have had questions about what it does to organic gardens.

I think with, with any pesticide, you know, you're going to want to wash that off. I mean, it's, It doesn't necessarily persist and get through the skin of tomatoes or anything like that. I tell people that when my area is sprayed, I go out and I run the sprinklers and I wash off the garden. And at that point, I feel pretty comfortable. I also recognize that people have different levels of comfort with that. But that's the guidance that's generally given through EPA and other areas.

If they're certified organic gardeners, would that interfere with their ability to sell their product if it's been tainted with a spray?

We offer two opt-outs for spraying adult mosquitoes. One is a pesticide-sensitive registry that you would register through the state of Colorado if you have medical issues. and the second is a business opt-out for those that can demonstrate hardship from a business perspective. And so in both those cases, we would honor a buffer.

Any further questions about the Mosquito Springs program?

I suppose I'll just say thank you very much for your careful work. I'm confident that you do it with the least impact.

Animals also get West Nile too, so you have to balance those impacts on those deaths

And I think people know I lived in Mozambique for six years. It was a heavy malarial country.

And we are actually really fortunate to have the tools here to keep animals and populations safe.

So I'm appreciative of the program and the care you do it with. Thank you. Yep.

Okay, next topic. Was it to you, Councilmember Canonico?

Yes, no solicitation. The question on that. Oh.

a clarification on the no soliciting side.

Yeah, that is something, Council Member Canonico, that we'll want to look into further. I do believe that right now as the property owner, that is something that they would have the right to do, but we'll want to look into that further if that's something we want to review.

Great. Thank you. Further follow-up, Council Member Pintero.

Yeah. Also, thanks to everyone for coming out. As I think most of you know, we'll be talking about the Civic Assembly recommendations and then the CCIP and then the Natural Areas tax after this. So address a lot of your comments then. I did want to follow back around to the 300 East Oak proper, the Mennonite Church. I know that Rupa had a good exchange with someone today, just right before council. so I don't think everyone saw it. But can you speak real quickly to it's not that we're asking the community to like do any policing or anything like that. Can you speak to what you had

said? Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Rupa Venkatesh. I'm one of the Assistant City managers here. So yes, staff has been working with the neighbors and the property owner for quite some time. And they are correct that this property is currently a chronic public nuisance property and they are currently under an abatement agreement. I will say that police has seen an improvement to the property and code enforcement does work with the property owner to clean up things like trash. And we also understand that there are still issues that are going on. And staff, including the police, are working actively with our city attorney's office to investigate alleged violations to see what further enforcement action we can take. And I can add two more quick things, too. So the code enforcement question about whether or not they need to flex their hours. That's a longer conversation that needs to happen as we consider the entire city and priorities. But that is something that has been brought up with the P&O committee. And then the comment that was also made about the night shift officers not maybe being aware of the abatement plan, that is something that the neighbors have brought to our attention. And so we are working with police to educate all shifts of patrol.

And I think maybe I'm also getting this conversation mixed up with a community when I had with Chief Swoboda earlier this week. But isn't it correct that like the police non-emergency line, if you see something illegal happening, don't you don't have to take a picture, like call the police non-emergency line, which actually goes to the same line as 911 and they filter those calls. Yep. Thank you for nodding, Chief. so I just wanted to make sure that folks in that area or throughout the city just know if you see something illegal to call the police and they will get there

when they can hopefully soon great further councilman Wilson thanks mayor

yeah I've got a couple things one on the code enforcement we take a real we have a real light touch on that and to a point I agree with that but I think it's just too many things coming up on too many problem properties. And I think it's time to really take a look at our code enforcement. I think it needs improvement. I think it needs changes. I think the concern that we might upset one household by enforcing a code, we don't realize we can end up alienating an entire neighborhood because we don't do our job and make it safe or comfortable for them. So I think we've got a ways to go. and I hope the next council takes that on as a priority to try to say, okay, we try a soft touch, but when that doesn't work, we're going to take action. And I think it needs a lot of improvement. The same properties have been coming up, new ones emerging, but for the last four and a half years, I think it needs a lot of work. As far as the mosquito control and West Nile, this council more than others have talked about pollinators and the importance, I don't know if we're a pollinator city or something, but my comments are about the last 12 councils of which I've served on a bunch of them so it's not about staff's work they just do what council directs so it's not to them but I think it's time to throw the 1950 style mosquito spraying into the dustbin of history the blanket spraying of certain parts of the city to me it's just time for that to go away it was probably time a long time ago we've made a few runs at it i hope um perhaps after this spring season maybe this council at least directs to have uh one more look at that and then the next council can make that decision of yay or nay but it really is kind of a 50s style uh control method and i think it's time for that to go away anyone else uh councilman good asking

and i would second that you know to take another look at uh at our spring policy um but a couple of them uh linda stanley came up and and did her presentation and i just wanted to comment to remind people that it is not a new tax but a continuation of an existing tax um just in case there was any confusion about that because people see the t word and they go oh my god i'm not going

to vote for that and they and the reasons for it are pretty clear that it's for the the further ends the main the maintenance the the care and keeping of our natural areas and not having to come back and do it year after year after year so just a clarification there and the hope that you'll consider that the The for Mary, Mary's still here. I wanted to say that I loved your idea because about using the underpass, because when I was visiting Cambridge, Massachusetts, they had that. They had, it wasn't so much an underpass, but it was a tunnel. And artists were invited to paint, draw, whatever it was, and express themselves in that tunnel. And it was amazing, the messages that came out. It was incredible. I would say not amazing, it was incredible. And it allowed the self-expression. And what they would do is after a period of time, then they would, sadly, but paid over it, kind of like we do with our transformer boxes. And then a new set of artists could come and express themselves too. So I got to tell you, I like your idea. I don't know where we could put it, but I have seen it in action. The other thing, too, is in A Visit to Rome, I remember that the Romans and other Italians mentioned that they actually embrace graffiti. They call it just, it's Italian for writings, and they look at it as a form of self-expression as well. So I thought I would mention that to you. Thank you for your comments. The, oh, let's see, one other thing, but I'm trying to think of where that was. Oh, I wish that Kimberly would have stayed her comments about the council's silence over what's happening in Gaza. My comment would simply be that, you know, we are a group here of seven people, and we do vote as a group. But just a reminder that we don't necessarily think as a group that each of us has our own personal thoughts and just worth considering. So thank you

Great I had a few comment follow-up to thank you again to everyone who came out young and old it's always appreciated to see the wide age range and the variety of interests and the comments I will just address a couple comments that Platte River Power Authority just to be clear we own them so they don't We own 48% of them along with our three sister cities that came together to create a power generator for our communities so So item 17 on consent is a good news item. We're placing batteries there so we can rush towards our clean energy future. The other one about the airport, we do have an intergovernmental agreement with Loveland. We're the two sponsor cities of that airport, co-jointly owned. And we can send you the intergovernmental agreement for your review, for anybody's review at any time, if you'd like to see how that works. and the item tonight regarding the airport is existing funds within the airport, no additional funds from either city. So just to be clear on those two issues. And that's really all the clarification that I was going to make. And if everybody else is done, then I think what we'll do is move on to, does anyone want to pull a consent calendar item for individual discussion? Okay, seeing none, let's go to consent. Do I hear a motion?

Yes, I move to approve the consent calendar items 1 through 24.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Comments, questions? Council Member Ponyandi.

Thank you, Mayor. This is just a super quick comment, but one of our consent agenda items is swearing in or seating some of our youth advisory board members, and we had an incredible crew of high SCHOOL STUDENTS APPLY TO BE ON THIS BOARD AS WE HAVE THE LAST COUPLE OF ROUNDS AND JUST WANTED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WE'VE GOT SOME AWESOME YOUTH WHO ARE GOING TO BE SERVING OUR CITY. AND WELCOME TO THE BOARD. GREAT.

Anyone else? Will the clerk please call the roll then?

Patiandi? Yes. Canonica? Yes. Pinyataro? Yes. Gutowski? Yes. Arndt? Yes. Francis? Yes. Olsen? Yes.

Consent calendar passes 7-0. Any other follow-up on consent?

I think it was clear but just getting the fall upon the solicitated solicitation item number 21 between first and second reading yes we can do

okay great thank you anyone else councilman Wilson I've got two items and

I think for those being polite and waiting to leave when we catch a break I think it might be coming up but we have staff waiting here for the consent so that's why we're plowing through this I have comment on 17 and 18 on the plant river power thing it's going through the spar process which means they don't go through the normal planning review process but i hope all the planners and prpa and all the people involved give a special attention to the night skies out there that's near the foothills so that's one of the city policies and if it's going through the spar process that maybe doesn't make it automatic so i hope we give attention to the night skies out there and then on item 18 i don't need an answer tonight but i'd like a follow-up because when you have when you're on committees like finance committee and others you can't remember all the time or work sessions how many times you've mentioned this particular item but it deals with the uh proceedings of certain lands necessary construct cordova road and it has a thing where the developer couldn't acquire the land at a certain price so then it kicks to the city and then the city's going through eminent domain proceedings and as a means of resolving it but i need to be clear because this is either the same issue that's come up again or it's the second or third one that's come up so I'd like to know this if this is a pattern or not that we couldn't acquire the land so now we're kicking it to the city and they end up saving money because it ends up costing us more than what we planned on so I'll need some clarification on that in the future because this is either the same one again or it's the second or third one we've looked at and if it's working that People are going to figure this out and they can save some money and kick it to the city So I'd like a follow-up memo on that we can do a follow-up on that between readings. Okay. Thank you

Any other comments on consent? Okay saying none that brings us to council member reports. Do we have any reports tonight?

Council member canonical yeah, I want to thank the staff from parks at the East Park facility

council member alison and i had a chance to tour that and also talk with staff from

our energy department and really great tour that's a really incredible building uh leeds gold

building uh they are just doing great work over there and really interesting to hear

all the the work that goes on out of that facility thanks

Thank you, Mayor. Just a cool event that I attended, Fort Collins Comic Con was this past weekend, and it was so many ages of folks, so many things to see, so many places to spend money on my children, and it was just a really, really, really cool experience. It was my first Comic Con, and very well done, and so I just wanted to give props to people who organized that. And then just a really quick little story.

I was at Cafe Mexicali on Monday night and had a dad and a little girl pull me aside and said, Councilmember Patyandi. And he introduced me to his daughter who had emailed us about our youth girls basketball league and the jerseys that they're using. They're currently NBA teams. And she was requesting WNBA teams for the girls. And I just thought it was a really cool connection. She was so proud to have reached out to us and shared an idea and that it really illustrated how accessible local government is so I just wanted to share and thank you to Everybody who reaches out but especially again youth. I know that's outside of their comfort zone, but it makes a big difference

Anyone else council member gretelsky then Olson

Thanks, yeah, I'll make this quick. I went to seven neighborhood night out events on four different nights and here's the takeaway summary people and it was very strong I mean like strong strong strong almost at every event the people in district 5 love what we're doing on increased speed enforcement and and even if they got tickets they like it and the red light enforcement with more to come there they love their natural areas and want more and they really really don't like what CSU is doing with the billboards that will soon peripheral, whatever that word is, throughout the borders of CSU and internally, which is their business, but the external is our business, but we have no say there. And they really, really don't like the billboards that CSU is and will be putting up. Thank you.

Anyone else? Councilman Katowski?

Yeah, also a comment about neighborhood night out. That is so much fun every single year on a Tuesday. to go around to, and I think I had seven of them to attend as well, each one unique, all over District 1. But what I love about it is that the people there are just so proud of their neighborhoods, and they want to show it off, and their friends are there, and they usually have ice cream or something of that sort. I just think that it's a wonderful opportunity to get out and just meet the folks who live out there in my district. And they're all so very kind. I had the opportunity, I don't know about my council members, but I had the opportunity to be escorted by a very, very nice officer with our police services. And he didn't just take me around. He got out and he visited with the folks. He would show them his police car and the kids were like, whoa, when you turn on the lights. And it was absolute fun. I just need to tell you it's one of the highlights of my time on council each year. But the other thing, too, I also wanted to mention that I went to Comic-Con. Every time I go there, it is a feast for your eyes. There's so much going on. These people are having so much fun. They're partying with all their friends in costume, and you go into the exhibit hall where they sell everything. And if you haven't been, you've got to go next year because it's really good. We just need a larger facility because it keeps growing. But the one thing I wanted to say was the symphony was there. They had a quartet, and they played twice. And what they did was they played music from fantasy movies, themes from that. And then each of them answered questions about their particular instrument. And it was such a nice addition to what Comic-Con has to offer. and just one last thing that we haven't mentioned and that was uh heartside hill grand opening um and um wow they it's been a long time in coming um a partnership by a cast of thousands there were so many people it seemed who were introduced who were part of of putting this together and it It still isn't finished, but it's beautiful housing on Brittany Street and some yet to come. But it is amazing how many people it takes to create a partnership to create truly affordable housing, also including child care. So I just want to tell you it was a monumental achievement, and it was delightful to be there and watch them cut the ribbon and celebrate all of this hard work. Thank you.

Great. And I'll just add in Tour de Fat is this weekend, in case you didn't know. So we'll see you all there. And welcome back students this week. So there'll be increased traffic. Be sure to slow down, watch out, and welcome the considerable vibrancy that the students bring to our city. So that's what I had to say. You know, I think right now we're going to take a 15-minute break and we'll come back and do the discussion items. Go ahead.

you guys ready we're gonna resume

okay sorry okay all right I call the meeting back to order

that brings us to the items plan tonight plan for discussion and we'll start with item 25 is there a staff presentation there is and I'm going to turn it right over to our assistant City Manager Rupa Venkatesh to get it started. Thank you, Kelly, and good evening, Mayor and

City Council. Tonight I'm joined by Jenny Sawyer, who's our Senior Policy Manager, Dean Klingner,

our Community Services Director, and Katie Donahue, National Areas Director, who will be available to answer questions. So you have seen a lot of this presentation, So I'll go over the materials quickly.

Get to the next slide. Okay. All right. So here's our roadmap. And look how far our little star has traveled.

So tonight, our council will be considering an ordinance to adopt a conceptual framework

for the use and management of the Hughes site.

And staff has drafted the ordinance from council feedback over two work sessions.

On September 2nd, council will consider the ordinance on second reading and there will also be consideration of a ballot referral.

So as a reminder, one of the work sessions council heard from the Civic Assembly and their recommendations.

The Civic Assembly was convened in April and May of 2025.

And this was the question that was asked of them.

And so the ordinance tonight builds upon the 2021 ballot measure that designated the use of the site as public open lands, which includes parks, recreation and open lands, natural areas and wildlife rescue and education.

You've all seen this slide before as well, the Civic Assembly recommendations, which highlighted a multi-use of the property and indigenous consultation. And from council feedback, we put together the draft ordinance language that's in your packet. So again, what hasn't changed from the previous draft of this ordinance of the language is the ongoing consultation with the indigenous community, the site character, and that natural areas will acquire and maintain up to 60 acres of the property. What is not designated as natural area will be designed and managed by parks. So in previous discussion, we had presented to council language that said that the following amenities may be included under parks, but through council consideration, this was changed in the ordinance to say it will include the following amenities. And then finally, this piece has also changed from council feedback. So previously, Lastly, the environmental education partnership opportunity was 20 acres and council provided direction for it to not succeed 30 acres. We also added the wildlife rehabilitation language. And that is our presentation. Great. Thank you so much. Would any members of the public like to speak on this item? Please come ahead. come on up

rich Dave average citizen of Fort Collins 80525 Thank You mayor thank you counselors I read through this and I've kind of been watching from the periphery it does get a little complicated when one asked what was the intent of the voters to begin with. The clarity that I took away from it, the intent was the taxpayer voter who had the option to purchase the property decided that was a better option than letting CSU do what CSU wanted to do with the property, which was turned into a bunch of housing and things like that. So when we went forward, and I'm going to use that the general we, but that's just me. So when it goes forward and says that we have a piece of property that's been bought, what is the intended use? I know that the council and others put in an extensive amount of work trying to determine exactly what that specific use was, and that's what the Civic Assembly was all about. That was a group of people that was assembled to try to figure out what to do with the piece of property that when the initial voting went out, for lack of a better way to describe it, the terms were a bit squishy. So they allowed a lot of interpretation as to what the intended use of the property was. So my question is, what happens if my activity that maybe I wanted on the property is not included? Now, one would say, yep, you had the opportunity to get your input. at some point, but what happens in usually most of these things is people try to determine today what I'm going to do with that property. But by the time it gets to the point where it's going to be developed into an intended use, it has so much input that sometimes it never ends up in the intended direction. So I think that's the reason why I believe a group of voters have decided to put a specified use on this piece of property. Maybe I'm wrong, but it would seem like the voters need to determine what they want to do. Thank you.

Thank you. And just to be clear, we'll each have three minutes. So please go ahead.

Thank you. Good evening, Council. Catherine Dubiel, 80525. I want to thank the community volunteers who spent over 60 days in the public, speaking with thousands of citizens about the opportunity to get the future. The future of Hughes as a 100% natural area decided by the voters. I also want to thank the thousands of citizens who signed the Hughes petition, making the 100% natural area protection for Hughes reach the ballot. This reflects the value that we place on our natural areas in Fort Collins. I also want to thank the representatives of the indigenous community who spoke here tonight. And finally, and very importantly, I want to thank the city clerk and her staff for touching every entry on over 300 petitions submitted for validation. I'll leave it to those listening to compare how the citizen-initiated ordinance reached the ballot as compared to the process for this ordinance. There is no previous resolution by council stating their intent to adopt the recommendations of the Civic Assembly and refer it to the voters. that makes me uneasy that was the process used for the plastic bag ban there was a resolution that preceded the ordinance it stated clearly that that was the intention of council we haven't had we haven't seen that so is it council's intention to refer ordinance 141 2025 on second reading to the voters I need an answer to that tonight if yes how will registered electors have the ability to file a timely protest by noon, Monday, September 1st, when the ballot measure language is provided through the agenda published, the agenda which will be published the previous Thursday. Monday is a public holiday. The protest has to be filed by Monday at noon. Finally, there will be two citizen initiated ordinances on the ballot and a council referred ordinance with the same subject matter. How will they be presented on the ballot to differentiate them for the voters? I need to know that tonight as well. Will it be letters, numbers? I know that the citizen-initiated ordinances are at the bottom of the ballot. All I know is the placement. I do not know how they will be differentiated. I'd like to know that tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. And then I have Jane remotely. Jane, please go ahead.

Good evening. I am Jane Hamburger from Fort Collins Council District 6. I am a white environmentalist who is trying to reconcile my ancestors' western points of view of how to treat and own the earth with the indigenous or spiritual perspective of the spaces and inhabitants of the natural environment. What compelled me on this journey of reconciliation was hearing the Indigenous conclusion that the climate emergency is caused by a breakdown in relationships. So I was heartened that the representation from the community by the Civic Assembly was moving toward a relationship of trust among the disparate points of view. The Civic Assembly reported to the Council a recognition of a 100% supermajority agreement for Indigenous use for leasing slash permitting use of the space and a 95% support that Indigenous groups be consulted in each step of the development of the entire property. That does not sound like the current language being read for the first time tonight. I urge you to slow down, take the time to listen to each other, and rebuild a respectful relationship that can accommodate a variety of perspectives. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I do not have a second entry. I think I was a little over-eager in registering.

That's fine. Thank you very much. Anyone else here tonight would like to comment on item 25? Okay.

Hi, my name is Adam Hirshhorn. I live in District 2.

I agree with that notion that viewing things through many different lenses is the correct approach to the environment. That was something that Murray Bookchin advised very strongly in his writings from Burlington, Vermont. What I think we could look at is how we manage the West Nile virus as a way to look at the way we're about to manage Hughes Stadium. And it is important that just as integrated pest management is a much better way of going forward than the 50 style spraying. I do believe that the voters are the participants in the public assembly. Another idea that Bookchin promoted.

They're correct. we need to avoid the mistakes like we did at City Park 9 we need to slow down and connect with nature as we do this it's also a relationship thank you thank

you any further comments from the public seeing none do council members have any comments or questions on item 25 councilman opinion chair yeah I'll follow

up with a few things here. So to Ms. Dubiel's questions, I think the plastic band band was a resolution, so it was only one reading and then sent to the ballot that same night because this is an ordinance. It's two readings. Isn't that correct? No, it was a resolution and an ordinance. That was a long time ago. I am not sure what the will of counsel is for next week on second reading. I do plan to send this to the ballot. I think the Civic Assembly, which, man, I so enjoyed as that moved along and as we learned and the whole process of gathering the people together and having everyone speak to the parties that were interested, speak to what it was they wanted. I think I'm just really excited to see how this all turns out honestly I do have a question about the indigenous involvement because I do see in the resolution like three or four statements so since we do have second reading in two weeks I don't know if we've gotten specific language

question or I don't know I haven't seen anyone email us with specific recommendations to how changing that language might make it more apparent that that's the intent because that is what I have heard from staff all along so I'd love to hear how you're interpreting it I think all of council might and then I think I will stop there but I'll see what the rest of council wants to say

Great. Further questions or comments from Council? Let's just do Olsen and Padianni.

Okay. Just a couple kind of points of clarification. There's something Council appropriately changed one section of it from should to will. But then I was wondering, do the recommendations of the Assembly that are still in my materials presented as should, does that matter? because it talks about things that I think seven out of seven agree with a lot of them of minimize light pollution and those kinds of things. They're still listed as should. Am I correct? And is it because they're not really part of it or what? Because we shifted other things to will. Under the ordinance, we'll direct city staff to create development management plans to the site in accordance with the following principles, and we change those appropriately to will.

but the things that are somewhat different from the assembly are still should does that just i

just need a little help here so are you talking specifically about the lighting like minimizing lighting so that would be on number 10 on the ordinance

i was looking at mostly the introductory sheets here so i didn't kind of yeah so on number 10

and I can actually share my screen to show you.

So this would be a requirement.

Hopefully folks can see that. So this would be a requirement that the site is developed using the city's development review process in compliance with all current standards.

So that would include the lighting piece of it.

So the quick answer is, is this something I should not worry about? Correct. Okay, moving on along.

Then I strongly suggested if three things were met, that I'd vote for this in spite of the reservations I'll lay out under comments, and I'm gonna honor that, because I've served with council members in the past that wanted changes made and then voted no anyway, and I'm not one of those people because I think it's bad form.

So I'll be supporting this tonight if by second reading,

and I hope to support it then too, the changes that were made with the 20 acres to 30 acres and adding wildlife rehabilitation, a couple things were left out, and I think by accident, because I don't think they're controversial, but I'll soon find that out. And we even heard from a member of the public today, could we add conservation in front of the partnership opportunities? And what I had said was wildlife conservation, and we didn't interact at all on this for this change suggested today. So hopefully on second reading, that'd probably be easier than amendments tonight and council can vote it down or take it out, but have the option of having wildlife conservation where it says on a portion of the Hughes site not to exceed 30 acres, the city will provide environmental education and wildlife conservation partnership opportunities. Just asking for wildlife conservation to be added in there on second reading. Doesn't contradict anything that we've talked about all along. And then the other one was, I specifically had said, because it's a really important part of it, wildlife rescue and rehabilitation. If we could please include that, and if Council wants to take it out, or four people say, I hate that idea tonight. But it's not just rehabilitation, it's wildlife rescue and rehabilitation. And you're free to comment on any of these? And then I have a question for natural areas. People, or you folks might know it. It says not to exceed 60 acres. And I don't have a number in mind, nor am I going to get in that level of detail.

I just don't know why it doesn't say a minimum of 60 acres,

because what happens after they do all the engineering, because nobody knows exactly how this is all going to fit. Wouldn't it be better to say a minimum? Because what if they turn out to say, actually, it's 62 and a half acres, and we say a maximum of 60 acres? I'd kind of like an answer on that.

I'm not suggesting more acres. That's not my point. My point is it kind of limits it. What if it's 62.5 is the ideal thing and we say a maximum of 60? Why not say a minimum of 60?

Yeah, so Katie Donahue, our natural areas director, can answer that. Good evening, council. I think there was not a strong intent there from staff one way or the other on plus or minus 60 acres but we were trying to create language that was parallel i think there was a lot more discussion about limiting the acreage for bike park features

and we just used parallel language for each of the pieces and then left the remainder to be a park which kind of leaves the math open-ended about how that would work so if council feels that that more than 60 acres of the site would be a more appropriate acreage we can make that work

Right. And I just want to be clear. I don't have a number in mind. I won't be part of determining that final thing. I'm just saying the language is constricting if all of a sudden I'm not lobbying for more acreage. I'm just saying I don't. To me, it makes sense to say a minimum of 60 acres in case it turns out to be 62.5 because I think, OK, I'll ask our city attorney if it says no more than 60 acres.

What if they come back and say 62.5 acres really makes this work, and it's actually important, but it says no more than 60 acres?

It would be pretty difficult for the city at this point to make it bigger than 60 acres, going with this language.

I'd just like you to consider it between first and second reading. I'm not lobbying for more acreage.

I've made that clear. The language, if it was my company, I wouldn't have that language in there.

It's just too constricting, but I'll move on. And then why didn't we say the connective trail system throughout the Hughes site that I'm fine with?

Why don't we say soft trails, though? I don't think people have concrete trails in mind on the Hughes site,

and I think more people would be comfortable if it said soft trail system.

I'm just trying to improve this, at least in my opinion.

I think we were leaving it open to the site planning process that whichever portion, whether it's a park or a natural area, would go through, there'd be a site planning process that would talk about what's the need here, what are the most appropriate uses in that particular area.

I would imagine that you would probably see a combination of both paved and soft surface trails if the Civic Assembly proposal was to be implemented.

we'd see both soft and hard trails depending on what they're trying to access um we look a lot

at accessibility requirements who's they i don't know did i say they i i think in the planning

process there would probably be a combination of those two types of trails just based on what like existing use of the area,

connecting things with ADA parking, that kind of stuff. So I would guess that there would not be an exclusive soft surface trail if the Civic Assembly proposal went forward.

Okay, thank you. And I'll have my brief closing comments later. when everyone else has had a shot. Thanks. Okay. I think it was Council Member Pagani.

Yeah, and I'll be quick. I also will be supporting moving this to the ballot. I think, you know, we've had a couple of comments tonight and also via email about the number of folks who went through the petition process, and I want to honor that. I think that's one of our avenues towards getting something on the ballot that is important to democracy. And then I also think, you know, we've got an equally valid representative sample in a different democratic process. And then there's nothing more democratic than having all of the valid choices on the ballot in front of people to vote for. So I think we've really got this kind of microcosm of all these different kinds of democracy to get people's voices at the table. I think it's a super exciting opportunity. I do share Ms. Dubiel's concern a little bit that people may or may not understand that they are not ballot initiatives that play nicely with each other, that they are choosing one or the other. My understanding when I've asked this question before is that is going to be incumbent on folks who are running campaigns, our blue book, to just make it clear that they are separate. Because I don't want people to be in a situation where they vote. yeah that sounds great oh that sounds great too and cancel out their own vote so um i don't know if anybody has more information but my imagining is the ballot doesn't delineate and say that these are dueling that that they're incompatible ballot initiatives that's going to be incumbent on folks to do their research is that accurate they'll have different numbers obviously on the ballot the two items will be described in the city's voter information guide hopefully that will be helpful um theoretically someone could vote for both of these um and just to be clear there was a question about what happens if they both pass or how does that work we do have a very specific charter provision that says if the two measures pass and they're in conflict the measure that gets the most affirmative votes will win or will prevail. So that's how that would play out if they

both pass. Yeah, I think it's just, there are going to be some interesting conversations. And

I really do hope there are folks, you know, if both of these ballot initiatives do end up side by side, that we've got folks who are invested in doing that education and letting folks know that they are not necessarily things that you would want to vote yes on both. So we've got a smart electorate so I think we'll get there great yeah I just had a

follow-up question on councilmember Olson's comments I agree in theory about the intent and what you're trying to do I just I I think at the work session we were really trying to stay true to what the Civic Assembly recommendation was so I'm just curious with adding in conservation and then rescue, does that change it at all from what the Civic Assembly recommendation was?

So the multi-use, the one that received 89% of the support, does include conservation slash education features.

And another super majority recommendation does include wildlife rehabilitation. And rescue or just rehabilitation? I know it's like really easy. Yeah, just rehabilitation. Okay.

I know it's very semantic-y, but I'm just, in my opinion, really trying to stay true to the intent.

And so I'm fine with adding in conservation. And then with the not to exceed, I mean, I understand your point, and you can make that argument for every one of them.

There's three different ones that have not to exceed a certain size.

Which have what? Not to exceed. So there's natural areas. There's the environmental education and the bike park that all say not to exceed because the site is how many acres?

165. And this is together, it's only 125, the not to exceeds. Yes. So what happens with the, I mean, what happens with the remaining acres not assigned?

So there's other amenities that are also listed under the parks section. So the connective trail system, the community gathering space, and then supporting facilities like restrooms and parking.

And we think that will get us to a hundred and that's a 40 acres not accounted for.

I think through design, we're looking at having the space be more naturalistic and Zurich. So not every bit of it will have a designated activity or space.

Okay. That's helpful. So like, yeah, I'm just trying to think of, I understand your, your, yeah.

Of course, okay, that one's not important to me. I'm willing to let that one slide because I see your logic there the we're not following all their recommendations verbatim anyway So if we get fighting over the word rescue or wildlife in front of conservation, I think we're kind of not Doing our job up here because we're not going verbatim. I'm fine with losing the not and keeping the not to exceed things But the other things it was always talked about

maybe the word didn't make it. I don't need to die on the sword of rescue. I don't need to die on the sword of rescue. So I'm fine to add it. I was just curious with the

language. Good. I think at least two of us are coming to some agreement here.

Council Member Canonico. And I would

be fine with a little flexibility around the 60 acres for natural areas. So could we use terminology more like anticipated, you know, instead of not to exceed.

Yeah, I think we can workshop that if there's council direction to do that.

What'd you say? If there's council direction to workshop the idea of including some sort of language like

anticipate versus not to exceed.

Okay. let's finish council comments and then maybe unless you guys want to give direction now

i i agree with mayor pro tem that we need to have similar language for all three of the major

designated uses um i don't feel comfortable with having an approximate number for one and

not to exceed for the other two. That's where I am.

Anyone else?

Council Member Gutowski. Yeah. I guess

everybody finished. Yeah, so I do have a comment or two. I wanted to start with the 2021 ballot decision when 65 plus percent of the voters passed the ballot measure to designate Hughes as an open space. And as Rich Stave indicated, the language was a bit squishy, which then allowed for an interpretation of what does park mean. And I think at that point, according to my experience,

park was interpreted as a bike park. And I think that that has been a very loud minority voice,

you know, since then. So the next thing, though, was that the super majority, according to our, according to the findings of the Civic Assembly, which, by the way,

I do want to say, not knowing a lot of the previous things that had gone on, I think

they entered with pure hearts to do the jobs that they did. And they did a wonderful job of coming up with the recommendations. So I in no way want to malign our Civic Assembly people. They're very hard workers and did an excellent job.

But according to their findings in the super majority, no bike park was there. In fact, it only received 47% of the vote.

What was mentioned was open spaces, natural area, conservation, education, features, and trails, but no bike park.

As we discussed it then in another work session, was added to the list of recommendations, although the numbers didn't support it. And it was mentioned in multi-use recommendations, but not in the supermajority vote. So, you know, according to my recollection, the stated purpose of the Civic Assembly was that only delegates would determine by supermajority vote the future uses of Hughes. And it seems like that has been compromised. So what I'm recommending is that before second reading, we need to review the numbers and amend the recommendations to only include the items that receive the supermajority of votes, which would exclude the bike park.

Okay, thank you very much.

I'm just going to circle back to this not exceed question because I think the staff is looking for a little bit of direction there.

I'll just ask you a question. In other ballot language that you've run for years and years and all your experience,

have you found that some of this is restrictive language that you wish you had made it more flexible?

Or has, you know, your not to exceed has worked out, you know, within the...

It feels like to me, if you say not to exceed, let me just say, I'm wondering, for a certain use.

Some of the uses are quite similar.

And so if it was 60 acres not to exceed, it was 62, but maybe some of that was in a different category. Is that possible?

I think it's always a tradeoff with more restrictive language versus more flexibility. If we say, if we're worried about it being 62, let's say not to exceed 65.

Let's say not to exceed 70. 70 rather than trying to guess within here because if we say a minimum then the question is does that

mean it needs to be what if 45 is great okay but not in between so it's tricky in there but if we're worried about the 60 number i would say let's go higher as a not to exceed okay thank you so keep

the not to exceed language and just make sure you're clear on the acreage okay does that make sense to people okay tell somebody from you Carol so I know you didn't pull

those numbers out of a hat can you discuss why you chose the numbers you did for the three items that have a specific maximum you're generous that we

didn't pull them out of a hat oh well I mean we recognize the the desire for natural area and the benefit of abutting maxwell and 60 again seemed appropriate you all have been part of our comparisons of other community size bike parks and what's what's a worthy size of doing to accommodate within the acreage um i i think we even made some adjustments in there for our final number of 35 and talking about you know does that include just the bike facilities and whatnot so we looked at those other comparisons to come up with that number and then again for the conservation and education centerpiece we've worked with the nonprofit organizations that are interested in in hearing what number they needed and then we took council's suggestion and increased that by some to land on 20 i believe 30. great thank you

councilman punyan yeah just to clarify and i may be misremembering but the 60 acres for the natural

areas piece was also kind of informed by a review of the property in which portion and proportion of it seemed most in line with our natural areas um like expectations is that accurate

i thought that i thought about 60 acres was what you were like yeah this really conforms with what we consider a natural area and would be advantageous for these trail connections. And I may be misremembering. I just.

You're pretty close. Staff provided the civic assembly with kind of a pretty high level overview of the site broken into quadrants and noted that the western side of the property had the most matching characteristics to the habitat in Maxwell. I think we were also looking at there's some existing infrastructure that's come up quite a bit in the conversation. the disc golf course is one thing that i would highlight there and that's something there's been a lot of questions about whether or not that would be compatible in a natural area administratively it's simpler for the city to manage that as a park so you see things like that the highly impacted parking lot areas and then as jenny mentioned these other uses uh kind of carving up those acres so 60 was about the number that we kind of landed based look based on all of those questions do we have a hard and fast opinion. There's not like a magical line of one thing or another. And I suspect that in terms of how this ordinance is written, the way it would be designed, it would be like a lot of where parks and natural areas come together. And it's very difficult. There's, there is a line and GIS and a map between the management of the two, but our, our community members can't necessarily tell the difference. And I think the design you'll see in this site would really reflect that, that there'd be a lot of similarities in the design of park space right next to natural area space.

Thank you. That's really helpful. I guess I'm going to seem like the world's most rigid person and in a lot of ways I am that. But I guess what I would say is part of why we're having this discussion was ambiguous language in the first place. So I would say as little ambiguity as we can have in this ballot initiative so people know exactly what they're voting for and so that if this ballot initiative were to be the will of the voters, that there would be certain parameters. That were already decided. That's where I'm comfortable.

Yeah. I mean, I'm personally very fine with the language. I think it's careful and thought out. And I do think exactly as you say, you know, if you're moving from a park to a natural, you know, and we're talking about giving the voters an overall picture. Yeah. So I'm fine with it the way it is personally. Any other comments?

Is that enough non-direction? Okay. Okay. That will pick up again. Any more comments or questions from the council members? Yeah. Council Member Kutuski?

Yeah, my proposal. Pardon me? I said my proposal that I just presented to council before we went back to talking about the acres.

Right. Does anyone have councilman?

Yeah. So we've spoken at least twice. and I believe at the super issues committee with boards and commissions the Civic Assembly spoke there as well 19 of the 20 of them included a bike park in their maps the way the questions were ordered it was a little confusing for them and that's where the supermajority question that Susan is honed in on came from and they told us as the people that were in the assembly but their intent was and so I took them for their word.

Correct. We discussed this at the Civic Assembly feedback

and we went over and over and over again and I'm convinced that

that was the will of the Civic Assembly that was clear. Anybody else?

Yeah. Go ahead. Councilman

Rawlsson. Thank you, Mayor.

I wasn't and I'm not a fan of the civic assembly process, but that's what was used. And so that's what I'm dealing with tonight. So

I accept that, that that's what we did. And that was the outcome of that. I've never thought it was

an appropriate location for a bike park. I still don't. It's located in ecotone where two habitat

types come together, and that's much more biodiversity, rich in many more species and

those kinds of things. So that's never even been a struggle for me. I just don't think I think there's better locations geographically for people and for the negative impact on the environment.

But it's a complicated thing we do up here. People listen to me on suggestions I had,

knowing that the votes were here, probably 5-2 to do it. And they listened to my concerns to do what I thought would be improving it and going for 20 acres to 30 acres and to listen about wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, although the rehabilitation part was in the

recommendation and to add wildlife conservation as part of it. And they listened to me. And I'm not going to then all of a sudden say, great, I got the things I wanted and then vote against it. As I mentioned, I think that's really bad form. And I'm not going to be doing that.

I will talk about the 35 acres. I've changed my approach to that because I also lost that one. I think it's a tad large. But I do have a question. Well, I'll do my comment first and I'll get to my question.

I hope it says up to 35 acres for the bike parts, and I'm assuming that means the birming and the landscaping, just not the parking lots, the restrooms, the facilities and things. So I think we can diminish the impact on neighboring uses by real good birming and landscaping and buffering and those kinds of things. So I hope to see that done in a world-class way. I think we can do that and that will assuage some of my concerns about up to the 35 acres if that's what people really think they need and so just a different approach there I hope we do that on the

birming and then I'm appreciative of council listening to my suggestions and then but I do have a question on I'm grateful it took four whacks at it, but I got the regional and national community bike parks, and there's a

statement on there. I just want to clarify it. The calculated acreage includes only bike park features, excluding features such as parking lots, mountain biking trails. That was a little confusing. Skate parks, et cetera. These are examples of community scale bike parks. I know that's referring to ours, just the bike features, but the ones you listed here,

Berthoud, Ruby, Hill, Belmont, Frisco, Erie, and the acreage you gave, it says that on the list, but I'm just confirming that's just the bike park features.

I'm seeing head nods that that is accurate.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate the information, and I'll be voting for what's before us with the changes either tonight or coming on second reading.

thank you very much council member canonical thank you um i just want to thank everyone who has put so much energy and soul into this entire process um three of us came on to council in 2021 when hughes was initially on the ballot and so this has kind of informed our entire time on council um and i think it's appropriate that we give it back to the voters to decide We'll see which way they go. But I'm very supportive of this going on to the ballot as well so that it's up to the voters to determine which is the path forward for Hughes. Thank you.

Anyone else? Mayor Prootin.

Yeah, I'll be supporting this item tonight. I just want to thank everyone who participated in the Civic Assembly and dedicated their time and were very thoughtful during this process and that giving people the option is the ultimate form of democracy. So I'm excited to see what the community chooses.

Great. Go ahead. Council Member Guteskin.

So just a comment about the bike park. And I think we're talking about, was it 35 acres that's just the park and then they would need parking? And I need clarification

on that. What did we say? Yeah. So the ordinance reads 35 acres for bike park features.

Mm-hmm. So would that include parking and all the other things that we would want? So we would need additional acreage for the parking. Oh, interesting to consider. So, and that is a concern of mine, the idea, the bike park is just one facet of the Hughes property. But I think more, I think beyond that. And what I'm seeing is a bike park that's probably going to be a regional bike park. It's going to be accessed by any number of people in the surrounding communities. Just like our commenter said that they had to drive to Belmont or Berthoud in order to do a bike park, people are going to be coming to our bike park as well. And so as far away from our interstate as it is, we're going to be experiencing quite an influx in the amount of traffic that will be coming down Drake, Horsetooth, Prospect, any of the streets that are going to access that bike park. I worry about that. And I want to express that concern to the community. It's more than the bike park at Hughes. There's so many other things. We are concerned about our climate, and we're concerned about our pollution, we're concerned about our traffic, and yet never a care has been given to that aspect of putting the bike park at Hughes. And I wanted to share that with you. You need to think about that as we're so anxious to have that happen. The other thing, too, is neither of the two bike parks that they mentioned, Belmont or Berthoud, to my knowledge, I know Belmont, are contiguous to foothills or natural areas. If you've been to Belmont, you know that it's built in very, very open space. And it's very, very big. And it has a very big parking lot. But the point is that it doesn't disrupt the foothills and it doesn't disrupt the natural areas that we're talking about. It's aside from that. They plan that very, very well. Ours, on the other hand, butts up too. And we're talking about buffers and so forth. It bumps up against the natural areas. So what I want to say is that I fully support a bike park. I know that we need that. I mean, here are the kids, and I understand their desire to have one. But the feasibility study did list a number of other possibilities, a number of other locations, yet to be determined, yet to be studied, but other than Hughes. And I propose, and that's why I was saying earlier, I propose that that not be the first choice, that we explore the other ones for the reasons that I've mentioned, that there are so many other maybe unintended consequences, but definitely consequences that we will ultimately, I think, regret if we use that natural area. So I just want to put it out there. Obviously as long as the bike park is part of the plan as good as the plan is I can't support it and that's why I was recommending that if that came off so that we could use another location I would happily support this but I can't so I will not be supporting the ordinance tonight

Okay I'll just say in conclusion that I'm very supportive of this I was super excited and Rupa came over the conference and said have you ever heard of a Civic Assembly? I was like yeah she said do you think we should do and I said absolutely so I think I want to thank all the residents in Fort Collins who received a postcard and who opted in and then said yeah I'll do that and the 20 people who were then selected I think 18 showed up and then two alternates came in so thank you for all those people your hard work I always feel like there's sort of 20 many democracy ambassadors out there like wow public policy's hard and a lot more people who are

engaging who watched and I would say it was watched locally but also statewide and nationally. So it's a tool that I think that this complex public policy question was ideally suited for because it's a discrete thing. It started at the ballot box as we've noted and I think it's really appropriate to have gone through this extensive public participation tool. And I'm very convinced that it should go back to the ballot box. I am completely confident that the voters will know what they're voting on, will make the choice that they feel is right for the

community. I have seen voter behavior be extremely smart and read very much in detail, even if you

see five or six like ones, and they'll pick out one that doesn't pass. And you're like, oh, they're very discriminating and very very so i have full confidence in our voters to create the community that they want and they'll have an opportunity this fall so i would um in full support of this and that's all i'd like to say council member poniante and

jenny or mayor i apologize i just wanted to thank once again the staff who put so much work into this this is like round 5 000 for all the staff who worked on the civic assembly so i mean we've been given lots of kudos to our residents who participated which is absolutely deserved but you guys work behind the scene to do a process that was brand new to our city and that is huge so especially you two like i know it was a huge team but you two have been coming back over run over so thank you and it's cool to get to see it build from the idea of a civic assembly all the way to a valid initiative that's a pretty incredible thing to watch happen it's really cool all right so do with that do I hear a

motion for ordinance 141 yes I move to adopt on first reading of ordinance number 141 2025 expressing support for the recommendations of the civic assembly and adapt adopting a conceptual framework for the use and management of

the Hughes Stadium site, amending section F number five to read, on a portion of the Hughes site not to exceed 30 acres, the city will provide environmental education and conservation partnership opportunities to include but not limited to wildlife rescue and rehabilitation and zoning appropriate structures. Second.

I have a question. It's been moved and seconded. Did you put wildlife in front of conservation? No.

You need a clarification on the motion?

Yeah, I just I had said wildlife conservation the word Evan and in wildlife conservation as That so is there is there a reason we can't do that? We can you can make a friendly amendment Okay, I'd make a friendly amendment that in front of conservation we add in Wildlife and and so it would read will provide environmental education and wildlife conservation partnership opportunities. That's fine with me That's fine with you

Do I see knots? Okay, that works for me. Okay, does wildlife include both flora and fauna?

It does not include fauna, but it doesn't exclude fauna.

I just I would I think conservation of flora and fauna. Okay, we just need to make the motion as possible. I wanted to make sure. Do you have a question about the motion?

Sorry.

Okay.

Council Member Canonico seconded.

Okay. Council Member Canonico seconded. I'm just making sure that they have the proper motion. Did you get the amendment?

Yes, we did, and we can also listen to the recording and make sure that we capture it.

Okay. Excellent. So we know what we're voting on. That's all I care about. Okay.

So is there – do we – will the clerk please call the roll? Canonico? Yes. Yes. Pinotaro? Yes. Gutowski? No. Arndt? Yes. Francis? Yes. Olsen?

Yes.

Patyandi?

Yes. Great. Motion passes 6-1. That brings us to item number 26. Is there a staff presentation?

We do have a staff presentation. We'll do just a quick switch here. Thank you again. Jen, Rupa, and Katie. Ginny Sawyer is going to remain at the table and she will kick us off. Again, Ginny's our lead policy and project manager and she's joined by utilities finance director and continuing this is a special project, Jill Wimmer.

Thank you, Kelly. Thank you, Mayor and Council. for you tonight. Another project we've been working on for quite a while, culminating tonight

in potential ballot referral. We started this project back in 2024, and just as a reminder, we had almost originally thought we were going to run this really quickly along with our street maintenance program. Fortunately, I think we quickly saw the better route of taking a longer time to really have the opportunity to iterate and come back with council and work with the public and our residents throughout this process to get to where we are tonight. So I also, I just love throwing these slides in here to show the legacy that we're building on. And again, we've talked about our electorates and our trust in them and trying to be credible and remain credible and being able to build on a history of saying here are some things we want to do voters say yes do that we say okay we did that and here's what we'd like to do next and so obviously these things have changed over time and the packaging of these types of projects have changed over time but we've had a good history of being successful and really adding to our community. So when you have a package, we've talked about this almost from the get-go, that is as diverse and all-encompassing as a 10-year, 100-plus million-dollar package will be. We really want to work on our asset and management plans, which have a lot of public engagement and vetting throughout those processes. We really want to make sure we are advancing council priorities at the time and we want to make sure that we have something that appeals to everyone in the community. We're a large community now in a large geographic area and so being able to provide and offer opportunities and amenities to our broader community is a goal of this package. And so tonight council I'm going to let Joe talk through our last changes as we, again, as I said, iterate through this and where this package has

landed tonight. So this is the list of the 18 projects and capital programs to be funded over the 10 years with the major change from the last work session we had with council in July being the addition of the composting infrastructure project for $7 million. So to add in that $7 million dollar project. Two projects were scaled, those being the historic trolley building renovation, scaled down from 6.8 million to 2.2 million. And that 2.2 million dollar funding amount will have us continue to stabilize that building and get us to a higher and better use for that facility, but not the full renovation and finishes of the building. The second project being the downtown Park shop scaled from $7.9 million to $5.5 million. That difference will need made up of other funding sources, likely the 2050 tax and parks capital expansion fees, and staff work to fully leverage those other funding and scale those projects down to fit in that $7 million project for composting infrastructure into the list. So taking a look at the pie chart that we've used throughout the process in these categories. The main difference being the addition of the composting project increased our river and environment slice with decreases to the culture and parks and recreation slices. And then the financial information presented as a refresher, quarter cent sales tax is going to generate around $11 million per year. If we take that out 10 years, we're looking at $110 million worth of revenue to complete projects. Our package tonight is at 102.7 million as we've intently planned for inflation, making sure these projects are still at viable amounts at the end of the 10 years. So that's it for our slides this evening. We do have a lot of information in the packet and backup slides to go in on any individual project and provide detail. The other information provided in the packet tonight is the ballot language as well as the resolution and associated ordinance so with that i will turn it back to the mayor for

discussion and staff are available for questions thank you very much is there anyone from the public who'd like to speak on this item i see three anyone remotely yes mayor we have one one remote okay great so we'll take um and we'll give you three minutes we'll go back to three so no don't try it can you start the timer please thanks go ahead good evening madam mayor members

of council and council member olson um name is joe rowan district five one of kelly's favorite people um and first of all just the optics of this is a little odd so hopefully you can address this but tonight you're you're putting together a package of how we're going to spend hard-earned tax dollars, but it's next week that you're going to have a discussion of community priorities. And so I'm wondering why those two seem to be in reverse. And I know that we're trying to address a number of needs in the community, but it really would be helpful to see that this is informed by what the community says their priorities are. So just maybe a food for thought in the future. I'd also like to just point out that, you know, we didn't really have any really hard discussions about how this package is put together and what it ends up being. I mean, it was mostly horse trading. And I think that that, again, that works. But what we leave out of all that discussion is the number of assets that we have created, public amenities that we created that we're not actually budgeting to maintain and replace eventually. So, you know, a quarter of the money is going to parks and recreation. Well, you know, two years ago, we had to pass a tax to take care of parks and recreation, transportation, and our climate goals. But I think one of the lessons that we need to start learning is that if we're going to build something, it's going to be there a while and we need to maintain it. So specifically around the bike parks, we've taken out bike parks because we weren't maintaining them and they became a liability. So now we're going to build a bigger one. So just food for thought as you move forward with this. I also thought it was important to share some numbers with you. So you heard a lot of kids tonight talk about the bike park, but there's 1,200 more than 1,200 kids tonight that aren't in their own home. They're sleeping in the back of a car in somebody's garage. And housing is really the fundamental challenge that we have in this community. And unfortunately, this package doesn't really reflect that. 22,000, over 22,000 renter households, over 7,000 homeowners. Homeowner households are paying more than 30% of their gross monthly income for the housing costs. Those are the kinds of numbers that really should have informed as we put this package together, really thinking about what problems are we trying to solve and what things are we building just because they look pretty and it's going to attract people to vote for it. We really didn't do the hard work here. So with that, I thank you for your time and the effort that did go into this. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, please go ahead.

My name is Samantha Stegner, and I'm here today as a resident of Harmony Village. And I just wanted to throw out a comment in this situation. I've been following this. As an organic affordable housing option in our community and having 1,400 units in the city alone, I just want to remind you that I do support having that increase of the $10 million and moving that up because of the availability for us. If you're going to start allowing us to be able to tap into resources like this for park purchasing or for unit replacements, I worry that we will need a little bit more money, especially when we're looking at, you know, some of these parks, you know, just 30 units have gone for $5 million alone. And granted, I know we need multiple funding sources, but just throwing out that reminder that as we're growing and putting ourselves out there, that mobile homes are a part of this. And just remember what it's going to take for some of us to become those residential communities. So thank you all for your time very much.

Thank you. Next up.

Rich Stave, Average Sunset of Fort Collins.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Counselors.

When I read through this, I noticed that the big beneficiary was affordable housing. I understand that a little bit, but then there are lots of questions that are associated with that also. I look in my general area. We do have affordable housing close to where I live. They also recently built a whole bunch of apartment buildings, which I told were somewhat related to affordable units. one thing that was extremely obvious to me at least at this point and probably was obvious from

the beginning was the fact that they put in a certain number of parking spaces but what i

noticed is there's just an overflow every night and continual parking on the public streets alongside of that so obviously people that live in affordable places need to have more parking Either that or there's more people living there than the intended use. So I'm a little confused when we say we need to continue to increase programs which do that because the parking on a public street is paid for by the public anyway. And by the way, we've already had taxes for paying for streets. I don't really know where all that's supposed to come from,

but I realize we spend more money in a lot of different ways. In fact, when I look at this, you know, I do understand some of the improvements. Some of those I've actually seen, but there's quite a number of them that I really haven't participated in,

even though I've lived here many, many years. So my question would be fundamentally is I've noticed on the state level and on the city level, I'm paying more taxes than I've ever paid. and I'm continually being asked for even more taxes. So I don't really understand when I live in Fort Collins and I'm trying to go pay my bills,

my bills are getting taxed to pay somebody else's bills.

That doesn't always go over well.

So as I was coming here on my bike tonight, I was going by affordable housing and I was almost run down on the sidewalk

even though I always had my bike. by someone in a big old e-bike with all their belongings hanging on the outside. So what does that mean?

I'm not really sure. When we say bike park, this park, if we say bike park, are we talking about regular bikes? Are we talking about motorbikes?

Are we talking about e-bikes? I'm not really sure. A bike is not a bike is not a bike.

And if you've ever ridden on one, you'll probably figure that out quick enough. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And I believe we have one online. No, we do not anyone else like to comment Okay, say none. Thank you very much Council members have questions or comments on this item

Tells my book

Yeah, so I I know that we've had a lot of communication with folks from the community about the 14 12 to 14 million dollars of unspent taxes from the previous iteration and is there somebody from staff who could speak a little bit about that in the relation to the southeast community center

i would say councils had conversations on that and discussed using um 12 million dollars for southeast community center and there may be additional funds which could be available i would also say i don't think the remaining funds on the existing tax necessarily impact your decision on this ordinance or referral tonight. We would need to wait until that tax expires entirely and then make that decision through this body.

Thank you for that clarification.

Council Member Pignatero.

Yeah, thank you. Just for the public and also to jog my memory, to be honest, can you remind us from all the times we've talked about this, housing has come up every single time as wanting more for housing. What changes have been put in

place as this has evolved? One thing we did was shift away from an idea of bonding. Originally, we had thought if we could bond against the money, we would get more money directly up front. By not bonding, we get the full 10 million. We're not making any debt payments out of that because bonding would have reduced the amount. And we've also just had conversations about how we can roll that money out in specific amounts. But I would say in increasing the 10, we have not done that. As we've tried not to make this, I know there are folks in the community think we should, we have tried not to make this just a housing tax. We've tried to keep it still very holistic and well-rounded.

MS. And then, Jenny, I just said the other source of funding that we did talk about, again, back to the additional funding from this, the excess funding from this CCIP, that there was an anticipation of $2 million to $3 million, I believe, that was on top of the $12 million we had talked about for Southeast Community Center. And again, I would just say that that split of how those dollars could be allocated really will be a future, probably this fall time period, council conversation once we have the firm numbers or more. More firm numbers for the Southeast Community Center. But we are envisioning at least two to three of that and still very much up for council consideration.

Great. Thank you. Further questions or comments? Council Member Gutowski.

Yeah, one of the, I appreciate Amanda's comment about what the idea that she had about, what note did I take?

Park purchasing. I like that. Maintenance, perhaps, of mobile home parks. It's the first time, actually, that I've heard a specific about what the money is to be used for.

And I know, you know, when you, well, when we do our own budgets, we kind of allocate what it is that we're going to do, and we need specific things. When you do fundraising, you need to tell your person who's going to be giving you the money what it is that they're purchasing. What will they see as a result of the money?

So that's what I would like to hear perhaps a bit more in our discussion about, sure, you know, here's the money. Don't doubt that it's very, very valuable.

But I really would like to have more specifics of how that would be allocated. And your comment was wonderful. Thank you.

Any further questions or comments from Council?

Well, yeah, questions, comments.

That was a question.

That was a question. I would like to hear further about what we about. I'm sorry. Good.

I'm confusing people. Can I hear it? Council member Katowski is your question on how we would use the affordable housing dollars. Right. Some examples about what what it would be used for, because, you know, affordable housing is huge and the need is huge.

I wonder, you know, what would we see as investors as a result of allocating that money?

Yeah, so we're carrying forward some tools from the last 10 years of the affordable housing dollars that mostly went towards fee waivers for affordable housing developments and direct equity into projects to speed up their timeline and make those shovel viable. With this next iteration of the tax, we're looking at adding another tool of potential low-interest loans to developers. So still helping those developers with cost savings, speeding up their timelines, adding new affordable housing developments to the community while maintaining those previous two tools of fee credits or direct equity. So intentionally some flexibility here in this next 10 years, but feel like with these three tools, we can speed up the

pipeline and help our housing partners. So, and I like the idea of the fee waivers, Because I know when the article came out about Heartside Hill and they were quoting the prices of the one, two, three, four bedrooms, and comments that I heard in the community as well, that doesn't sound very affordable. But then when you add the fee waivers in there and drop down the price of the rental, then it makes it affordable. And I came to understand that. And hearing that as one of the things that we might use with the money to help people who are desperate to pay their rent, I would definitely support that.

Further comments or questions? Go ahead.

Yeah, I don't have any questions. I'll just make a comment. I will say that as somebody who's on the Finance Committee, we hear this probably like two to three times more than Council and the Southeast Community Center. And so I don't think I would I fully understood that it was the 12 million access from this The sun setting tax and so I do think that it would be good for council to revisit that conversation Because you know the three of the three of us here who hear that Multiple times I think I missed that so I would like to have that after the sunsets as far as the this New tax which is actually just an extension not a new tax

You know, I am supportive of where this has landed. I do understand that we need more funding for affordable housing. The reason that I didn't really push that, as Ginny said, this isn't an affordable housing tax. This is a capital improvement tax. I also don't think that $25 million over 10 years actually meets the need of what we need for affordable housing. We're at a $30 to $40 million gap a year. So I think we need to think more intentionally and creatively about how we are going to fund that And if we put a bunch of emphasis on this being affordable housing tax but 25 million dollars into it I just worry that we wouldn't be able to actually fund affordable housing at the level we need

so I am fine to stick with this being a community capital improvement program and Focus on some of these things that our community does really need like pedestrian sidewalk and a da compliance arterial and intersection and streetscape improvements and bicycle infrastructure, among a list of others. So thank you everyone who's participated and engaged throughout the process. And thank you to staff.

And I'll just make one comment that, you know, sometimes it looks to the public like there hasn't been much engagement. There has been a lot of engagement on this process. That's why you said, you know, we originally, there was some thought, thinking that it would be last year. There's been another year of council finance or work sessions, plus all the outreach you do in the community that I've seen around. So I would like to just sort of emphasize how much community outreach and how many of the capital priorities are in this. And I'm going to be fully supportive of it. I love the overlapping diagram that you showed because because it's important to get you know Even though it may not be the thing that we want or the thing that we use It's really important when you go to the ballot to earn the trust of the people to offer a wide variety of capital Improvement projects that fit the needs of our wide-ranging city, so I'm very appreciative. This is not we I guess tonight Other further comment good comes member canonical

Yeah, I would say I think we need to keep exploring how we help affordable housing in Fort Collins. That obviously needs to be a conversation that's ongoing. I would say I am pleased with how this came out and how it represents a lot of the feedback that we've heard from the community. With the Southeast Community Center moving forward, I think it's really important to think about the partnership that we have there with the school district as well as the library district. And I also think about all the affordable housing that we do have in the south, in the southeast. I think about the Harmony Mobile Home Park and the access those kids will have to these amenities that we don't have currently in the south. I think about the Harmony Corridor, and we're considering changing the composition of development there to allow for more housing. That will be really accessible for kids to get to this center. So I think about the bigger picture there and I'm happy to bring this amenity forward to the community

Yeah, thank you. Um, yeah big. Thank you to staff I know I think I don't know if it was councilmember Olson that mentioned I mean it is a real experience opportunity and privilege to be able to vote on this tax because it only comes once every 10 years and

I've had a lot of questions and I will be supporting it there are things on here that I think are I'm are not for me and I'm not really excited about them but that is not the point and

so as much as I appreciate the feedback that you took in in all our work

sessions thank you very much to the Finance Committee for hearing this a bunch of times. Agree with all the housing, all the things have been said about housing so far. I think this would never be the silver bullet no matter how much money we put into it. So we have a lot of work to do, not just in affordable housing, but in our housing shortage in general. Looking forward to being able to do that in the next two years as well. And this is one lever of many that we can use and really, again, appreciate all the work. Thanks.

I agree. Tremendous amount of work. I thoroughly enjoyed the process.

This is community engagement at its best.

I have to say I think I had the privilege of hearing Jenny's presentation at least four times.

And it was perfect each time. But thank you so much for coming out. You are out everywhere.

and you and your team I think did a fantastic job and I definitely will be supporting the work

Councilmember Olson thank you mayor first um I think the council did a great

job but at first I'd like to thank the management team and the staff that worked on this I think it was kind of a model of of how we did this because you stood your ground on a bunch of things but then when we did our job and said no we need a few changes. Those changes were brought forward. And without management, people did their thing, but without management resistance, they stayed in their lane and we stayed in our lane. And I just think it's a pretty good outcome. Nobody likes some of the things probably that are on it or to the extent that they're funded. I think there's a lot more to come on the affordable housing front as far as funding it in the near future. I don't know what those answers are, or what exactly they'll look like, but I think they're coming. I'm pretty confident that they're coming.

And then I just want to address a couple things that have been kind of things that –

I made a big political mistake in 1997. It was on building community choices. And could we please add an S to the building community choice? It's building community choices. I was the advisor on that campaign. And then later the way it was implemented was completely opposite of what the language that I'd agreed to as a citizen with management team, different management team at the time, two or three steps removed, management team. And now I think I made the same mistake. The language was fine then, the way it was implemented. But I missed something in the language this time that all council that I remember we ever talked about

was pools because people like pools, and we got the Southeast Community Center, and we got mulberry change coming up. And then we talked about the refresh of parks that we all supported to maintenance, overdue maintenance and changes in the parks.

And then magically, in my opinion, recreation facilities appeared in the ballot measure. And I don't remember that as part of the discussion. It was maybe there. I'm just saying I don't remember it. As in the Southeast Community Center and things like that.

And so I hope this council or the future council solidifies that 80-20 split that is talked about.

But I see the players change rapidly.

They're changing again in a couple weeks in that arena.

And 80%, I think it's generally in the refresh and renew, and 20% in the pools. But as far as I know, it's not in an ordinance. And then those things go off. When the players change, I saw it in 1997. So I hope we solidify that, that that's where we're going, because I don't remember the community centers being part of it. I'm not against the Southeast Community Center. I'm a little worried it's going to become, our share is going to become a $90 million thing, and I never had a $90 million facility in mind. In fact, I think in the last ballot measure that wasn't a tax increase either, I think it had an unreasonable low number, but it sure wasn't anything. What was it, $15 million, $12 million? What was that?

$18 million.

$18 million. And I think the high end right now is perhaps for our share is $75 million. So is that correct?

yeah what we showed to council finance was a range between 68 and 80. between what 68 and 80.

right and so that's a little different than the original number and so what we said is hopefully in the future not and by the way you folks at the table weren't responsible for that number as far as i know so i just want to make that clear but hopefully we'll project better in the future and hopefully we're projecting better now but um am i just not remembering it right about community centers being, I know it's in the ballot measure, but I never remember discussing that because I'm concerned that that was thrown in kind of at the last moment and it's going to lead to an 80 to

90 million dollar community center. Are you talking about the title in the current one

where it says? The 2050 tax. When does that end? Oh, the 2050 tax. That was a joke for the mayor, by the way. When does the 2050 tax end? I know that. It's 2050. I'll give a quick response if

it's helpful. The 2050 tax does include recreation facilities. I think maybe part of the confusion comes from we just generally don't separate our conversation about just a pool and then the rest of a recreation center. So we're just thinking about them more holistically. So the language in 2050 is meant to describe that so aquatics and recreation centers together yeah and i'm saying

that i'm sorry and embarrassed that i missed that because 95 of the talk in finance and among council members was about pools and about parks refresh and if i'd have caught that i'd have strongly recommended to council i'm not saying i would have succeeded that rec centers were not

part of our discussion throughout that process and I'm I'm owning it but that

disappoints me because that's going to allow that thing so I hopefully we stick

to you you oppose institutionalizing it or turning it into an ordinance about

the 80 20 split so I'll just well I Dean you can certainly answer for you I think councilmember Olson this question that you're talking about the 80 20 split and the use of the additional one-time dollars in CCIP for Southeast Community Center are very closely related. And so I wouldn't want to answer that on the spot tonight of a yes or no. I would like to bring it. I'm going to get forward to you with very clear articulation of the impacts of doing that.

Okay. I understand that answer, I think. But staff came up with the 80-20 number, which we strongly supported. So I'm not totally understanding. I'm going to let it go tonight because we've been here a while and we've got another issue to – council has another issue to deal with. But I guess I'm not really seeing what you say because staff said 80-20.

We said 80-20. Great. And hopefully that 80 20 doesn't change it kind of makes my point that I'd like it institutionalized, but thank you

Are we ready for a motion?

Sure, I'm going to adopt resolution 2025-077 submitting to a vote of the registered electors of the city a proposed ordinance extending the expiring 25 hundredth percent 25% community capital improvement program Capital project sales and use tax for a period of 10 years for the purpose of obtaining revenue for capital projects and related operation and maintenance

Second

Second by Canonico further discussion seeing none with the clerk who's called roll

Pinotero yes getowski yes aren't yes Francis yes Olson yes

Patiandi yes

Canonico yes motion passes 7-0 we're on to item 27

is there a staff presentation yes but I believe you have a council comment

beforehand thank you I've never done this before I need to recuse myself from this particular item I don't think I've ever done that my name is one of the three on the petition for the petition gathers as one of the people doing that and then also my spouse happens to be the person leading that campaign so I'm gonna recuse myself from all discussion and the vote so I'll see you in a

little bit okay all right and as he exits we do have a staff presentation so I will turn it over to Dylann Coldiron, our city clerk, to go through these materials.

Hi, Mayor and City Council. It's my pleasure to be here tonight to bring forward another citizen-initiated effort. This one's related to extension of the quarter ascent natural area sales tax that you heard about earlier today. So this is a really short presentation. Don't have a ton of information for you. This effort started back in May and that's when they came forward to give me the petition. We approved that to go out on May 8th and they were able to get it back to us on July 8th, which was a day before the deadline. They brought back about 235 petition sections and as they said earlier, they collected over 9,300 signatures. measures. We only verified 6,200 of them, about 1,000 over what they needed, which was the 5,070. Let me see if I can get my computer to go. So based on that, in June, I issued a statement of sufficiency. That started the protest period that was allowed, which expired July 29th. I did not get any protests on this, and so code requires me to bring it then forward to you at the next regular meeting, which was this meeting tonight. So that's why we're here. This one is a little bit different than the last one that I brought to you in that council does not have the choice to just approve the citizen ordinance. So because this is a tax item, the charter requires that this has to be referred to the ballot so the voters can vote on the item. So this item really is a resolution that adopts again the ballot title and the ballot language and it submits the citizen initiated ordinance to the voters at the upcoming November election. And this is just some of the language, actually the language, as it was revised last night. We revised this just to try to hit the 250 word minimum or maximum that the county has. So that was the reason. So we didn't change anything of substance, just took out some of the extra words made it more readable and so that's why you got that revision last night and just the rest of that i think you heard earlier that we did not receive any protests on the ballot title or the ballot language so at this point we don't have to hear any of that and so we're just ready for council to consider whether or not you want to approve this moving forward great thank you very much we'll go to the public good evening mayor and council i'm

roscaniff i'm resident of district 5 and i am the chair of land conservation and stewardship board and i'll be speaking in that official capacity to you this evening and on wednesday so i'm not sure it made it into your read before packet it was very late breaking but the board does recommend that council place it on the ballot i know you don't really have a choice but we have some because language that I wanted to share as well. Because the continuing funding of acquisition, restoration, operations, and maintenance of natural areas in perpetuity are critical to preserve the habitat value of our natural areas portfolio and is necessary to maintain the character of Fort Collins. And I think stepping away from my official role, this is me speaking for myself, I strongly endorse that language. I do definitely plan on urging the voters to support this I would recommend that you council members individually or even collectively take that step this is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of this continuation and expansion without increasing our taxes so I think it would be great if we could get a really huge groundswell of

support from the public thank you thank you very much next rich day of average

It's the City of Fort Collins, 80525. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. It sometimes is interesting and maybe sometimes disappointing to see when the words come out without expiration. In my understanding, the citizens of Fort Collins have bought quite a bit of natural area that I would say the vast majority of citizens in this city do not really get to enjoy. I don't think they understand that a lot of that land that they claim is natural area sits up there on the border with Wyoming. And it's not like we can get on the city bus and get a ride out there. Excuse me. So when we say what does natural area really mean to the citizens of Fort Collins, for me, it's what I can enjoy in my normal routine. So if I want to enjoy it on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon or I want to go with family or friends, I can do that. Now, it's nice to have natural areas. I really do enjoy that about the state of Colorado. I enjoy that about the city of Fort Collins. I think at times we've been enticed into buying into large areas where we're, for the whole part, I don't know what our natural benefit is going to be out of that. I know we have to pay quite a bit of money to maintain those areas, but not all of those areas are within the city of Fort Collins limits. So I'm questioning sometimes the fact that we're continuing when we go forward when we don't really have a plan where the citizens of Fort Collins get to participate on a regular basis. You know, if I wanted to take my bike on a bus, would I get on a bus and go to the natural area at Soapstone? Absolutely not. It doesn't work that way. But we've done improvements on the property. We've done improvements on the way to get there. But how are the people that are living in day-to-day lives in the city of Fort Collins getting a direct benefit from that? Now, I know, you know, the state added in this routine. Well, if you've got a car registration, you can basically get a free pass, but you still have to get there. Now, I know there's a national pass, which I could probably qualify for at this point,

but that would get us to free park, assuming what they had to change was now you have to have a reservation. when I was younger, you just drove up and went in.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else in the audience or online who'd like to give a public comment on this topic?

No saying none.

Public comment is closed on that. Council members have any questions or comments?

Council Member Goudhouski. Yeah, I'm going to support this simply because, well, not simply because, but a lot of because,

when our citizens work that hard to get that many signatures

exceeding the number of signatures that they needed.

I feel it's worthwhile to hear what the voters have to say. And for that reason, I want to support it.

Councilman Padiani.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor. I mean, we need to refer it. And I also think that our natural areas are a resource that our community has over and over communicated that they want to support and expand. Speaking with residents, there have been questions about the tax being in perpetuity. That being said, I'm confident that folks will vet that and I really do think that there's a strong value for obtaining and maintaining these natural spaces and I feel good about referring

this to the ballot. Great. Anyone else? I'll just say that I really appreciate the petition writers and gathers, signature gathers, working closely with the city natural areas because it is a forever tax. And there is concern about buying property far away that's not equitable to have people pay in in a sales tax and never be able to see it or use it. I completely think that's a good point. But my understanding is that the ballot initiative was carefully written so that the maintenance operation is cared for and that sort of thing. So I'm confident that it was well crafted and I'm happy to send it the ballot and see what the voters want how they want to create their community. Anyone else? Okay. Do I hear a motion? Yes.

Happy to. I move to adopt resolution 2025-078 submitting to a vote of the registered electors of the city. The citizens initiated ordinance to continue the city's existing open space sales and use tax.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Further discussion? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll.

Gutowski? Yes. Arndt? Yes. Francis? Yes. Potjandi? Yes. Canonico? Yes. Pignatero? Yes.

The measure passes 6-0 with one recused. Councilmember Olson, you can come back. Do council members have any items for other business to come before council? okay seeing none then this meeting is adjourned at 9 25 p.m good night for cons