There has been a lot of focus on the “land uses” in the Ordinance langue for Hughes Open Space. Equally important are the WHEREAS statements in the Ordinance, though these important clauses are receiving little to no attention.

Make sure when reading the Ordinance language, you also focus on the WHEREAS statements.

When people who want to develop Hughes for a massive bike park or visitor center/campus tell you that Hughes isn't "pristine" and shouldn't be conserved as a natural area, remind them that many of our water storage bodies along the Poudre, and our precious natural areas, were LITERAL dumps and strip mines for gravel and sand, before being extensively RESTORED to the critical ecosystems and low-impact recreation (fishing, walking and wildlife watching) they are now.

While the amount of content skewed toward the vocal bike park lobby, it was pretty clear from this CBS news story (below) that the bike park lobby is stretching the legislative intent of the word "recreation" for their own high-impact large-scale bike park that would only serve a few in our community, and would negatively impact Hughes and the sensitive ecotone along the adjacent protected areas.

There has been a lot of disinformation-style messaging coming from lobbying groups trying to twist the legislative intent of the Hughes ballot measure.

So, here’s the gist of our position about Hughes and the legislative intent of the conservation-focused citizen initiative, so others can’t continue to flood public venues and social media with misinformation.

If you haven’t heard the Hughes episode of Fort Collins Through Another Lens, it’s a must-listen!

A PATHS organizer discusses some of the many questions and concerns around the experimental Civic Assembly process with podcast host, Trish Babbitt.

Hello Friends and Neighbors,
There is a lot going on with Hughes Open Space these days, and it’s not good. We’ve been quietly watching the shenanigans around Hughes, particularly with regard to the City’s “Future of Hughes” tactics. Apparently, City leaders forgot that voters decided to conserve Hughes as open space in a landslide in April of 2021 (~69% of voters said YES!).