Make Hughes a Natural Area
Protect Hughes Once and For All!
Make 100% of Hughes a Protected City Natural Area for ALL!
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!).
We saw the failed and shameful community outreach attempt a couple of years ago during which a national bike lobbyist was hired to unsurprisingly conclude that a recreation-tourism bike park should be built at Hughes. Fast forward to today, and we are now in the midst of yet ANOTHER outreach effort on Hughes, the experimental, so-called “Civic Assembly” process. Numerous community members have articulated profound concerns about the Civic Assembly process’ gross lack of transparency, fairness, and robustness. Monied special interests with self-serving agendas have already hijacked the supposedly democratic process.
Specifically, the recreation-tourism bike park lobby and the eco-tourism open air zoo-like “Wildlife and Nature Campus” lobby, are the leaders of the pack with their high-intensity uses, and thanks to their behind-the-scenes machinations with Council members. What’s clear is that these aggressive and monied special interests are attempting to grab Hughes for their own self-serving agenda, both groups shamelessly running roughshod over fellow community members and the well-established legislative intent of the citizens’ conservation-focused ballot measure. There has even been talk of swapping or selling Hughes to the eco-tourism lobbying group.
Recall that over the past 9+ years, and against all odds, the Fort Collins community and voters accomplished TWO of THREE steps to protect Hughes in perpetuity. First, we zoned Hughes as ‘Public Open Lands’, AND second, we acquired Hughes so it is now truly PUBLICLY-OWNED land. The Third and last step in the community-driven Hughes conservation effort is to PROTECT 100% of Hughes as PUBLICLY-OWNED land in perpetuity for future generations and for the local wildlife that inhabit and are returning to Hughes open space.
Step 3, protecting Hughes as conserved open space, is within the City Council’s authority, and it is undoubtedly what the City Council SHOULD have done as soon as the ballot measure was passed by voters! But, alas, City leaders refuse to heed the call from the voters and Fort Collins community yet again.
Therefore, we proclaim again that the ONLY truly EQUITABLE and PROTECTIVE future for Hughes is for the City to designate 100% of Hughes as an official City Natural Area, contiguous with the protected Natural Areas (Maxwell and Pineridge). Protecting Hughes as a City Natural Area would truly benefit ALL members of our community, of all socioeconomic backgrounds and physical abilities, and it would protect and preserve habitat and dark skies for our local wildlife that are returning to the Hughes site.
However, if City leaders continue to ignore the will of the voters, the people can protect Hughes themselves once and for all with a second and final initiative for “Hughes Natural Area”.
Join us.
