HomeMy WebLinkAboutLand Conservation And Stewardship Board - Minutes - 01/12/2011MINUTES
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
LAND CONSERVATION & STEWARDSHIP BOARD
Regular Meeting
January 12, 2011
DATE: Wednesday, January 12, 2011
LOCATION: 215 N Mason Street, Conference Room 1-A
TIME: 6:00 p.m.
For Reference: Linsey DeBell - 217-7436
Aislinn Kottwitz - 692-9915
Mark Sears, Staff Liaison - 416-2096
Board Members Present
K-Lynn Cameron, Linsey DeBell, S. Kathryn Grimes, Trudy Haines
Board Members Excused
Juli Germany, Michelle Grooms, Linda Knowlton, Paul Mills, Linda Stanley
Council Liaison
Aislinn Kottwitz
Staff Present
Natural Resources / Natural Areas Department: Rick Bachand, Aran Meyer, Mark Sears,
Jen Shanahan, John Stokes
Guests
Matt Wempe, City of Fort Collins, Transportation and Special Projects
Public Comments
Agenda Review
There was a Board discussion regarding an additional agenda item regarding making a
recommendation to City Council on City Plan, Plan Fort Collins. However, without
quorum the Board opted to postpone this item until the February 9th LCSB meeting.
Review and Approval of Minutes
Without quorum the approval of the minutes will be addressed at the February 9, 2011
Land Conservation & Stewardship Board meeting.
Land Conservation & Stewardship Board
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Page 2 of 6
2010 Annual Report
• Sears: A copy of the Annual Report was included in your packet. I reviewed the
2010 Board minutes, which was a through synopsis of what the Board did, and
used the same format used the year prior.
• DeBell: Since we do not have a quorum, we can make a motion this evening to
approve the 2010 Annual Report, and then verify with the rest of the Board that
there are no objections.
• Sears: Would you like me to initiate the email to the absent Board members?
• DeBell: Yes.
Prairie Dog Update
• Bachand: In 2007 the Wildlife Management Guidelines require us to report to this
Board twice a year on our prairie dog management.
Bachand, Shanahan and Meyer presented a PowerPoint presentation to the Board, which
included the following:
o Overview of today’s presentation
o A retrospective of the past decade, 1998 – 2007
o A retrospective of the past decade, 2001-2004
o A retrospective of the past decade, 2005
o A retrospective of the past decade, 2007
o 2008 – 2010
o Review of 2010 Management Annual Protocol
o Colony Acres on Natural Areas 2004 – 2010
o Cathy Fromme Plague Event 2008 – 2010
o Major Management Actions – 2010
o Fumigation…acres and costs in 2010
o Plant communities and urban prairie dogs
o Why commit to vegetation restoration
o Proposed 2011 actions
o Update on Contraception
• Grimes: Is the plague due to over population?
• Bachand: Not necessarily, plague is carried by fleas and there is a thought that it
comes is waves and stays dormant in a colony until some trigger point where the
plague event will happen.
• Meyer: There is the ability for the plague to spread when the population is up.
What is interesting is when one of our properties has an event, and then a couple
of miles away the plague shows up. I believe coyotes may carry the fleas, they
may fall ill, but not to the degree of the prairie dog.
Haines moved to accept the 2010 memo as written. Grimes second. It was unanimously
approved by those Broad members who attended the meeting.
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Wednesday, January 12, 2011
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• Grimes: When prairie dogs die, as the result of the plague, do they die in the
burrow or elsewhere, and does the coyote population go up as a result of easy
food to get?
• Meyer: Very little die on the surface. When we do find animals on the surface we
collect them and take them to the County Health Department to confirm that it
was the plague.
• Haines: Are you driven more by reasons like food source and it’s a great place to
have them vs. urban environment, or are you driven politically for instance that
we may get criticized for using fumigation measures in an urban environment, but
we are encouraging them in areas where it is appropriate?
• Shanahan: Our reason for promoting prairie dogs at Soapstone is because it is an
ideal place for them because it has native grasses and large spaces for the colonies
to expand and contract naturally. In fact, they are playing their natural role of
creating a specific habitat niche required by some wildlife such as the mountain
plover.
• Haines: Have you received many calls from citizens?
• Bachand: Not in 2010.
• Haines: I like the idea of deciding should we maintain a restoration area and then
allow colonies in other areas, and I like that Soapstone can be a prairie haven.
• Debell: With the same caveat of not letting an area become denuded, it is a good
idea to maintain restored areas. I have the opinion that stepping in sooner in some
areas would have been preferred.
Poudre Natural Areas Management
• Bachand: In the fall we completed our public outreach process, we held an open
house and received on-line feed back. Currently we are writing the details for an
internal draft document that internal staff will review, and once that is complete
we will have a working document for our City department to look at.
We received many comments, but the one that was repeated most was “the thing
they value most about the natural areas is their opportunity to view wildlife and
knowing that they are there.”
• Shanahan: The impression I had was that their comments reflected the work we
are doing very well and we are doing detailed projects. Also, the comments
reflected on our mission. There was a strong interest in ecology, conservation,
esthetic scenery, and wildlife values, 90 people commented on ecological values
and 60 people commented on recreation.
• DeBell: What were the natures of the comments regarding trails.
• Bachand: Simply that a section of trail is in need of repair or that they would like
to see a trail in a certain area.
Transportation Master Plan
• Sears: Matt has been working on the Transportation Master Plan, which is a
component of the overall City Plan effort. One component of that is as we have
compiled information from the citizenry; the paved trails of the City have always
been a transportation corridor. The question is should the City encourage the use
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Wednesday, January 12, 2011
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of trail as transportation corridors? As we are aware most of the paved trails pass
through natural areas around Town with exception of the Powerline trail, Mason
Corridor trail starting at Red Fox Meadows.
• Wempe: I have been working on this since March of 2010. We have done a lot of
public outreach as far as focus groups and public meetings. Citizens use the trails
system for a variety of reasons. There is a recreation component, people commute
to work on these trails and then there is general transportation as well. This is
separate from the electric bike issue, which is coming up on all levels of City
government right now. The Bike Advisory committee, which is a sub committee
of the Transportation Board, is focused on that along with City Council.
Wempe also spoke about the following:
o Trails, how to balance uses and users
o How do we recognize different types of trails in our trail system
o How to design trails that work for all users
o Bike safety
• Cameron: When you are encouraging the uses of trails as transportation corridors
does that mean that if that would go through you would change the design of the
trails?
• Wempe: Currently we are not recommending any change in policy language.
• Cameron: I think it’s wonderful that we are even talking about this issue.
• DeBell: When you reach high use on trails you need to have traffic symbols like
there are on the roads.
• Haines: Encouraging people to bike is always a good thing, but with that may also
come more trails. We may want alternate routes of trails for people who are not
geared toward recreation and that may mean wider trails like the Poudre River
trail because of the popular use of the trail on the weekends. Who pays for the
construction of trails?
• Sears: It comes from a number of sources, but Parks and Recreation use grant
money and they have their own fund.
• DeBell: I like the connection between the urban and the open spaces and natural
areas. Also, there should be trail access to schools.
• Haines: There are some trails that are very narrow and need to be wider; Spring
Creek trail would be one instance.
• Stokes: Our trail standard is ten feet and in a lot of places there is a running trail
next to that. From a biological management perspective they have a big impact
and then there are volunteer trails that radiate from that trail or spur others. I’m
concerned of the amount of fragmentation we are causing in some of our natural
areas.
The Board had a discussion on bike use and users and trails in the trail system that could
be improved. They talked about their concern that bike trails do not become so widened
that they resemble roads. It was mentioned that there needs to be more bike parking
around Old Town.
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Wednesday, January 12, 2011
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Larimer County’s – Regional Comprehensive Conservation and Recreation
Planning Effort
• Sears: This is a follow up to the joint meeting with Larimer County, that we had
last year, and our work and efforts to put together a potential partnership with
Larimer County. The purpose of this discussion item is for the Board to provide
input on the merits of partnering with Larimer County and potentially other
agencies to develop a Regional Land Conservation, Stewardship and Recreation
Study.
We’ve changed the name from a Master Plan to a Study because what we hope to
come out with is an over arching umbrella document that would identify potential
opportunities and potential partnerships, goals and strategies for land conservation
and recreation. This would not prescribe that any agency had to do any of those
things. However, this information could be taken by Larimer County and used to
develop the Larimer County Natural Resources Master Plan, which would also be
an update to their current Open Lands Program Master Plan.
Fort Collins could also take that information which will be regional in nature, but
will also have some detailed local information, to update our Master Plan which
will be updated in 2014.
We would like to submit a grant application, in August, to Great Outdoors
Colorado (GOCO) to help fund this effort.
Mark spoke to the following questions:
o Is this the appropriate time for the regional master planning effort?
o Should the Natural Areas Program partner with Larimer County on a
GOCO grant application to fund the Master Planning effort?
o Should the Natural Areas Program be willing to help fund the matching
funds for the GOCO grant based upon the Percentage of Help Preserve
Open Spa e – Sales tax money received from Larimer County?
o Does an economic study regarding the benefits of open space fit in? And
if so when? Do the benefits of an economic study, at a cost of perhaps
$20,000, justify the cost? Could we summarize the generic economic
benefits of open space based on other studies at a much reduced cost and
still be just as effective?
• DeBell: What is the amount of the grant that you are going for?
• Sears: $75,000 for a single grant, but there is a possibility that we could submit a
multi agency application and therefore we could apply for twice or three times
that amount.
• Haines: Isn’t GOCO encouraging the County to apply for that type of grant
because GOCO wants to get into the realm of using some of the money for
planning?
• Cameron: I’m not sure about this one, but they are having the County apply for a
grant with a connection to children in nature.
• Sears: This grant is different but the same from what K-Lynn mentioned.
• DeBell: Have you done any similar things in the past to know if your concept of
cost is reasonable?
• Sears: Both the City and the County have developed their own Master Plan with
costs around $100,000. The County will have to update their Master Plan and
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they are assuming a cost of around that amount. We as a staff are leaning towards
working with Trust for Public Lands (TPL) to determine our costs. One of our
next steps will be to sit down with TPL and asking them to help with a scope of
work and then a cost with that.
• Cameron: I think this is a great idea having Fort Collins, Loveland, Berthoud and
Wellington take part in a regional study, it would be powerful. It would also be
powerful to take back to the voters, and the fact that everyone shares the County’s
open space sales tax and has an interest in it and an interest to see it continue. It
makes sense that everybody should join to do the regional effort.
• Haines: I love the idea of a regional plan because it’s a chance to show leadership
with the other communities.
• Cameron: Fort Collins and Larimer County have these programs that are more
mature. TPL has done a lot of work helping communities set up new programs
and it will be interesting to see if they have experience in areas all ready exiting
that have lots of mapping and things in place, and how do they interface with the
City of Fort Collins program which is done so well.
• Sears: Some of TPL’s blueprinting has been done, maybe ten years ago and it
may be time to start over, but it should be a lot easier because we have a lot of it
all ready in place and we can build on what all ready had been done.
• DeBell: There are some things that could come out well, but there is always a risk
with these things.
• Cameron: The biggest budget item should be working with the public process.
• DeBell: I think we need to be very careful with our conversation with TPL to
confirm that the concepts you’ve done in the pass can transfer.
• Sears: We handle technical things like this all the time, that’s what we do.
Land Conservation Updates and Announcements
• Sears:
o We are moving forward with the land conservation easement on the
Million property.
o Waiting for the NRCS’s review of the appraisals, conservation easement
language, and purchase agreements on the three irrigated farm properties
in the Wellington Community Separator Conservation Area.
o Our staff is working on their work plans for 2011.
Adjourn
The meeting adjourned at 8:40 p.m.
Submitted by Geri Kidawski
Administrative Clerk II
Approved_______________________________________________________________