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MINUTES
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
ECONOMIC ADVISORY COMMISSION
Date: Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Location: Colorado River Room, 222 Laporte Ave.
Time: 11:00am–1:00pm
For Reference
Wade Troxell, Mayor & Council Liaison
Josh Birks, Staff Liaison 221-6324
Rebecca Hicklin, Minutes 416-4349
Commission Members Present Commission Members Absent
Sam Solt, Chair
Denny Otsuga
Craig Mueller Alan Curtis
Ted Settle Linda Stanley
Connor Barry
John Parks
Ann Hutchison
Staff Present
Rebecca Hicklin, Admin/Board Support
Josh Birks, Economic Health Director
Guests
Dale Adamy, citizen
Meeting called to order at 1:04 am
Public Comment—No Public comment
• Discussion
Review and Approval of Minutes:
September minutes approved as presented.
Agenda Review—No changes.
Commission Member/Staff Updates—
• Denny: FVC Mesh is closed. Not sure what plan is.
• Josh: There could be another group taking over.
• Ann: There will be a similar co-working space available soon.
AGENDA ITEM 1— City Plan Update
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Josh: Analysis and data, meetings and phone calls to determine what we hope to accomplish, timing.
Objectives are still in the works. City plan is usually viewed with a 20-year time horizon. Buildout will be
one of the main topics—25-32 years from now.
Sam: Why does it (process) take so long?
Josh: Many reasons—two of the top: 1) Lots of public engagement; 2) All colleagues working on it have
day jobs—this is another job on top of job requirements; 3) complicated. We need a multitude and variety
of public engagement.
Sam: Any attempt to engage Timnath, Wellington, & Loveland in planning?
Josh: Yes, we work with surrounding areas on the traffic analysis. What of the projected growth will
surrounding areas pick up? It’s not a regional land use program.
Ann: It is a missed opportunity to work with surrounding areas. Observation by NCEA is that there are
gaps. We could be regional and parochial.
Ted: We need to work on identifying the alignment.
Josh: Hopefully this will be a theme as people continue to bring it up. Population-no effective levers to
control it.
Ted—Discussion with Ryan Mounce, Project Manager for City Plan and Meaghan Overton, Engagement
Lead. This commission wants to engage with community. Meaghan—all plans since 1959—growth has
been an issue in all of them. Public outreach this spring, final presentation in spring of 2019. They will
have ambassadors lead a group (s) in different settings, companies, etc. How can we use the newspaper to
reach people? General approach is in 3 phases. Phases: 1) Bring people together, 2) Refinement, 3) Settle
on issues—proceed with one pagers on the issues. Will we then convene other groups on specific topics?
TBD.
Core of the issue—Example: What are 3 or 4 opinions people hold about affordable housing? Each
choice has advantages and disadvantages. Take process into groups with the hope of finding common
ground. What is the best way to proceed? Process vs. Product. We will provide the engagement
mechanism. We will continue to stay engaged throughout the process.
• Ambassadors are voluntary, possibly CSU Students.
Josh: How do we get engagement in City Plan? In the past—same people talking about the same things.
There is backlash, there is a disconnect from what we learned in the planning process. We need a deeper
understanding of what people want. We hope this process will be a lot more proactive and get others than
the “usual group” involved.
Sam—Coloradoan has sponsored a few meetups. Maybe engage them?
Craig: Meetups were used to get people talking, no obligation or intent on the part of the Coloradoan.
AGENDA ITEM 2— Approve for Submittal of Periodic Review, Update on Experiment
Josh: It would be best to have board take a formal vote. I tried to capture a couple of bigger takeaways.
1) Improve communication with Commission and Council Liaison.
2) Improve focus on TBL with emphasis on economic perspective
3) Collaborate more with commissions served by SSA.
Growth topic continues to come up: Economic, Population, Both?
Commitments—Mayor would be here at least quarterly. Collaborate with other commissions? We asked
Mayor for more direction. We can also evaluate and bring our own topics. If approved—It will be
submitted to Sarah Kane and given to Council. We look at 6 month planning calendar—will always be the
foundation of our work.
Sam: “ I move we accept the letter and forward to appropriate people.”
Ted: “I second the motion.”
Sam: “All in favor?”
All responded: “Yes.”
Ted—Use TBL as a standard to bring Commissions and Boards together. We will look at this and then
meet with other Commissions and Boards. We may have 1 Board, may stay the same. It’s all an
experiment. We don’t know what the outcome will be.
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Josh—The City is moving faster than we anticipated. Mayor brought up and there was much excitement
around this experiment. If EAC wants to dive into it, we are ready to go. Jackie has an idea of what first
topic should be—digging into the TBL concept. Assessment that will prompt thinking around the 3 legs.
She doesn’t want to direct what the commission would do, but thought it would be a good idea.
The version sent was dated 9/21/17. There is a newer version.
Craig: What is different?
Ted: Some of the B & C are non-jurisdictional. They are quasi-judicial, they actually approve plans-these
will be excluded. There are 6 that relate to sustainability. The schedule was shrunk—knocked out 8
months.
Ann: How is it that we design these so that they don’t replicate the SuperBoards?
Ted: That is what we are trying to avoid. Those commissions would be knowledgeable, interested. I hope
this format will enable more action to come out. Hopefully they will be speaking with a large voice.
Josh: In the month when these would occur (3 times per year), these would replace those individual
meetings. The board meeting would start with outside expertise. The rest of evening will then focus on
topic and be more interactive. Individual boards will want to pick up those topics and discuss at
individual meetings.
Ann: TBL analysis as a tool. We need to be thoughtful about how we define this.
Sam: Use existing groups, change the process and determine topics.
Josh: There should be designees from participating commissions to determine the agenda, topics, etc.
Ted: I hope that this group will be vigilant and watch how it goes. Do we need a mid-course change in
direction on the experiment? Maybe something will come out of it that we haven’t thought about. We
hope something concrete that we accomplished, it was heard by others and our efforts were appreciated;
we made a difference. I would ask for Jackie to lead the charge with other 5 Boards and Commissions.
Josh: Jackie will float the concept today at SSA Lead meeting. Jackie hopes it will take place no later
than January of 2018. You will hear from me the first part of next week. All the Board and Commission
Liaisons will be at the next Team Lead meeting to get them up to speed. Finding a time that everyone can
get together may be a challenge. Other groups meet from 4-6 or 5-7 on a variety of days during the
month. We may not always have perfect attendance—hope that we will have a good representation.
Ted: What needs to change?
? :2nd bullet point on first page—good to have clear structure on how we plan to hold these meetings. Is
the proposal similar to approach, is it similar?
Ted: We will have a whole meeting with a TBL lens with more people looking at it. It will be a more
integrated analysis and conclusion.
Sam—Audience is different, process is different.
Josh: Hopefully the outcome will be different.
Connor—How the meeting is going to be facilitated should be spelled out. Meeting will be more in-
depth, on one topic. We can include background information or reading we can do before-hand.
Josh: We are more certain about what we don’t want it to be-list things we want to avoid.
Connor—Outline “don’ts”, we are open to ability to modify as experiment progresses. We want to give a
better deliverable to Council.
Craig: No expectation that there is unanimity or agreement of all 6 B & C.
Ted: Hopefully there will be a recommendation based on agreement of joint boards.
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Denny: Scientific process are used. We need to set a hypothesis on what the experiment is trying to solve.
What would be the success, or point at which hypothesis is supported or not supported by data.
Ted: Maybe a section on anticipated outcomes?
Josh: Do we have enough agreement on the general concept?
Lunch Break
AGENDA ITEM 3-- Quality of Place Criteria—See attached for categories/ideas.
Everyone will take some time and write down ideas on stickies. We will then bring up stickies—place on
wall. You will look for things that are similar/different. We will then have a bunch of ideas grouped in
categories. Then determine if the groupings give us an idea of what makes a Quality place to live. (see
additional document that lists these criteria titled: Quality of Place Criteria.)
Meeting Adjourned: 1:01 pm
Next Meeting: November 15, 2017