HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Futures Committee - 10/11/2021 -1
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
FUTURES COMMITTEE MEETING
Date: October 11, 2021
Location: Colorado River Room, Zoom
Time: 4:00-6:00pm
Committee Members present:
Mayor Jeni Arndt
Councilmember Susan Gutowsky (District 1)
Councilmember Emily Francis (District 6)
Additional Council members present:
City Staff:
Jackie Kozak-Thiel
Kelly DiMartino, Interim City Manager
Presenters:
Patti Schmitt, Director of the Family Leadership Training Institute (FLTI) at CSU Extension, David
MacPhee, CSU Prevention Research Center, Meaghan Overton, Housing Program Manager, City of Fort
Collins, Ed Morrison, Director of Agile Strategy Lab at Northern Alabama University
Additional Staff present:
Carrie Daggett, City Attorney
Kyle Stannert, City Manager’s Office
Teresa Roche, Human Resources
Michelle Finchum, Environmental Services
Kevin Wilkins, IT
Claudia Menendez, City Manager’s Office
Caryn Champine, PDT
Cassie Archuleta, Environmental Services
Karen Burke, Human Resources
Terri Runyan, City Manager’s Office
Rebecca Everette, CDNS
Community members:
Catherine Leavitt, community member
Carrie Van Horn, community member and graphic recorder
Joe, community member
Meeting called to order at 4:05pm
Approval of Minutes:
Councilmember Susan Gutowsky moved to approve the September 13 minutes. Councilmember Francis
seconded. Motion passed unanimously. 2-0-1.
Chairman Comments: None
Summary
• Presenters began with CSU’s land acknowledgement and were thanked for doing so. The City is
working on crafting a land acknowledgement and recognize that local government to tribal
relations are very important
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• The Future of Civic Capacity and building Civic Economy is critical to the future of collaboration
with our community
o Civic Capacity Index can help to identify what factors speed up the ability to collaborate
and what things may slow it down.
• Civic Capacity was linked to challenges such as the pandemic and the ability for communities to
be resilient
o There is a need to consider how to invest in community now to be able to address
challenges in the future
• Civic economy recognizes community at the center—how to shift language from brining
community to the table to having community set the table
• Data and the Civic Capacity Index show why having strong Civic Capacity matters—thee is a
direct correlation to health and health equity
• Action: Continue to make investments in things of the Future
o Invest in language justice and local translators and interpreters
o Invest in civic capacity
Consider where we are now and where we need to
Think Tank Item 5-2021 Future of Civic Capacity in Fort Collins: Conditions for Emergence and a
Civic Economy
Dr. David MacPhee kicks off the panel with a discussion of Civic Capacity Index and how it relates to
resilience
• Civic Capacity is a research-based measure of community capacity to respond to challenges such
as COVID, hurricanes, floods, etc.
• The 6 measures of Civic Capacity that are measured are:
o Leadership
o Inclusion
o Institutions
o Civic Culture
o Coalitions
o Collaboration
• Civic Capacity is important for several reasons including:
o Civic capacity index related to death rates- March 3rd, 2020- 2021
o Lower cases and death rates the higher the community resilience
Meaghan Overton, City of Fort Collins shares about the Home 2 Health (H2H) project as a practical
example of building Civic Capacity
• H2H was a 2-year grant awarded through Colorado Department of Public Health and
Environment (CDPHE)— partnerships and been built through City Plan update process and H2H
scaled these partnerships up to allow City and community partners to continue to work on
housing affordability and health equity.
• Community engagement was done differently than it ever had done before:
o centered lived experience from people experiencing housing challenges—connecting
stories to policies—build policy from experiences.
• A shared leadership model was developed and utilized strategic doing
• At the end of the grant everything was wrapped up with community summit to bring groups of
people together and have a deliberative dialogue rooted in language justice
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• H2H leaned into the spirit of adventure and curiosity and experimentation in doing this work
• It was really important to be transparent about challenges and adapt program as needs of people
change
o Transparency is critical to creating opportunities for conversation—if not transparent in
how ideas inform practice—sense of accountability is lost.
• Policies and engagement that came from H2H include:
o Example inclusionary zoning and others
o Start process of updating LUC
o Development of HSP was supported by H2H work
Patti Schmitt discusses the importance of the Civic Capacity Index and building Civic Capacity
• A survey was created for H2H using civic capacity index to see where people felt the community
civic capacity was and how did it increase people’s understanding in housing affordability issues
and their ability to engage in the process
o A major challenge to building community is inclusion
o In the survey people who responded did feel like the City helped. Not everyone
necessarily agreed on the end result – but people felt invited and included to participate in
the discussion
• Civic Capacity Index provides an opportunity to understand inclusion and consider how to build a
bridge our background differences.
o Now is the time to think about civic capacity or muscle you have in community and how
to invest in community
o Civic capacity won’t be there unless you invest in it
Community catalyst workers
Content experts need training on how to provide a role for community.
• Allow group/community to provide path for us.
Consider when do we let community lead?
• Let community identify priorities or decide where to spend money
• Culture of collaboration—ability to think about how we work together and respond to challenges
Ed Morrison, creator of Strategic doing builds off of the conversation to discuss what it means to invest in
and build our Civic Economy
• It is time to consider what the opportunity is for Fort Collins to be a leader in this space
• Nationally it is important to think about how to rebuild our economies and more beyond just the
market economy:
o Market economy = investments and opportunities that are publicly valuable and privately
profitable
o Civic economy = investments and opportunities that are publicly valuable and not
privately profitable
• Civic Economy drives the market economy which is why it is important to invest in it
• What is needed to build Civic Economy?
o Shared and collective leadership
o Position self on boundary of market and civic economy
Utilize civic capacity index to help to build leadership capacity in our
communities
o Collaboration: Ingenuity comes when we collaborate
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Teach these skills to anybody
o New habits of thinking and doing things together
• Planting seeds now will grow into trees of the future
• Now is the time to lean in on new models
Discussion
• Discussion around language justice and the importance of it—different languages provide
nuance/experience and concepts that were never thought about. Language justice not just about
accommodating people but also about learning.
• Consider content and context experts: if we can’t acknowledge different experiences than it can
prohibit community capacity building
• Consider how city-led projects if we are thinking about the cost associated with doing inclusive
engagement
• Discussion around investing in things of the Future
o Invest in language justice
o Invest in civic capacity
o Consider where we are now and where we need to head
o Invest in local translators and interpreters
• Building social capacity and a sense of belonging is key to building resilience—need to build
social connectiveness- direct correlation to health and health equity
• Thinking about the power of many languages—each language presents knowledge
• Strategic doing is a visual language that helps to bridge cultural divides
Additional Items
• Kyle Stannert, Deputy City Manager, and Caryn Champine, Director of Planning, Development
and Transportation, are participating in a leaders learning cohorts as part of the Mayor’s
Bloomberg program.
• There was a question posed by a community member about what 100% electrifcation looks like if
technology hasn't caught up to vision?
• Jackie shares that this is something to explore about alternative scenarios when we look to the
Future.
Additional Discussion:
• Discussion on upcoming topics
Meeting adjourned by Mayor Arndt at 5:52pm
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