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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - Mail Packet - 12/09/2025 - Futures Committee Agenda – December 8, 2025 Council Futures Committee Agenda – City of Fort Collins Page 1 of 1 December 8, 2025 AGENDA Futures Committee REMOTE VIA TEAMS, 4:30-6:00PM, Monday, December 8, 2025 Please click the link below to join the meeting: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/join-a-meeting Meeting ID: 284 475 535 410 7 Passcode: Ag6ds3bH For Technical Assistance please call: 970-221-6505 CALL MEETING TO ORDER 4:30pm- 4:35pm Facilitated by Melanie Potyondy ROLL CALL, APPROVAL OF OCTOBER 13, 2025 MINUTES 4:35- 4:45pm Facilitated by Caryn Champine Click or tap here to enter text. DISCUSSION ITEM: THE MOBILE VOTING PROJECT 4:45-5:45pm Facilitated by Melanie Potyondy The Mobile Voting Project is a non-profit that advocates for increasing voter participation through secure voting via smartphone. Colorado already allows for Electronic Ballot Returns for active military voters, overseas citizens, disabled voters, those displaced by natural disaster. Thier goal is to work with municipalities and special districts to offer secure mobile voting as an additional option to other methods of voting. ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE UPDATES 5:45- 6:00pm Facilitated by Caryn Champine COMMITTEE MEMBERS Councilmember Julie Pignataro Councilmember Melanie Potyondy Councilmember Tricia Canonico Councilmember Susan Gutowsky, Alternate Staff Liaison: Caryn Champine, Director Planning, Development and Transportation Staff Support: Melina Dempsey, FCMoves 1 CITY OF FORT COLLINS FUTURES COMMITTEE MEETING Date: October 13, 2025 Location: Zoom Time: 4:30pm-6:00pm Committee Members present: Councilmember Melanie Potyondy Councilmember Julie Pignataro Councilmember Tricia Canonico Additional Council members present: City Staff: Caryn Champine Additional Staff present: Kelly DiMartino, City Manager Dean Klingner, Community Services Jeff Swoboda, Police Chief Karen Burke, Human Resources Teresa Roche, Human Resources Director Meeting called to order at 4:31 pm Approval of Minutes: Councilmember Pignataro moved to approve the August 11, 2025 minutes. Councilmember Canonico seconded. Motion passed 3-0. Chairperson Comments: None 2 The Future of AI, Kevin Wilkins Topic Overview: Kevin Wilkins, Chief Information Officer, will invite Council on a people-first journey into what AI could mean for Fort Collins. Imagine simpler services, safer streets, smarter utilities, clearer housing conversations, and recreation that meets people where they are, leveraging existing, and emerging capabilities that will enrich the lives of all members of our community as well as how our City delivers services. He will bring stories, not jargon, with a steady focus on equity, inclusion, accessibility, and trust so every neighborhood benefits. He will also name the hard edges like privacy, bias, and over- automation, and show how we keep people in charge as we learn together, then guide a roundtable on possibilities and priorities. Kevin Wilkins, Chief Information Officer, stated the discussion will be focused on a five-year horizon given the quickly changing pace of AI. He stated AI is going to enable new capabilities, but will also challenge some of the current ways of doing things. Where is Fort Collins Headed? • Key Goals: o driving equity, inclusivity, and accessibility in everything o affordability o safety o resiliency and sustainability Where is AI? • Driving automation • Breaking down barriers for languages and abilities • Advent of more autonomy • Supplementing work force with robots and drones • Predicting and identifying patterns and forecasting • Helping with administrative and manual work Strategic Symbiotic Convergence of Human and Machine • Focus on core tenants and principles around easy access to services • Giving time back to staff to focus on areas of more value and impact • Improving efficiency • Mobility • Transparency AI Today • Innovative and unprecedented growth • Rapid advances in computing • Pressure on organizations and communities to act quickly, take a solution, and look for problems to solve • Innovation is outpacing readiness, governance, and cultural responsiveness to understand these new tools • Thousands of new businesses and projects, about 95% of which are failing • Likely a tremendous collapse in the industry over the next 12-24 months • Generating more innovation through civic labs • Think about how to partner AI to help make advancements 3 Guiding Principles • Privacy preserving practices • Transparent processes • Equity and accessibility checks • Human oversight What Will the Headlines Look Like in Fort Collins in Five or Ten Years? How Do We Build Bridges and Continue to Drive Innovative Solutions for Community Members? Roundtable: (Re)Imagine the Future • Equity: Ensure every resident feels seen, heard, and supported • Efficiency: Help people work on the areas that matter most • Experiences: Continue to co-create experiences for residents, businesses, and employees • Ethics: Lead with integrity and transparency Council Questions Councilmember Potyondy asked if there are other communities that are further along in using AI in valuable ways. Wilkins noted Fort Collins has piloted a new AI solution in public safety with Axon for transcribing video and audio footage into a draft police report which saves time and emotional distress. He noted there are human checks of the drafts. Additionally, Wilkins stated San Diego and Honolulu have been making process with AI in navigating permitting and licensing. He stated San Jose has implemented Microsoft Copilot as a solution for assisting staff in accessing documents, records, and services; however, they made a misstep in that they failed to include additional safeguards and security controls for the data and inadvertently exposed sensitive litigation information and personnel data to staff. He noted that since then, San Jose has started to build some agents into its work flows that help to identify and pattern budgeting. Wilkins stated most communities are taking some risk but are asking for grace from community members, which leads to better outcomes. He stated Fort Collins has started a pilot for a concierge service to provide access to decisions that have been made or legislation that was put in place. Councilmember Canonico commented on work being done around community engagement with Google Jigsaw in Bowling Green and asked if there are any similar opportunities for Fort Collins. Wilkins replied he has only heard about some urban planning and will look further into it. Councilmember Canonico stated the city used AI to seek community input and is now utilizing those responses to help inform a new strategic plan. Wilkins stated some work has started internally related to employee engagement with Qualtrics. Teresa Roche, Human Resources Director, noted that work is related to the Employee Experience Survey and commented on the importance of looking at both Employee Experience and Community Experience. Councilmember Pignataro asked if an AI policy for the City has been created. Wilkins replied one policy has been released and work is being done on the next generation of the policy. He stated Fort Collins is a founding member of the Government AI Coalition and member communities are working together to shape a new policy. He noted it will be important to find ways to invest in AI while also finding ways to develop the return on investment. He stated one challenge in many communities is having policies in place that have shot down innovation. Wilkins noted the City is co-sponsoring the first CSU Ignites AI event on campus tomorrow. 4 Councilmember Pignataro suggested surveying staff on what tasks take up most of their time. She asked if there is a specific change management process around AI at this point. Wilkins replied this conversation intentionally did not involve technology and stated it is important to think about processes, culture, practices, and friction points to assess where AI can make a difference. He also stated the cultural change management piece around awareness and adoption will be essential. Councilmember Pignataro commented on how internal AI in her day job has simplified her work. She asked if there are any internal solutions available for staff and/or Council that would enable confidentiality to be protected. Wilkins replied the City uses a broader Microsoft platform and a program called Azure which has Co-Pilot. He noted the government version of Microsoft 365 was authorized to license Co-Pilot to the City for chat in an internal fashion. He noted that is just beginning to be piloted and staff is in conversation with Microsoft about costs. Councilmember Potyondy asked about liability issues for AI providing inaccurate information to residents. Wilkins replied there are issues with inaccurate information, though he has not seen anything with extreme legal exposure. City Manager DiMartino noted AI is being discussed extensively in the City organization. She commented on the importance of the human who is steering the AI to make it most effective. Roche noted using AI is accelerating productivity and thought processes. She noted work has been done in Human Resources related to the human/AI symbiosis. She stated AI amplifies and augments the work of humans. Additionally, she stated thinking about the future of work needs to include human and artificial capital because it represents the collective intelligence, reasoning, and productive potential that is embedded in AI systems. Champine asked about the different types of relationships people have with their AI partners. Wilkins replied people start to develop their own tone with their models and noted people are using AI as therapists, trusted advisors, and to fill boredom and loneliness. He stated there are almost endless relationship types that can exist with AI and noted the City needs to be careful about what is considered acceptable uses for its AI. Roche stated she has named her personal AI companions and they now know her voice, tone, and how she writes. City Manager DiMartino asked Councilmembers to comment on using AI in Council. Councilmember Pignataro replied there are varying levels of comfort with technology among Councilmembers and suggested Council onboarding should include some training on AI and security and safety. Additionally, she suggested having an AI solution for Councilmembers who may want to have some historic information on certain topics. Roche asked Police Chief Swoboda to comment on his experience with Axon. Chief Swoboda replied Fort Collins was one of three departments in the country to help Axon build the draft report writing solution and noted it has reduced report writing time by about 70%. He noted officers can elect to use the tool, and still have to add in times, places, names, and other information in the report and ultimately have to swear the report is true and accurate. He stated some of the next big uses, particularly in Police, will relate to turning data into intelligence to help inform predictive policing. City Manager DiMartino requested Wilkins provide a summary of the CSU Ignites AI event. 5 Councilmember Pignataro asked about the chances of AI becoming self-aware. Wilkins replied that is a concern and people must be mindful to use the tool ethically. He stated there will ultimately be a great deal of criminal activity and potential threats to the community. He also noted there are concerns related to cybersecurity and quantum computing. Councilmember Potyondy commented on the importance of using AI in ways that benefit residents and employees rather than negating or eliminating the human element. She noted the December 9th topic is mobile voting, which was a topic suggested by Mayor Arndt. Additional Committee Updates None. Councilmember Potyondy adjourned the meeting at 5:49 pm.