HomeMy WebLinkAboutMemo - Mail Packet - 9/15/2020 - Memorandum From Marcy Yoder, Lt Jerry Schiager And Jenn Rieskamp Regarding Social Gatherings Update
Planning, Development & Transportation
Community Development & Neighborhood Services
281 N. College Ave.
PO Box 580
Fort Collins, CO 80522
970.416.2350
970.224.6134 FAX
www.fcgov.com
MEMORANDUM
DATE: September 8, 2020
TO: Mayor Troxell and City Council Members
THRU: Darin Atteberry, City Manager
Police Chief Jeff Swoboda
Kelly DiMartino, Deputy City Manager
Caryn Champine, PDT Director
Assistant Chief Tim Doran
Paul Sizemore, Interim CDNS Director
FROM: Marcy Yoder, Neighborhood Services Manager
Lieutenant Jerry Schiager
Jenn Rieskamp, CSU Community Liaison Specialist
RE: Social Gatherings Update
Purpose: This memo is to share an update on City and Colorado State University
(CSU) outreach strategy to educate students on public health guidelines and best
practices for social gatherings.
Bottom Line: Campus W est Connections (CWC) partners continue to work
collaboratively to address student and neighbor relationships around campus. CWC
partners are utilizing outreach and education to strive for voluntary compliance.
Strategies and tools:
The Party Registration program is back online as of 9/1/20. No parties have been
registered to date. A marketing campaign is being launched to inform CSU and
Fort Collins about this resource.
Responsible Social Gathering Tips have been approved for use and are now
available at https://ocl.colostate.edu/responsible-social-gathering-tips/
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Responsible Social Gathering Tips were promoted during Labor Day weekend
using paid social media advertising – 7,000 individuals were reached through
Off-Campus Life’s Facebook Page.
A positive article written by the Coloradoan highlighting the work of Campus
West Connections partners continued outreach efforts can be viewed here:
https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/local/2020/09/03/labor-day-weekend-
not-time-party-amid-covid-19-colorado-gov-polis-warns/5705087002/
Staff have sent education and outreach letters to 24 properties including a copy
for the resident and a second copy sent directly to property management/owners.
Off-Campus Life has been in communication with Student Focused Property
Managers regarding their plans, processes, and procedures to support the health
and wellbeing of their residents.
o The next conversation is scheduled to take place on Sept. 17.
Student Resolution Center is making contact with students through individual
outreach and conduct hearings.
FCPS Party Patrol has been working smoothly. Police and staff report seeing the
majority of gatherings averaging 10-30 people in attendance. W hen police
contact has been made at gatherings, majority of hosts have been cooperative.
Frequency and size of gatherings is significantly less than in previous years.
Background: Campus W est Connection management team is comprised of the Off-
Campus Life Director, Student Resolution Center Director, Neighborhood Services
Manager, Special Operations Police Lieutenant, and CSU Community Liaison
Specialist.
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One of the most effective ways to avoid the spread of COVID-19 is not hosting or attending social
gatherings. If you do find yourself in a social situation, please be sure to consider the following:
• As of August 2020, Larimer County and the City of Fort Collins expect groups to be 10 or less.
How will you and your friends meet this expectation?
• Masks are a proven way to curb the spread of COVID-19 and should always been worn at social
gatherings – no matter how many people are present. Do you have a personal mask and
enough masks for everyone that you are hanging out with? All guests should be wearing a mask
and maintaining a 6 foot distance between each other.
• Clean before, during, and after your social situation using disinfectants. How will you and
roommates split the cost of extra cleaning supplies? How will you divide the extra cleaning
responsibilities?
• Contact tracing is required and expected from the health department in case of an outbreak. Do
you and your friends have a plan for documenting who is present at the gathering? You will be
expected to provide this list to officials immediately if someone who has COVID-19 attends
your gathering.
• Being outdoors is recommended. Plan to manage noise levels. 10 or less people can still
generate a lot of noise and impact neighbors.
• Do you have enough soap, water and hand sanitizer for you and your friends? How will you and
others maintain good hygiene?
• Bringing your own food and drinks to a social situation is recommended. How will you ensure
that people are not sharing snacks, drinks, smoking or vaping devices?
• Maintaining a 6ft distance between you and your friends is another measure you should take to
curb the spread of the virus. Have you determined how you will ensure that people are
maintaining this? This gets harder to determine as people start to drink alcohol or use
marijuana and their ability to assess the risk of infection decreases. Have a plan for how you will
make sure people are maintaining a 6ft distance while you are being social.
• Are your friends practicing social distancing regularly? How do you know? Make sure you have a
small group of friends who are committed to only hanging out together and avoid hanging out
with people that you do not know.
• Loud music forces people to elevate their voices to hear each other. This makes it more difficult
to maintain 6 ft of physical distancing, speak through a mask or take other public health
measures. Consider turning down the volume so you and your friends do not have to yell.
• If you are concerned that you have been exposed to COVID-19 because of your party or another
larger gathering, go get tested. Testing information can be found at
covidrecovery.colostate.edu.
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Labor Day weekend 'not the time to
party,' officials worried about
potential COVID -19 spike warn
Kelly Lyell
Fort Collins Coloradoan
Published 3:50 p.m. MT Sep. 3, 2020
The large parties that often usher in the start of a new school year at Colorado
State University haven’t been seen yet, officials said.
But there’s renewed concern about them heading into the Labor Day weekend,
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and others said Thursday.
“Cases spiked after the Fourth of July weekend, and we can’t let that happen
again after Labor Day weekend,” Polis said in a news conference. “Our success
thus far is due to each individual doing their part, and we can’t let up now. We
need everyone, including all of our students who are back on campus, to take
this seriously and act responsibly by avoiding large groups and parties and
wearing a mask around others.
“Now is not the time to party.”
State public health orders still limit social gatherings to a maximum of 10
people to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Polis urged college students and others to celebrate the three-day weekend
with small groups of friends — outdoors, if possible, socially distanced from
one another and wearing masks or other face coverings. The governor said
during a previous news conference that rates of transmission of COVID-19 are
“20 times higher” indoors than out.
CSU students have generally followed state, county and CSU COVID-19 rules
and guidelines since fall semester classes began Aug. 24, said Jenn Rieskamp,
a liaison for the university and city of Fort Collins Neighborhood Services. The
only large party that was brought to their attention was a gathering of a little
more than 100 people in a neighborhood west of campus on the Saturday
before classes began. None of the people contacted by Fort Collins police
responding to complaints about the party were associated with CSU, though,
Sgt. Justin Gallimore and a county health department spokeswoman said.
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“Compared to years past, those numbers (of large parties) have been down,”
Gallimore said. “We’ve had small gatherings, where we’ve gone out and been
proactive with people and explained the limits. But the big, large, kick-off-the-
school-year parties that are 200 or 250 people, we haven’t really seen that.”
Katie O’Donnell, a spokesperson for the Larimer County Department of
Health and Environment, said large gatherings around the Fourth of July
holiday contributed to a spike in COVID-19 cases in the county. But those
didn’t necessarily involve students, either, she said.
“We haven’t had the kind of party complaints recently that used to pour in,”
O’Donnell said.
Still, with the largest number of cases in the county — 594 of 1,974 since the
pandemic was first identified in early March — involving 15- to 24-year-olds,
spread among college-age adults is a significant concern.
Colorado College recently sent students who were on campus back home for
remote instruction following outbreaks at three dormitories. Five fraternities
at the University of Colorado in Boulder were fined more than $10,000
combined for violating COVID-19 public health orders during the first two
weeks of classes, 9News reported.
Administrators at Notre Dame, North Carolina, Michigan State and Georgia
Tech, among others, blamed outbreaks on their campuses that forced them to
return to remote learning on students attending large parties as in-person
classes began.
O’Donnell and Gallimore said CSU has done a good job getting the word out to
students about the local public health orders while also making their
responsibility to adhere to them clear. Students who violate the university’s
COVID-19 rules, including hosting or attending social gatherings of more than
10 people, face university discipline up to expulsion.
Fort Collins police and other local law enforcement agencies typically refer
students cited for off-campus infractions to CSU’s student-conduct office,
Gallimore said.
There were 26 students involved in the university’s disciplinary process
Thursday as a result of off-campus social gatherings, compared to 44 a year
ago, said Michael Katz, director of CSU’s student resolution center — and
there were no limits placed on the size of those gatherings a year ago. The
disciplinary process can take up to three weeks, not counting the timeline for
an appeal, Katz said, so it was too early for him to say what penalties those
students might face.
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Gallimore said Fort Collins police will have more officers working this holiday
weekend in anticipation of more parties but those officers will remain focused
on education — and they won't respond to complaints based solely on the
number of people gathered, but rather those that involve noise and other
disturbance issues. Complaints based on the number of people gathered will
be referred to the county health department, Gallimore said.
CSU has sent a variety of messages to students through social media, videos,
emails and other channels to let them know what the expectations for a return
to campus this fall are amid the COVID-19 pandemic that forced the
university to switch to remote instruction following its spring break in March.
CSU had reported 105 cases of COVID-19 among students, faculty and staff
since March through Wednesday, including 34 cases since residence halls
opened for the fall semester Aug. 17.
The university had run 8,798 tests on campus from Aug. 17 through Tuesday,
school spokeswoman Dell Rae Ciaravola said. The university’s total also
includes positive results reported back to it from other sources, including state
and county health departments and private testing sites, she said.
“I think the majority of our CSU students are doing the right thing,” Reiskamp
said. “We’ve had a few instances where there are larger groups getting
together, but the average has been between 10 and 30. It hasn’t felt super
egregious."
“… What I’ve heard from students is they really want to be here in person, in
classes, and I think they understand how important it is to do that,” Rieskamp
said. “I don’t know if what’s happened at other institutions have influenced
that decision, but I think they understand and really want to be together in
person in classes and connect.”
https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/local/2020/09/03/labor-day-
weekend-not-time-party-amid-covid-19-colorado-gov-polis-
warns/5705087002/
DocuSign Envelope ID: 9EE25455-5E5E-4EB5-A462-1FC317E6BABD