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As a third generation resident of Fort Collins, I find it crucial to support the Hughes Stadium citizen-initiated ordinance on the April 6 City of Fort Collins ballot by voting yes.

The ballot initiative before us is truly not about access to affordable housing, transportation, child care, a proposed golf course or a transit center on the periphery of Fort Collins — it is about leaving a legacy. This is the truth. 

Future generations of people and wildlife will benefit from our vision of leaving land that is not compromised by development with stone and wood, mortar and glass or concrete and asphalt. 

I urge you to be informed and stay strong in support of this open space for current and future generations.

As a 1989 graduate of Colorado State University, I was a proud CSU alumna for more than three decades until events regarding the on-campus stadium unfolded. While I appreciate that athletics are a vital part of our community and contribute greatly to our local economy, the retroactive financing of an undisputedly controversial on-campus stadium, used only a handful of times per year, that undermines access to open space for humans and wildlife disappoints me.

Do you want to tell your children and grandchildren that you helped preserve 164.5 acres for animals and birds, helped facilitate a wildlife rehabilitation center for Northern Colorado, helped create a wildlife and wild lands education center and had the vision to keep land open and free for various outdoor recreational activities for all citizens? Or would you rather tell them that you helped finance the CSU football stadium, used a few times a year, by building housing structures?

The proposed number of homes to be built on this site has been inconsistent, as has the average cost of these allegedly “affordable” homes. Please consider the long-standing impact of dense housing on our precious and already compromised water and energy sources, air quality and infrastructure, plus added stress from traffic congestion and limited access for emergency services. Is it worth it?

Our only option is to preserve this modest corridor on the periphery of our City for creatures — winged, grounded and underground — as well as for people to thrive, to learn and to recreate. This proposed open space will additionally support many species migrating annually through an essential ecological corridor.

We owe this to ourselves now and to future generations because once it is gone, paved over and exploited, it will be gone forever.

I urge you to vote yes for open space on the April 6 City of Fort Collins ballot. Yes is a vote for the “wild” future of Fort Collins, something all citizens and our local wildlife deserve.

Lila Bartmann

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