Contact City Council TODAY!

To Support Downtown Poudre River Project & Kayak Park!

The City Council will vote tomorrow October 7th on the adoption of thePoudre River Downtown Master Plan which includes a proposed kayak park. In a separate agenda item, the Council will also hold a public hearing to take citizen comments on what should be funded in the 2015-16 City Budget.

If you are in favor of having a kayak park in downtown Ft. Collins we urge you to contact City Council at cityleaders TODAY to express your support for the park and to encourage them to fund it in the City Budget Or, better yet, attend the Council meeting tomorrow at 6 pm to express your views. If you will be emailing comments, send them in asap. See Council Agenda for details.

When the first draft of the Poudre River Downtown Master Plan was released last spring, Save The Poudre’s Board had serious reservations with the amount of concrete and hardscaping depicted in the conceptual drawings of the kayak park and did not feel we could endorse the plan as presented. Many others had similar reservations. We met with the design team to express our concerns. The project team heard similar feedback from City Council, several Advisory Boards, and citizens. The team took this feedback to heart, went back to the drawing board, and subsequently released an updated draft Master Plan (http://www.fcgov.com/poudre-downtown/pdf/draft-master-plan9-25-14.pdf) which showed much improvement in terms of “softening” (less concrete, more vegetation) the design for the kayak park. The Save The Poudre Board now feels comfortable to wholeheartedly endorse the project.

The top priority for the Board for this project has always been the health of the river. We feel that the updated plan achieves the three goals of providing kayak play features, improving the river habitat, especially fish passage, and mitigating flood risk. We have urged City Council to fund the park to the maximum extent possible.

Now is the time to move the kayak park across the finish line!

Thank you!

Greg Speer
Board of Directors