FoCo in 15 Minutes | PSD Charter Power, Surveillance Debate, Water Increase & FoCoMX Returns

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This is live in Fort Collins, Colorado. We come to you weekly talking about things that are happening in Fort Collins, things that are doing, things that went on, city council recaps, and things that you can do this week. Jumping right in, Preston Middle School reclaims the state title in the Science Lipiad. They have taken their 15th overall and 14th since 2010, just barely losing last year. And Poudre School District did very well, taking six of the top 10 middle school spots, and Fossil Ridge placed 2nd and 3rd in the high school division. So great job, Poudre School District. I didn't know, I'm stoked, personally, selfishly, my kids are going to be going to Preston and Fossil, so let's go!

Poudre School District regains exclusive charter authority by a 5-4 vote by the Colorado State Board of Education. This is starting in the 2026-2027 school year. New charter schools must be approved directly from the Poudre School District, comparatively to being approved by the State Charter School Institute. This Poudre School District was one of the only districts to allow this. Now, some considerations for this are saying, hey listen, this just means more charter schools are going to pop up to the east and more kids are going to be going out of the Poudre School District. Poudre School District has got some challenges, enrollment challenges, funding issues, and I think this is a good step in the right direction.

Gaining control, because I will say, especially in this day and age, there are a lot of different educational opportunities out there. Just recently I heard about one that was an AI Learning Institute Alpha something or other, essentially giving kids the ability to go to school for two days, learn at their own rate, and then go and enjoy the rest of the day. So I think there are a lot of challenges that all schools and learning establishments face, but trying to restrict just anybody and everybody opening up is probably not a bad thing. But my kids are going to be going to the public schools here in Poudre School District.

I'm very excited about that. My wife and I were just talking about it today. We think the teachers are phenomenal, so hopefully they do well. A petition demands citizens okay for mass surveillance in Fort Collins. Now, if they get enough signatures, 5,700, it'll be on a 2027 election, or if they can have a special election, if they get 8,500 signatures. But essentially this could limit a lot of different public surveillance from license plate readers, body cameras, drones, GPS tracking, traffic cameras, and more. And this is important. This could really impact how Fort Collins is handled. The flock cameras in Fort Collins are really what pushed this conversation to the forefront.

People felt like they were being big brother'd and watched, and people could gain access. There was some bad publicity for flocks specifically that people had broken in, could watch. There were some comments that I saw on threads that were like, this is a Stalkervilles heaven. And yeah, I don't know, I just feel like we're all being watched. Do the right thing always. My wife and I joke. When somebody does something stupid in the grocery store, it's like, how do you not know you're being watched? There's cameras everywhere. They are so easy. We actually have, on our commercial building, I think I was able to put up six very easily done cameras, and they do a great job.

And it makes me feel much better at night knowing that that building is being watched. I've got it lit up. And so I think this is, I also think, I don't know, now there's bad actors. I am one, I am a optimist at heart. I want to see the best in people all the time. And I know that there are bad actors out there, and there are people that are going to do bad things. And hopefully there is some oversight to where if we can catch those individuals, limit that, make the punishments strict enough that the desire to do this type of stalking isn't there, there's always going to be that, and there's always going to be opportunities.

I just think that this overall is helpful. There were some conversations at the city saying, hey, listen, we could get pinged by somebody who loses their, or gets their vehicle stolen in Fort Collins, and somebody who's on the same system as us in Windsor gets the same ping from the license plate that shows on one of their flock cameras, and that person gets their vehicle back. I'm just like, you know what, technology's pretty cool. I think things like that are worth exploring. So I would definitely not personally sign that legislature. I definitely don't want, obviously, government holding my hand and making sure everything, and I just, I'm not for it.

I think that let's get the technology out there to strengthen and protect our community, which I'm going to talk about here shortly, because we have got the district attorney's annual report that I'm going to go over some stats. FOCO MX this weekend. If you are a music person, it is this weekend, music festival, all downtown, 2026. It is going to be popping, I think it's $75 for the day of tickets. You can buy, you can still pre-buy tickets, but this weekend, get out there and enjoy. City council, some takeaways. This was a work session. Higher service potentially needs future tax increases, $1.7 billion in potential economic projects in the pipeline in Fort Collins.

There are nine projects that Fort Collins is actively talking about for employers to relocate to the Northern Colorado area that could bring an estimated $1.7 billion of economic impact to the area. And they're very intentional about what projects they want to bring, what sectors they are fighting for. Again, they're talking about enterprise resource planning systems overhaul, regional collaboration is driving economic strategy, so they are trying to work with cities in and around the area. And the citizens continue to talk about constitutional and surveillance concerns. And so, man, I don't know, and I've got kids.

I want my kid, I mean, shoot, this is bad. I could put a tracker in my kid, absolutely. We went to Disneyland and it was, I was just a ball of stress because I'm like, man, this is terrifying because there is hundreds of thousands of people here and all it takes is one person to get grabby and grab the kid and run. And if we have the surveillance and all that kind of stuff, of course there's bad actors. But anyways, moving on, things to do this weekend, FOCO MX, April 24th, 25th, Drug Takeback Day, Windsor Police Department, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. If you have any expired or unused medications, this is where you can take those.

Colorado Eagles playoffs, game one, Wednesday, April 22nd, game two, Friday, April 24th, 705 p.m., Blue Arena in Loveland. And then if you didn't get enough of the Fort Collins half marathon, or Fort Collins half marathon last week, there's the NOCO half marathon and 10K April 25th at Boyd State Park, Boyd Lake State Park, 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. Those are some things to do. Now I wanted to jump in because there was an annual fire report and also our district attorney report. I just thought it was some really interesting number stats. So just hang on if you are a numbers geek. Now the Poudre Fire Authority has 249 full-time positions, 27 volunteer firefighters, four seasonal and three voluntary honor guard that are retired, and 207 full-time uniform.

They have got, I believe it is, let's see here, in 2025, they had 22,623 calls, average of 62 calls per day, or one call every 23 minutes. Only 1.4% of those are fire calls, and I'm like, man, how did I end up being one of those 1.4%? If you haven't heard, one of my rental properties caught on fire because our tenant was welding in there. So don't let your tenants weld, make sure they have renters insurance. But the majority of their calls are 66.4% rescue and emergency medical services, 7.2% false alarm and false calls, kind of interesting as far as that goes, but only 1.4% are actually fire.

Continuing to move down, there are 12 recruits currently going through the fire academy, over 900 applicants, and the academy starts April 27th. Pretty cool. The Drone is a city research. We are one of the first programs in the nation to include fire, police, and utilities. Over 900 flights from February through March already. Station five planning for a major capital project. Now, jumping into the district attorney's update of where we are and who we are. Larimer County has 370,000 residents. Jackson County only has 1,400 residents, but roughly only 1,000 less square miles. We do cover both Larimer County and Jackson County, and here are some of the numbers of our incidents that these guys work with.

The highest by far is traffic offenses, 4,471 cases the DA's office handled in 2025. Person was next at 2,200, property right around 2,000, and then one of the two lowest lines is sex offense and weapons, drugs nearly 1,000 or about 1,500 per year drug offenses that the DA sees. So the majority is going to be traffic and then person offenses that the district attorney handles. Looking at that, it also is important, I believe, for this channel specifically to look at what the Fort Collins Police Department looks at. 21.4% are traffic causes. This is between 2017 and 2025. The highest number is actually persons at 24.15%.

DUIs at 10.6%, drugs 14.42%, property cases at 19.1%, sex offense at 1.99%, and other at 7.27%. The majority of the sentencing in the Eighth Judicial Court in 2025 are going to be as follows. Felony sentences, 0.63% had a fine fee or community service. These are a felony sentences imposed. 42% had probation, 11% probation plus jail, 2% jail, 21% community corrections, and 22% department of corrections. For the misdemeanors, 37% had a fine fee or community service, 8% credit for time served, 41% probation, 4% probation plus jail, and 9% of the misdemeanors had jail time. It's always interesting seeing some of these information come across the board because obviously the fire department is incredibly important as the district attorney's office is, and making sure that we're not seeing a spike in violent crimes or something crazy like drug cases that are going through the roof because, well, I want to live in a safe, well-maintained community, and I was able to enjoy the fire department's services not too long ago and make sure that they're not underfunded and the truck's not going to get there.

The story goes, we had a rental property that the individual had was welding and caught fire. They came in, called the fire department, they got out there so quick that they were actually able to maintain it to just one of the two car detached garages. So I want to say thank you to the Pooter Fire Authority. This is live in Fort Collins, plenty of things going on, appreciate you guys listening, and until next week, have a great day.