FoCo in 15 Minutes | Power Trail Underpass, Minimum Wage Hike, Colorado Gives Day & Winter Events

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Our sleepy little area of Northern Colorado is just getting stronger and stronger. It's interesting, you know, Mayor Jenny Arndt over on the last City Council meeting was talking about how the City of Fort Collins population has remained relatively flat over the last three years, but that's not necessarily the case for the surrounding areas of Fort Collins. Specifically, Timnath has grown to 10,000 people from when I was growing up. There was a town around 400, 500. In Windsor, Colorado, in 2000, there was a population of 10,000. It is now exceeding 40,000 people. And the reason I say all that is because, well, some of our sports teams and the lack thereof when I was growing up, you know, there was a Gold Crown basketball team that did some traveling to Denver. We had the ThunderDogs baseball team that, you know, again traveled in and out of state. We had Arsenal, which still exists today for competitive soccer. Amongst other, you know, there was speed, swim team, and lots of other opportunities, but not nearly what there is today. And I start off with just saying, you know, when I went to Fort Collins High School, there was two athletes that got picked up by CSU, Matt Yem and Zach Donaldson, which was just super exciting. And now there are more and more players getting picked up. Hooter High School, Pierce Decker, signed with Wyoming football. The quarterback, which I can't remember his name, for Wellington, which won the 2A state title. Congratulations, Wellington, signed with Nevada. And then Windsor has got an absolute dominant force of an offensive lineman. They lost this last weekend in the state championship game to Pomona. But all that being said, I mean, shoot, you know, northern Colorado is punching above its weight. Windsor basketball won last year's state championship. Fossil Ridge High School is a perennial basketball powerhouse here in northern Colorado. So just there are exciting things about the growth and some of that is the athletics and athletic ability of some of the individuals here. I used to think I was athletic and, you know, I don't know how it fair in the community that we're growing up in now. But regardless, hey, if you got to pay a parking ticket for Carlin's parking services, they moved buildings, they were shut down for a couple of days, but they should be back up and running. They're at 114 North Mason Street, suite number five.

And there was some debate at the City Council meeting this last week about whether or not there should be paid parking downtown. So there's an in, it's called an inverted relationship for parking in downtown and Old Town Fort Collins. The most coveted, valuable parking spots are free on street, two hour parking spots, and the most, the least desirable, least accessible spots, the parking garages, charge. And the City of Fort Collins is saying, hey, we need to change this somehow so that the street parking isn't as, you know, congested or, you know, whatever there is. And there was businesses that were coming in saying, you know, people will stop coming if there's paid parking down in Old Town. And I, you know, maybe the first hour is free, from there you pay. I'm not sure what the, what the right temperature of the porridge is.

I don't think it's a bad deal because I do actually think that two hour parking limits people from spending more time downtown. Fort Collins, downtown Fort Collins used to be a destination location where you would be going to the right card to get a card and then you would head back home. Well now it is more of an experience. You're going down to have breakfast at Silver Grill, potentially do some retail shopping therapy, and then grabbing a coffee at Explorado down in the square as well, or spending some time doing Old Town putt at the exchange. And if your two hour parking exceeds, well you need to know where the parking services are to pay your ticket because they are on it.

Now cheat code, every year your parking ticket restarts. So for somebody who's worked down in Old Town for more than a decade, I have paid my fair share in parking tickets and each year, I believe it's on a calendar year, so January 1st, it resets. You get like one free one, the second one's $25.50 and then it jumps to $75 and sticks there. My wife and I were driving the other day, I can't remember, yeah it was date night and it was just an absolutely gorgeous moon. There is another supermoon December 13th and 14th as well as a, or excuse me, the supermoon comes the day before the 13th and 14th, but there is the Germanid meteor shower on the 13th and 14th. It's supposed to be clear skies, some really good sightseeing, so maybe head out to Fossil Lake Reservoir, some really great low-lit area, not a lot of light pollution, but there are just some really cool moons and apparently Colorado is the best place to see this last supermoon because it was a cold moon. We were high up in elevation and really were able to see all of its beauty and color. Well the RE4 schools are hosting a workshop on creating tech healthy households. I think we do a pretty good job personally as our family. We don't do a lot of tablet time, definitely no phones, don't know what the right balance is, but I'm always so thankful that I didn't raise kids a decade ago or probably even a little bit or longer than that even because there wasn't the known side effects. You know social media wasn't such a crazy thing and now there's like almost a push back against social media and tech from some kids, families, and schools obviously because of the negative side effects. Apparently Australia is making it illegal for kids under 16 to have social media and I'm for it.

Stay away from it as long as friggin possible. All right, I am consistently breaking the law here in Fort Collins. State law allows you, state of Colorado law allows you for a remote start vehicle to be remote start and sit there. City of Fort Collins does not allow that. They call it puffing and it can result in a $60 fine. So don't report me, don't tell the the city. It is freezing and they go the safest way to warm a car is to stay inside while running it. Yeah, the safest and coldest way to do that of course. You know because I park a truck my truck is like two inches too long for my garage or like an inch too long or something along those lines so I can't park it in the garage and so there are mornings where it is absolutely freezing and need to get out there or don't need to get out there but I get out there early to go to the gym and it is cold so I do sometimes remote start it and it was actually a gift from my wife so thank you but remote remote started to get it warmed up a little bit. I didn't realize the underpass project that was going on on the Harmony at Harmony Road was a mile-long stretch that's missing from the power trail south to the power trail north of Harmony Road. That project's getting rocking and rolling and it should be finished in late 2026 or early 2027. It's a 13 million dollar project but super excited for that trail to connect without having to go on to Keeneland to McMurray and then through Cruz so pretty cool. Today is Colorado Gives Day and I thought there would be some pretty interesting stats here. You know I would say Colorado is very giving and this is one of the main give days so for nonprofits but it's been going on since November 1st till December 9th. Since 2010 this initiative has rated more than five hundred and twenty five million dollars statewide including fifty five million dollars just in 2024 alone from 95,000 donors. There's more than 4,600 nonprofits that participate in 2025 so definitely if you go to First Bank if you bank at First Bank or there are other opportunities to give this is Colorado Gives Day. Jumping into our City of Fort Collins, some consent calendar, land use code for the commercial corridors and the Harmony corridor was passed on second reading and essentially allows for more residential, a secondary use to be there. Colorado, Northern Colorado Regional Airport approves the budget for Fort Collins' 50% share of the 2026 budget which is exciting because again that asset even just this last week at City Council some of the public comment was suggesting that you know the City of Fort Collins Airport one of our most underutilized assets in Northern Colorado. I think if we can figure out that airport and again get the porridge just right we don't need a thousand airlines coming in and out on a daily basis but when I talked with the director of the airport you know he was suggesting that we could get to be a potentially a size of Colorado Springs and I selfishly think that would be pretty cool and for economics regional I mean it would be pretty pretty dramatic so I think between widening the airport building out that new 20 million dollar terminal that is complete the airport widening is happening as we speak and then finally getting that terminal figured out or that excuse me tower figured out will be the three checks that we need to have that to be a a consistently sustained commercial airline Airport residential waste collection is going to be an increase of 3% if you're using the city trash if you're in an HOA like us we use RAM waste so we have to pay an opt-out fee of $33 per quarter and I'm guessing that $33 is going to increase let's see if I'm asked right to $34 that's roughly $34 instead of $33 every quarter snow code and ice coat as well as weed and grass height increases there are something not budget cuts but there are budget constrictions for the city of Fort Collins and they are going to not be as enforceful with the snow of less than two inches as also increasing the height requirement for grass from six to nine inches saying at six inches you were having to cut it it's too tall you'll get a notice on your door saying hey cut your grass now it's gonna be nine inches some of that is the budget constraints so what are some levers they can pull easy levers those are two of them if you do have a sidewalk that butts a or if you do have a house that has a sidewalk on it those do need to be cleared within 24 hours district six City Council will have a vacancy and will be refilled by January 23rd they are accepting applications and they will have a special meeting on the 13th and 14th so there is if you are in district 6 which let me just I will share my screen with it really quick there we go if you are in district 6 you must have an address in this location to be able to apply so if you were in district 6 they are there is a vacancy because Emily Francis mayor pro tem won the mayor mayoral seat and is going to be needing that to be filled let's keep it rockin and rollin try to get this within the 15 minutes as much as we can the Midtown but bid was approved it was a five hundred fifty four thousand dollar budget business improvement district for Midtown and this was I believe created just a few years ago five seven years ago and essentially they're trying to beautify Midtown Midtown has always been kind of that forgotten child the middle child you get a lot of love on the south side you get a lot of love down in Old Town but Midtown gets forgotten and this was developed so that we can create a beautification project for Midtown I thought it's just some numbers that are interesting chief judges salary in 2015 was two hundred eighteen thousand one hundred forty one dollars city managers salary in 2005-25 was three hundred thirty thousand dollars seven hundred thirty six dollars excuse me and that kind of ranks her in the fiftieth percentile as well as the chief judge and actually our city attorney who's been there the longest for ranks lower than that but at two hundred sixty five three hundred sixty nine dollars those all three new salaries got a approved some international codes that were adopted and changed for for Collins are adding less than 1% to the building but make them safer more energy efficient they are asking for EV charging requirements residential building has to allow for multifamily up to five with only one exit required and then the Colorado wildfire resiliency code suggesting harder materials more fire retardant building codes those were passed moving on and then a big deal is the building performance standards ordinance failed on a three to three tie and essentially the big push here was you know we have some carbon neutrality goals of trying to get to be carbon neutral by 25th see here carbon neutral by 2030 zero carbon by 2050 something along those lines and there's a lot of different levers to pull building emissions emit two-thirds of our natural emit gases here in northern Colorado but that was a shot down because it could have potentially added hundreds of thousands of required renovations to buildings I don't think it's dead I think it's just gonna be coming back in the near future with other options as for things to do this week weekend oh okay the Santa catch 5k and 10k running race in Windsor December 13th 8 to 1 p.m. Santa photos at the foothills mall every day December 2 daily until December 24th 2 to 7 p.m. all coral holiday concert at first United Methodist Church in Fort Collins December 9th 730 to 930 holiday celebration at Jessup farm December 12th 4 to 8 p.m. Garden of the Lights winter holiday light festival December 12th through the 28th nightly at the gardens on Spring Creek winters farmers market go you know support local farmers local marketers makers every Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. it's a jolly trolley holiday December 13th 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Mountain Avenue trolley barn in Fort Collins Colorado Eagles got a game going on December 12th and 13th at 705 p.m. and as always there's always tours going on at New Belgium Vortig watches and always something happening at the University Center of the Arts that was Fort Collins in 15 minutes and 57 seconds I'm gonna end it there thank you for watching and have a great day