FoCo in 15 Minutes | School Closures, Passenger Rail to Denver, Utility Increases & Summer Events

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We are live in Fort Collins and it is the first week of June. And just yesterday, down in Denver, there was some significant hail. And man, it is that time of the year. It's a good opportunity to make sure that your insurance is properly covered. You want to look at whether you've got a flat deductible, a percent deductible, and whether that's 1% or 2%. I think it's really important to understand that because we are in the season. I love being up against the foothills. It feels like it kind of jumps over you and then gets over the east side of I-25. But regardless, hopefully we get some good moisture without the expense of the hail damage.

Now we are live in Fort Collins. This is the week of June 1st to June 7th. Poudre School District is moving forward with some plans. And they're looking at kind of three different options. A kind of a phased two to three school closure approach. A middle ground of four to seven schools, or an aggressive eight to ten plus schools for long-term stability. Now when I first understood, you know, Poudre School District was going to be consolidating closing schools, I was like, you know, it has to happen. We are an aging demographic. Our median age in Fort Collins used to always be right around like 29 years old.

But we've jumped north of 30. People are aging in place. And the affordability factor for younger families to be able to buy and afford here in Fort Collins isn't super easy. So, you know, there are schools in the middle of Fort Collins or in different areas where they're seeing stagnation of student enrollment, if not decline. And then there's areas like Timnath Middle High School that are essentially at their capacity because there's so many new young families, new developments that are being built in Timnath and the Timnath area. And so I saw, you know, when Poudre School District was going to be closing and they were going to go with the closure consolidation.

And I was like, oh, they're going to probably have right around five. Like they kind of assumed last time, but dang, you know, not a fan of the two to three school closure approach and, you know, having that be phased. I just don't like that. Like let's rip off the bandaid to a certain degree. I think a middle ground four to seven school approach is good. And I think right sizing the budget for the school district and figuring it out from there. It's like, okay, yeah, maybe the easy road is eight to 10 schools just to cut the budget like crazy and remove all issues in the future. But I think there's got to be some challenges on both ends.

So a middle ground four to seven school approach, probably hopefully right around five. And then they figure out the budget. They right size that moving forward. So it looks like these are going to be suggested to the board on October 20th with a possible vote as soon as November 3rd. Now the good thing is, is, you know, while I, and I talked with, I remember talking to my dad about this a few years, like probably like five years ago, right? When the COVID price appreciation roller coaster straight to the moon, well, really a rocket straight to the moon was happening. And I was like, you know, I don't think there's going to be a downfall of prices, but I would love to see a little bit of a plateau.

And I think we're experiencing that and have experienced that over the last four years. And the reason why that's important is for that for wages to increase and catch up, to make it a more affordable conversation, to own property really anywhere in the United States and here in Northern Colorado. And it shows that Colorado actually is the eighth highest state for average annual or average salary for an hourly worker of $39 and 86 cents. What's also crazy about that is it actually is suggesting that we are only working 32.9 hours per week to get that $39 and 86 cents per hour job. You know, I will say it's a good thing to see our wages increase.

My wife would be the first person to say people need to work less. And I'm like, I would say yes, less than 60 hours, but maybe even more than 40. And she's like, no, I think you need to have less than 40, like closer to 30. So work life balance, all that good stuff's important. But the reality is, is hourly wages are increasing. The affordability conversation for houses, our median sales price of homes have remained flat for the last four years. So we are starting to see people being able to afford a little bit better. And I will say if interest rates come down to even help that affordability even more, the real estate market will kick absolute butt.

PNC Bank, they named the new Boulder and Northern Colorado market executives, bringing in a top 10 most influential business leader and Nicole Stodinger. And then Chad Mitchell leads the Boulder area. Now I am a client of First Bank and not a fan of them getting acquired by this national bank PNC. I can see why they would do it. They got acquired for $4.1 billion, which is pretty impressive. But I love having a small town bank to go in and have a relationship with the bankers. And I think I'm going to keep a couple of accounts at PNC, but I'm also going to be moving to Mountain Valley Bank. They are a smaller bank.

They know your name when you walk in the door. It's all about cheers. I will say I walked in there one day and they do know me and they know my name, but my dad's much more personable than I am. And my dad walked in coincidentally at the same time. They go, Hey, Kevin. And I'm like, what? I'm here all the time. And they know you better than me. But the story goes, it's a bank that they know your name. You know the president of the bank. It's a handshake deal. Of course, they underwrite everything. But if you're looking for a small bank, local here for Collins, spends money here in the area, reinvest here in the area, Mountain Valley Bank is where I will be going.

Now, like I said, I'll be keeping a couple of accounts at PNC just for the ease of things. But that is it. Fort Collins joins the regional summer moves challenge. Now, it was announced on May 20th. Essentially what this is, is try to get out, bike, walk, use the trail systems as much as you can. And I will say, you know, you can log activities. I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but really the gist of it for me is get out there. We rode our bike to breakfast the other day. We took the power trail. Soon that will connect underneath Harmony. That road will be very safe, but you can just go all over Fort Collins.

You know, the Fossil Creek Trail from my house to the Kathy Fromm Park or Kathy Fromm Natural Area. It's just fantastic. The network here is amazing. It is going to be beautiful for the next four months at least. But get out and enjoy yourself. Ride your bike. And pools are open too. Ride to the pool. Go check out City Park Pool. As for City Council, the Front Range Rail System is coming to Fort Collins, Denver in 2029. And it looks like they're going to be probably setting up the station at Drake and College, which I thought was awesome. And there was a couple of people like, no, you know, you got to get it down in Old Town.

And but people were like, you know, one, it's going to cost more money. Apparently the Front Range passenger rail constituents or people that are operating that are saying, no, we need to go. And there was five options. We're choosing Drake because of parking cost, location within Fort Collins. People will come from a one to five mile radius. This is where we're going to put it. And I'm like, yeah, I think that's perfect. Drake and College, in my opinion, is the middle of Fort Collins. And I think it would spur development in Midtown. I really am supportive of that. I think four of the seven council members are supportive of that location.

But three of them are saying, no, we want it to be downtown. And I'm like, no, I think you guys are missing the mark here. People can take the MAX Transit. Again, let's get ridership up on MAX Transit. If that's a goal of ours is to increase ridership, what better way than to have a whole bunch of people coming from Denver or Boulder or Longmont into Fort Collins, getting into Midtown, jumping on the MAX Transit, spending their dollars down in Old Town, coming back or maybe going south or spending some money at like the Mood House or whatever is getting going and will be developed around that area.

I will say it would spur economic activity. I am pro it. Utility rate increases are coming. Now, I think actually City of Fort Collins has done a pretty good job of like, okay, there's been rate increases for water from Fort Collins Loveland water, 30% a couple of years ago, and you kind of get used to it. And it's not been too terrible. And the City of Fort Collins Utilities is saying, all right, we've done inflation increases over the last couple of years, but it is time to take and bite the bullet and get about an eight to 9% utility bump, which would be about $18 to $19 for a residential house.

And one of the big drivers of this is the need to increase and renovate Halligan Reservoir, a $228 million project. And this is one conversation I've had with other people about like, why is there water tap fees? Now, I don't have the chart in front of me, but there are numbers out there that suggest the majority of the revenue and budget from the utilities come from the rate payer on their monthly utility fees, with a very small percentage coming from development fees. Yet, it makes development really difficult because of these development fees. And I would say, it's kind of a conversation, I would say metro districts saw it and that's why there's a metro tax because the cities have said, we don't want somebody in the Northwest paying the bill for a development that's happening in the Southeast.

And I get that. And so, the metro districts were created to help fund and make these work. And though the growth of Fort Collins, there are benefits that come from growth. And of course, yeah, people don't want to see crazy growth, but having better parks and bike paths and larger amenities like Bass Pro Shops or the reinvestment of companies like Jax, I got a little crap given to me because I wasn't giving benefits to Jax. But I'm like, you know what? Jax is amazing. And with the densification and growth of Fort Collins, they benefit from it. So, I think if we are going to need additional capacity because of the growth of Fort Collins, allow developers to bring in and bring in new developments and more affordable homes.

We had somebody on our channel comment and say, oh man, last thing we want to see though is a Dallas area where they just are building like crazy. Well, I think we are going to see growth. We're expected to see Larimer County and Weld County grow from 750,000 people to a million people over the next 25 to 30 years. That's 1 million. Dallas is 8.5 million. We are growing at a relatively stable rate. And with that, we should allow development to occur to potentially help affordability. And then on the backside, when it comes to water and utility rates, yeah, we probably should all bear the burden.

I would say $18 to $19 per month per household. And there's 40,000 households or whatever the heck it is in Fort Collins. Times 20, so $800,000, whatever that number is. Yeah, I think that's right. $800,000 increase annually for the revenue. I think that makes sense. There does look to be a little bit of a budget shortfall come in the next year. $15.5 million budget shortfall. I think we're right around like $600 million annually. It is a 2 or 3% shortfall. We're changing our forecasts to a 2% annual growth comparatively to what we usually have seen as about a 3%. I just think it's kind of right sizing.

We're still growing, just not at the rate that we were expected. They are going to do some cuts to make sure that our city is well balanced, budgeted, and moving forward into the future. As far as some things to do this week and weekend, not much, but Aggies FC women's soccer. I'm not sure if this is their first game. I think it is because I got an email saying, hey, come to it. This is at CSU on-campus women's soccer stadium June 3rd, tomorrow, 5 to 8 p.m. Go and support. Loveland, got to keep giving them credit. They are stepping up. They are throwing haymakers. The city of Loveland is developing and wants to be a cool area and is becoming a cool area.

Part of that is this downtown redevelopment, walking corridor, street improvements, streetscapes, downtown investments, and they're having a block party for one of their first opening blocks of their redevelopment this Friday, June 5th. If you are into this, Colorado Medieval Festival, June 5th through the 7th in Loveland, jousting, live music, medieval entertainment. Now, my kids and I, my wife's going to a funeral this weekend, so maybe that's something that my kids and I go do. Thursday nights, Bohemian Nights at Old Town Square for the rest of the summer. Thursday nights, 7 to 9 p.m. If you haven't gone and checked out the annual flower trial garden at CSU, we had them on our podcast, The Fort Collins Fellows, not too long ago.

Cool flowers, trial flowers. Go and check all that out. This is Fort Collins podcast, the Living in Fort Collins podcast, coming to you every week. If you guys wouldn't mind, give the video or this listen a rating review. I appreciate you guys listening and until next week, everybody have a great day.