Public Comment Letter to Fort Collins City Council

In support of Hughes Open Space

MAY 19 2020

Dear Mayor, Council Members and City Leaders, 

The discussion regarding future use of the land recently occupied by Hughes Stadium is not a question of whether or not to build homes, but rather of whose homes are to be built? That is, will this land be used to construct houses for an expanding human population or will we consider the equally urgent need to provide homes for a diminishing population of meadowlarks, native pollinators, yucca and prairie sage and scarlet globemallow, killdeer and red-tailed hawks? The choice we make will impact all of us for generations to come. 

This same land was once home to the Ute, Arapaho and Cheyenne peoples. My father, who grew up exploring these foothills, told me that he had found tepee circles there. When people of European descent, including my own ancestors, came to Fort Collins, or Ho’oowu Heetou, in the 1860’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, they did so with little respect or consideration for those who lived here before them. They were driven not by malevolence, but by ambition, ignorance and, in some cases, poverty. We need to take care that these same elements do not cloud our judgment today as well. 

As a child, I remember visiting my grandparents, Paul and Emerald Maxwell in the little stone house that they built near the end of Prospect Ave. on the west side of Overland Trail. In the evenings, with my grandmother at the keyboard of her upright piano, and uncles, aunts and cousins standing all around, we sang together. Later, saying goodnight and heading for our car, we could hear the coyotes having their own sing-along in the not too far distance. In the summer we picked apples from the apple orchard my grandfather had planted and in the coldest months of winter there was fun to be had skating on the pond. 

Today the stone house stands empty and the coyotes have been displaced. Houses surround the pond and the apple orchard is gone. But we have an opportunity to restore some of what has been lost. To dedicate a piece of land, on the highly ozone-polluted western edge of town, to the grasses and plants who know best how to clean the air, to the bees and butterflies who assure the propagation of the flowers that grace the hills with their beauty, and to the birds and other creatures who will be given a better chance of survival by having access to land corridors that allow them to move from place to place without confronting barriers of concrete and asphalt. 

It is true that as the population of Fort Collins continues to grow we need more affordable housing. This housing can best be provided by building UP on urban space that is situated close to public transportation and to places of work. But it is equally important to preserve the increasingly rare pieces of land that can provide homes for the native plants and animals that are also essential members of our community. If we make a place for them, they will return. These are the places that remind us of our ties to the land, air and water that sustain us all. These are the places that nourish our hearts and our spirits. If they do not flourish, then neither will we. 

I ask that City Council vote tonight to preserve the Hughes Stadium property as OPEN SPACE. And in anticipation of that vote, I thank you. 

Sincerely, 

Gayla Maxwell Martinez 

P.S. I don't have the exact date, but I know that sometime in the first decades of the 20th century, my great-grandfather, Robert G. Maxwell, leased to the university (Colorado Agricultural College) the land on which the Aggie "A" is painted. He charged the college one dollar for the 100 year lease. A pretty good deal. It would seem an appropriate gesture for the university to make a similarly generous gesture by donating that land to the community that has been its home. As an alumna, whose own graduation ceremony took place in Hughes Stadium, it would make me very proud.