Community Services Overview

if you've ever visited fort collins you know it strikes the ideal balance between sleepy mountain getaway and thriving metropolis the city of fort collins has an inspiring leadership team and a visionary body of elected officials that guide the city's 2500 employees in delivering world-class services to our exceptional community the community services division is comprised of cultural services natural areas park planning and development parks and recreation together they provide so much of what there is to love about fort collins let's take a closer look one of the things that makes fort collins really special and unique is our natural area system we have 52 natural area sites that encompass 37 600 acres with 109 miles of trail natural areas are a place for people to do their daily walk or run to watch the seasons unfold to bike or boat or fish or picnic what makes the city world-class it's a lot of the programs and services we offer we have 10 main facilities comprised of main service areas in aquatics ice fitness child programming sports senior programming trips and travels as well as arts and crafts recreation offers facilities that are community hubs people in the community can get there via public transportation walking biking and come and be part of the community we're park planning and development and we're a small team we're about seven to ten people and we're responsible primarily for planning design and implementation of the paved trail system as well as new parks in the city the work that we do brings tremendous value to our city we hear how people love the parks and trails in the city and we think those contribute to the high quality of life that we enjoy here the city of fort collins has a robust cultural services department we're home to four different facilities our art and public places program and a community grant making program fort fund first facility is the lincoln center that's where i am today one of the busiest performing arts centers outside of metro denver also includes the recently national accredited fort collins museum of discovery a museum that combines history science and exploration we also include the gardens on spring creek which is a recently expanded beautiful botanic garden we also have the historic carnegie center for creativity a visual art and special event space art hall is a special place because it brings diverse voices people and background and their experiences to the community so the parks department has four divisions starting with the parks division we have about a thousand acres of irrigated park land over 40 miles of hard surface trails we take care of the downtown core where you see all the great flowers and we have hundreds of streetscapes and medians that we maintain the forestry division manages over 55 000 street trees park trees then you have the cemetery division the granddaddy of all is grand view cemetery and it was established in 1887. in the golf division we have three unique golf courses nine whole golf course built in 1941 two other 18 hole courses on the south side of town we have thousands and thousands of assets that are worth millions and millions of dollars that we've been using and loving for years and they get old they need to be upgraded they break and we need to have a sustainable funding source so that we can provide those services long term for the community the pandemic and the impact it had on our work teams was pretty substantial when we were trying to decide what was the safe thing to do which activities to close or to limit one of the beautiful things that i saw was the team really coming together to find a way to still provide amazing service the fourth of july was modified significantly we've saw a loss of attendance we have restrictions around gathering the closing reference facilities for about a quarter of 2020 that's been a very substantial financial impact on the recreation department and the thing that we would not do we would not step back from as we were not going to close our parks and our trails we needed to have those spaces available for the community to go out and decompress especially with all the pressures of coven when our facilities were closed one of our facilities turned into a shelter for non-congregate housing for people experiencing homelessness here at the lincoln center our team started live webcasting of local arts groups performances concerts so our local nonprofits can share their performances with the community we have several challenges within our department right now the first is a simple one water we get 15 inches of rainfall a year it's important for us to think about how do we manage the water resources in a way that will get us to the finish line so that we can build out the park system over the next 20 years people are passionate here in our city about capital projects they have high expectations sugar beet park twin silo park crescent park those are all new parks that have been built in the last three or four years and the whitewater park is a project that we've just completed and this was an incredibly challenging project there were high expectations from stakeholders and user groups we were able to collaborate with many other departments across the city and get it done a big milestone for the natural areas department was when we reintroduced native bison to soapstone prairie natural area the moment those gates swung open and the bison bounded out onto the short grass prairie was an incredibly special memorable remarkable moment you felt like the prairie is getting healed the bison are back where they belong i'm excited about finishing the trail system we have 35 to 40 miles of trail we've got about 30 more to go but we're making progress and we add a mile or two every year we think our trail system will branch out and start to connect with other communities one of the things we're excited about is the foco creates arts and culture master plan the cultural plan was developed with the community central to the plan is equity and inclusion related to programming and facilities within the cultural services department with the idea that we are bringing arts creativity and culture throughout the entire community in 2025 we'll be opening a brand new community innovation center that is focused on innovation as well as an outdoor leisure pool which is going to be a very unique facility both in the world of recreation and in the city of fort collins what i love about fort collins is despite fort collins being a medium-sized town it really feels like a small community what i love about fort collins is the quality of life we can walk to old town get a beer hear live music see a theater performance what i love about fort collins is surprise the natural areas what i love about fort collins is being active i'm an outdoor enthusiast i like to fly fish i like to camp i like to hike and i can do those things out my backyard so what i love about fort collins really is the people you see people from every walk of life and when we get to be a piece of that it's really special you

Channel: City of Fort Collins

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Id: naO0xc7TRQQ

Length: 7min 17sec (437 seconds)

Published: Fri May 14 2021