FAQs

Yes!  A citizen-initiated ballot measure passed with a 68.61% majority (27,787 votes) in April 2021. The ordinance mandates the City rezone the Hughes site as "Public Open Lands" and set in motion the purchase of the property.

Since 2020, the City has engaged the community in multiple ways to gather input on the future of the Hughes Stadium site. Previous public engagement efforts, including the Future of the Hughes Stadium Site Our City page, provided opportunities for residents to share their perspectives, priorities, and concerns.

As the next step, on August 20, 2024, City Council approved the use of a Civic Assembly to further engage the community in shaping the site's future. This randomly selected, demographically representative group of residents will review background materials, hear from experts, and deliberate before making recommendations.

All public input received thus far—along with feedback from ongoing engagement efforts—will be compiled and included in the materials provided to the Civic Assembly to ensure a well-informed and inclusive process.All of these inputs will also be provided to City Council who will be the decision makers.    

Yes, all feedback received from past and current public engagement efforts will be compiled and included as part of the materials provided to the Civic Assembly. This ensures that a broad range of community voices, perspectives and priorities shared throughout the process are considered in the Assembly's deliberations.  

Requiring a login helps protect the integrity of public engagement by ensuring that each participant provides a unique and valid response. This prevents duplicate submissions, minimizes the risk of spam or manipulation, and helps the City gather more reliable data to inform decision-making.

Additionally, having an account allows participants to stay informed on project updates, revisit past contributions, and engage in ongoing discussions. Personal information is kept confidential and is used solely to improve the engagement process.

If you would like to provide feedback but prefer not to create a login, please reach out to the program manager(s) in the "Who's Listening" sidebar of the project page.  

If you prefer not to complete the Community Input survey online, you may also download a hard copy of the survey in Microsoft Word format to complete and return. Please note that the deadline to return this survey is March 5, 2025. Additional questions can be directed to Sylvia Tatman-Burruss, City of Fort Collins (statman-burruss@fcgov.com(External link))  

Yes. The Assembly's final recommendation(s) which will be provided to City staff and Council will be shared on this project page and the community is invited to share their feedback ahead of City Council's final decision.

A Civic Assembly is a form of public participation where a representative group of community members, chosen through a democratic lottery, collaborates to develop policy recommendations on complex issues. Residents of Fort Collins will be selected to accurately reflect the demographics of Fort Collins, including factors such as age, location and educational attainment. The result is like having the city in one room. Check out this video(External link) for an overview of how it works.

The Hughes Civic Assembly will bring together 20 Fort Collins residents, chosen through a fair and inclusive selection process to reflect the city’s diverse population. Functioning like a “civic jury,” this group will deliberate, learn from experts and community members, and develop recommendations on the most beneficial use of the Hughes site. 

Delegates will work together to answer this key question:

“Informed by the diverse needs of our community, what use of the Hughes site will contribute most effectively to Fort Collins’ long-term vitality and meet the requirements outlined in the 2021 ballot measure?”

Assemblies respect the individual perspective of each member. They are designed to ensure that each individual has a chance to review the facts and deliberate with their peers to find solutions.

The assembly will consider past public engagement efforts relating to the Hughes site and the 2021 ballot initiative to propose uses that align with community needs and legal requirements. After weeks of study and discussion, the Assembly will present its recommendations directly to the Fort Collins City Council, which has committed to reviewing the proposals and providing a public response.

Civic Assemblies come together through an equitable and transparent process that starts with a democratic lottery. Invitations are sent to a random slice of residents, each with a unique identifier specific to that household.

15,000 randomly selected households across Fort Collins received invitations to apply to participate in this innovative public engagement effort. Residents who received an invitation applied online to express their interest in participating by March 1, 2025.

A pool is created from the applicants and open-source software algorithms generate thousands of potential Assemblies (each consisting of 20 individuals) that are representative of Fort Collins’ demographics—like a microcosm of the city. A public lottery event will be held on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, to select a “winning” Assembly. The tentative Assembly members are contacted to confirm their participation. 

The Hughes Civic Assembly will consist of 20 individuals, with alternates as backups. 

We understand that not everyone can participate directly in the Civic Assembly, which is why we offer an online survey to ensure broader community input. Feedback from the survey will be compiled and shared with Civic Assembly delegates, alongside input gathered from previous engagement efforts, Community Guides and other sources, to ensure a diverse range of voices.

Please note that the Community Input for the Civic Assembly Survey closes at 5 p.m. on March 5, 2025.

In order to keep it a neutral process, City staff may not participate directly in the Assembly – but family or other members of a staff member's household are eligible. City staff may serve as Community Guides.

A democratic lottery, also known as sortition, is a method of selecting people for public participation so that they fairly represent the general public. It has been around for at least 2,000 years. It has made a comeback in recent years because it avoids some of the pitfalls of other methods, such as appointing hand-selected folks onto a committee. Lotteries avoid favoritism (or accusations of favoritism), and they help everyday people have a say in the decisions that impact their lives.

Democratic lotteries generally follow these steps:

1. A mailing is sent to thousands of randomly selected addresses. 

2. A population profile is created, looking at council district, housing status, education, and so on, based on reliable public benchmarks – such as Census data.

3. People reply to the mailing using a simple form that asks for only what’s needed to run the lottery: basic demographic info. It’s not an application or a test – no essay questions or special qualifications.

4. All those replies are placed into an open-source computer program that creates dozens of possible “Assemblies” – all of which match the population profile. These are all “cities in one room” – each include different individuals, but all of them match that same Census data for housing status, education levels, etc.

5. There’s a public Lottery Selection event, where one of those potential Assemblies is randomly chosen as the official one. Then, we contact folks, tell them the news, and work with them to make sure they can serve.

We collect demographic information so that the Assembly will be able to reflect the city’s many kinds of people and range of perspectives. Selection for the Assembly is random but also takes into account the information that you share on this form. The Assembly is selected through a lottery drawing from among all respondents.

No, you do not need any prior experience or expertise. You will be gathering information during the Assembly, and you will be able to make up your own mind about what you think are the best ways forward. Then you’ll work through a process with your fellow Delegates to investigate options, weigh tradeoffs, and recommend the best use(s) of the Hughes site.

Delegates must commit to participate in the full process. A group of alternates will also be selected in case anyone must drop out before the first session.

The City of Fort Collins’ City Council has partnered with Healthy Democracy(External link), a nonpartisan nonprofit that specializes in Civic Assemblies and the Center for Public Deliberation(External link) at Colorado State University, 

Healthy Democracy (HD) is leading the design and coordination of the Civic Assembly itself. They have nearly two decades of experience designing similar Assemblies, mostly in the Western United States. HD is best known for a type of Civic Assembly called the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR), where a randomly selected, representative group of residents evaluate ballot measures and write trustworthy voter information for the state voters’ pamphlet. In other words, “voter info by voters, for voters.” The CIR was one of the first permanent lottery-selected institutions created anywhere in the modern world when it was passed into Oregon law in 2011.

Two other national non-profits, the American Public Trust(External link), and the Local Policy Lab(External link) are assisting with private fundraising to add to the City’s investment, as well as supporting additional community engagement efforts related to the Assembly. 

No. This project is strictly impartial on this topic, and it is not associated with any political party, campaign, or individual. The Civic Assembly will be entirely independent. It will make the recommendations it chooses, with no outside interference, and it will present them directly to decision makers.

Community Guides (CG) organize and conduct conversations in their community. CG's are coordinated through CSU's Center for Public Deliberation (CPD)and selected through an application process. The CG application process closed on January 22, 2025 and their conversations will be concluded by March 5, 2025.

Community Guides do not advocate for a particular use or viewpoint, but rather are trained to help gather diverse voices and facilitate conversations that capture a wide range of perspectives and opinions. Guides may be connected to communities that are invested in particular uses, however, the questions, format, and survey for inputs are all uniform.  Guides are encouraged to reach out to less-engaged audiences who may not be aware of the project or have not provided input previously. Data from these conversations will be used to build out the information that's provided to the Civic Assembly. 

Just like the Assembly is an independent public body with full autonomy over their outputs, so is the Information Committee. The Information Committee meets before the Assembly and works together to analyze a series of community input, identify equity and information gaps, prioritize the resources, and determine which will be included in the first weekend of the Assembly. 

The Information Committee will be made up of 12 community members, including: 

• 4 at-large community members
• 4 Community Guides
• 4 representatives of the following City Boards & Commissions:: 
  • Parks & Recreation
  • Youth Advisory Board
  • Land Conservation & Stewardship
  • Natural Resources

The Assembly will take place at 222 Laporte Avenue in the Fort Collins Colorado River Community Room(External link) on Saturday–Sunday, April 12–13, and Saturday–Sunday, May 3–4.

Yes. Colorado Open Meetings Law and City policy require that any group of two or more people making recommendations about policy to the government be open to the public. This means that the public will be able to observe the Assembly, though they will not be able to participate or engage with the Delegates, presenters, or other volunteers during the process.

Although parts of the Assembly will be live streamed, only Delegates’ voices will be broadcast; Delegates may choose to avoid being seen visually on the live stream. The public and press may observe the Assembly’s work quietly from a public gallery and take pictures and recordings, but no interaction with the public or with decision makers is required of the Delegates.

No, the Civic Assembly provides recommendations based on their collaborative discussions, with the goal being to align with the community's vision for the site and follow legal requirements. The Assembly’s recommendations are presented to City Council by late May or early June 2025 for further consideration and actions. 

The Assembly provides recommendations based on their collaborative discussions, with the goal of suggesting outcomes that have broad community support. The Assembly’s recommendations will be presented to the City Council on May 27, 2025.

As of June 2023, the City of Fort Collins completed the purchase of the 164-acre Hughes Stadium property from Colorado State University for $12.5 million. The site is zoned as Public Open Lands as required by the 2021 ballot initiative.

In April 2021, Fort Collins voters approved a ballot measure specifying that the property be used for "parks, recreation, and open lands, natural areas, and wildlife rescue and restoration."

Keeping this in mind, the Assembly will answer the question:

Informed by the diverse needs of our community, what use of the Hughes site will contribute most effectively to Fort Collins’ long-term vitality and meet the requirements outlined in the 2021 ballot measure?

Currently, no funding has been designated for restoration or development activities on the former Hughes Stadium site. Future decisions regarding funding allocations will be tied to final decisions about how the site will be used.