Annexation debate goes to voters

By Dan MacArthur
Fossil Creek Current

Ballots due by April 3

The long and bitter battle over the Southwest Enclave Annexation will be resolved once and for all by Fort Collins voters on April 3.

Regardless the outcome, however, opponents pledge to prevent such a situation from happening again. They plan to place on the November ballot a measure preventing Larimer County or Fort Collins from ever again using public open space to create an enclave.

"If we lose this ballot, we are annexed. But we want to fix it for others," said Karen Rose, the most public voice of the opposition. An owner of property in the enclave, she also is one of the leading dissidents who have deployed an array of weapons to beat back the city.

The new effort, however, will come too late for the nearly 3,100 residents of the 2.75-square-mile enclave. Rose said the opponents, now organized as the Stop Forced Annexations Committee, have been advised by their attorney that they might successfully challenge the city's phased approach of first annexing the income-tax producing College Avenue strip. But, she said, he cautioned the group that the cost could exceed $100,000.

So the committee is instead pulling out all the stops now to persuade voters in Fort Collins to overturn the annexation. In a confusing bit of ballot wordplay, a yes vote counts toward repealing the ordinance annexing the enclave. A no vote counts toward affirming the annexation ordinance.

Rose said opponents will take their case to Fort Collins voters through every available venue and "spend every cent" they have. She said they are appealing to voters on two levels.

On the practical side, Rose said, they will make the case that annexing the enclave is not in the city's best financial interests. "The city taxpayers are going to have to pay for us," she said. "They're going to have to spread their resources thinner."

From the philosophical side, Rose said, opponents will appeal to voters' sense of fairness. Only Fort Collins residents can vote on the annexation while county residents within the enclave can't vote on a matter that directly affects them.

"It goes to our founding principles, you get to vote," Rose said.

Fort Collins City Council approved the annexation prior to being forced to put it on the ballot.

"I really hope the people of Fort Collins look at this from the larger perspective of what's at stake," said Mayor Doug Hutchinson.

"The issue is certainly not a few dollars in the budget," he continued. "In a way this is a referendum on the process of how we build a great community."

Hutchinson said the enclave already shares more than 18 miles of border with the city. "It is not a dangling little piece of county property. It's physically in the city," he said. Annexation, he said, offers the opportunity for the enclave and its residents to now become a full partner in that process.

Enclave residents "absolutely had some legitimate concerns," Hutchinson acknowledged. In response, he said, the city delayed the process for six months and passed seven ordinances that dealt with nearly every one of those concerns.

He said those remedies included creating a new rural land-use zone for the area, allowing stormwater fees and stricter sign standards to be phased-in, grandfathering the right to keep livestock and control them with electric fences, resolving the pox of new paperwork that could have afflicted flea markets, and tapping utility reserves to pay the cost of taking over the territory from Poudre Valley REA - resulting in continuing electric rate decreases for residents.

"The people of Fort Collins never heard these things were done," said Hutchinson. "I'm frustrated in not getting the word out about this."

Rose scoffs at the mayor's lofty claims, contending that the unspoken motivation behind the annexation remains. She's convinced, based on conversations with city officials, that they want to declare the area "blighted" so it can be redeveloped. If not, Rose questioned, why hasn't Fort Collins prepared a plan for the enclave in the three years the debate has raged, as it has for North College and East Mulberry.

"This is a complex issue," Hutchinson insisted. "This is not about some conspiracy."

The approximately 2.75-square-mile Southwest Enclave Annexation is generally bordered on the north by Harmony Road, on the south by Trilby Road, on the west by South Taft Hill Road, and it extends approximately one-quarter mile east of College Avenue.

It was created in 2001 with the city annexation of the Coyote Ridge Natural Area. The Taft Hill Road right-of-way was used to connect Coyote Ridge with the Cathy Fromme Open Space and enclose the enclave. Once created, state law and Fort Collins' agreement with Larimer County requires such enclaves be annexed within three years.

Opponents consider the way it was done to be a dirty trick and an intentionally devious misuse of open space. That's why Rose said regardless of that happens on April 3, they will begin circulating petitions to place a measure on both the city and county ballots this November prohibiting the use of public open spaces to create enclaves subject to annexation.

To force a special election in the city, chief deputy city clerk Rita Harris said proponents would need to collect valid signatures equaling 15 percent of the number voting in the upcoming municipal election. For the county, director of elections Jan Kuhnen said they would have to collect signatures equal to 5 percent of the number of registered voters at the time the initiative is filed with her office.

"We have to stop the county and the city," Rose said. "The public goodwill about open space could be tainted by government abuse of the public open space. That was not the intent of public open space."

Hutchinson said the council already has asked city staff to consider implementing such a policy. But he expressed concern that such a "one-size-fits-all" approach might hinder worthy annexations bridging a tiny section of open space. Noting that it's a perfectly legal practice, "Do we want to create that kind of unintended consequences?" Hutchinson asked.

He and Rose are in harmony in one regard, however. Both are hoping for a strong voter turnout.

"We hope the Fort Collins voters will return their ballots and vote, because we can't," she said. "At least we've given people the opportunity to vote."