• Bernard Birnbaum 1,375
• Steven Thorson 1,370
• Debbie Healy 393
• Matt Fries 320
• Jack Irving 86

Birnbaum and Thorson, both doctors, were re-elected. Read more about them here [pdf]

Some community activists had expressed concern that other candidates were running in order to pad their resumes for a higher office or to further an extreme anti-government agenda. On the first point other opportunities exist ranging from Fort Collins Cat Rescue to Friends of the Library

On the second point:

People who don’t believe in government shouldn’t get to run one
~Rachel Maddow

Related: Shovel-Ready Clinics

Resource: Salud Family Health Centers

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Event Details

• Suggested prices for starts are $1 for 2-inch pots and up to $3 for larger plants, but gardeners are free to set their own prices.
• Gardeners can keep up to 75% from the sale of their starts to cover costs.
• Home Grown Food will keep 25% of sales for this fundraiser.
• Larimer County Master Gardeners will be available, along with veteran suburban gardeners, to answer your gardening questions.
• Seed will also be available for purchase.

Who Is Home Grown Food?

Home Grown Food is based in Fort Collins and has evolved from Grow Food Not Lawns. The group now:

• Gives public talks on growing your own food.
• Sponsors public workshops to educate the community members.
• Maintains a Google Group for ongoing discussion and resource lists.
• Holds monthly discussion groups on gardening and local food topics.
• Coordinates publicity and car pools to out-of-town events.
• Works with and through local media to provide perspectives promoting local food issues.
• Mentors new gardeners.

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Want to know exactly how City tax dollars are spent? Curious about the specifics of City operations? Are you interested in making Fort Collins a better place? Then CityWorks 101 is for you.

The City of Fort Collins is offering an eight week program, which will give residents a behind-the-scenes look at running a city. CityWorks 101 provides a unique opportunity to learn more about what services the City provides, and how the City provides them. Participants will see first hand how the City makes decisions and allocates funds.

A note to the reader: I went through this course last year. I found it to be very worthwhile, informative, and inspirational. Highly recommended.

Classes take place on Thursday evenings, 6-9 p.m., March 22 – May 10 and cover the following topics:

• Ready, Set, Gov – an introduction to Fort Collins local government explaining how decisions are made, introducing resources to stay informed and opportunities to get involved
• Creating a Vibrant Community – featuring information on economic health and community planning
• To Serve and Protect – a behind-the-scenes look at police operations
• The Way You Move – focusing on transportation planning, street operations, and transit
• The Utility of it All – an inside look at Fort Collins water, wastewater, stormwater, and electric utilities
• Let’s Play – an in-depth look at parks and trails, recreation, cultural services, and the hard work behind having fun
• Go Green – learn more about our natural areas, environmental programs, and sustainability efforts
• Pay it Forward – bring it all together and see how the topics discussed over the eight-week session join to form the City’s budget

Each session will be held at a different location creating a mini-tour of City facilities. The program also includes a graduation ceremony on May 15 and optional Saturday tours of the Water Treatment Facility and Poudre Fire Authority Training Center.

“I thoroughly enjoyed the hours spent getting to know the City’s different departments and service areas,” said one CityWorks 101 graduate. “I now have an understanding of the big picture – what city government does and how it gets done.”

To be considered for CityWorks 101 you must live within the Fort Collins Growth Management Area (GMA). Class size is limited to a maximum of 30 people; priority is given to applicants who will attend all eight classes. Apply online at www.fcgov.com/cityworks or call 416-2738 to receive a hard copy. Applications are due Feb. 24, 2012.

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Location of Bean Cycle

For the 4th year in a row, The Bean Cycle/Matter Bookstore is hosting a Food Town Hall meeting, led this year by The Growing Project. The purpose of this event is to inform, inspire, and educate about issues associated with food in our community. Anyone involved in growing or producing food in Northern Colorado, or with social justice issues surrounding food, is encouraged to attend and present their projects, ideas, and goals to the community.

After community presentations and a general Q&A, we will have three break-out sessions so people can network and learn more about the issues they are most concerned with.

The Break-Out Sessions are as follows:

1. Policy

   Part of this break-out session will focus on the potential formation of a food and agriculture coalition, led by The Growing Project.

2. Education & PSD

   This break-out session will focus on changes within the Poudre School District Food System.

3. Farmers, Growers, Producers

   This break-out session will allow the public to network and interact with the people who grow food in our region.

When: February 21st, 2012, 6:30 pm – 9pm

Last year a child of about eight or nine brought the house down by asking how kids could be encouraged to eat carrots instead of hamburgers at school. Story here.

Beth Kopp of Matter Daily blog wrote the best story about last year’s Food Town Hall so instead of trying to duplicate that I just put in a link to that. The Matter Daily blog is now history, by the way.

From www.cheapvegatablegardner.com

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City of Fort Collins and CFORSE Joint Effort

Thanks to my friend Fred Kirsch at Community For Sustainable Energy for publicizing a new effort to reduce VMT.

What is a VMT and why do I want to eliminate it?

VMT stands for: Vehicle Miles Traveled

It is a measurement of how many miles you drive. We are calculating VMT on a weekly basis and working to reduce it as part of a city-wide program to raise awareness and understanding of driving habits, as well as to help participants reduce driving.

Reasons to eliminate VMT: High gas prices, traffic, mental well-being, air pollution (VMT are the leading source of toxic air pollution in Fort Collins), less accident risk, and I bet you can think of some others!

Sounds Great – How Do I Cut My VMT?

Fred has a blog post for this. Here is a heavily edited summary plus a way to say goodby to your car without completely going back to horse and buggy days:

Traffic produces smog, congestion and high costs.
Populations grow, infrastructure lags. While researching
the role electric vehicles might play to improve these problems,
I discovered car sharing and decided to propose a program
for the city. I wanted to include electric cars for short trips.
Also, I suspected that lower weight, lower energy,
lower impact vehicles, operating primarily in bike lanes would
be another terrific addition to the car share menu. People can
choose exactly the vehicle and energy use that is perfect for each trip.

We call it “full spectrum vehicle sharing”. It really is just a car share
menu with more choices. High impact choices cost more,
low impact choices cost less. So, got car sharing approved for
CSU, got Fort Collins CarShare operating, and are ramping Fort Collins
“full spectrum” Vehicle Share up to launch the first program of its kind!
Go to our website at Fort Collins Car Share for a quick look, and contact us for more information, or if you want to get involved.
Help us close the circle and make a positive changes in how people move around.
We have a dream that is so exciting, it makes us feel 14 again!
Shane Miller

Shane makes the point that you could take the bus or ride your bike whenever you need to get to your car share. I like the idea of not having to have my own insurance policy if I only drive a few times a year. I have been automobile free for 16 years and it is a little tough when it snows in Fort Collins. My neighbor said that I gave up freedom when I went auto-free. What I gave up was dealing with DMV, parking tickets, bridge tolls, gas, oil, tires, auto maintenance, car insurance, etc. Now there is another alternative in Fort Collins.

This is Freedom

Related: Sourced from AlterNet Do We Have To Live Like Peasants To Be Truly Sustainable?

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teaching how-to to the next generation

Thanks to our friends at BeLocalNC.org we have the following item from their Community News November 2011.

National Center for Craftsmanship is seeking construction, general carpentry, remodel & repair projects for our ReConstruct youth career development training program. If you are considering an addition, tenant finish, or remodel of your home or office, including kitchen, bath, basement, doors, windows, decks, patios, etc., please contact us for a free consultation. We welcome large or small projects and promise quality & integrity in all we do. We are highly experienced craftspeople mentoring youth in all aspects of remodel & new construction projects including design, development & management. We provide licensed & insured services as well as expertise in green building & sustainable practices. We offer state & federal tax incentives for qualifying donors & clients. For more information please contact

Neil Kaufman at 970-215-4587 or email

Related: City Adopts Green Energy Standards

Related: 10 Good Reasons to Shop Local

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We're lookin' at you Fort Collins

Ten good reasons to shop at locally owned businesses:

1. Significantly more money re-circulates in your community when you buy from locally owned, rather than nationally owned, businesses: More money stays in the community because locally owned businesses purchase from other local businesses, service providers, and farms. Purchasing locally helps grow other businesses as well as your community’s tax base.
2. Local businesses provide most new jobs: Small local businesses are the largest employer nationally, and in most communities provide the most new jobs to residents.
3. One-of-a-kind businesses are an integral part of a community’s distinctive character: The unique character of any town or region is what people love about it, and what tourists come to visit. Richard Moe, president of the National Historic Preservation Trust, says, “When people go on vacation they generally seek out destinations that offer them the sense of being someplace, not just anyplace.”
4. Local business owners invest in community: People who own local businesses live in the community, are less likely to leave, and are more invested in the community’s future.
5. Customer service is better: Local businesses often hire people with more specific product expertise for better customer service.
6. Competition and diversity lead to more choices: A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long term. A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based not on a national sales plan but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices.
7. Local businesses have less environmental impact: Locally owned businesses can make more local purchases, requiring less transportation, and generally set up shop in town or city centers as opposed to developing on the fringe. This generally means contributing less to sprawl, congestion, habitat loss, and pollution.
8. Local businesses’ public benefits far outweigh their public costs: Local businesses in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure investment and make more efficient use of public services as compared to nationally owned stores entering the community.
9. Local businesses encourages investment in the community: A growing body of economic research shows that in an increasingly homogenized world, entrepreneurs and skilled workers are more likely to invest in and settle in communities that preserve their one-of-a-kind businesses and distinctive character.
10. Local businesses give more support to nonprofits: Nonprofit organizations receive an average 350 percent greater support from local business owners than they do from non-locally owned businesses.

Got this article here. That is OK … they got from somewhere else. Don’t forget, we have resources. I believe that this post goes with comments regarding relocalization.

Photo Credit: Ukiah, CA Community Blog

Note: This article was presiously published here

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Thanks to Brandi. (I love Jimmy Cliff) Found this on Health Care for All Colorado Website

Posted by Gypsy Chief

Audience has many questions

Note: This post has been updated May 4 and May 9, 2011 to expand upon privacy concerns as documented in Colorado University White Paper, results of new polling as reported by Smart Energy Portal and more about the connection between smart grid (e.g. FortZED Renewable Distributed System Initiative) and smart meters. Furthermore, I wish to acknowledge the very real contributions of Michelle Martens and Dolores Williams.

FC Utilities staff were overwhelmed with audience questions, preconceptions, and fears at last night’s Residential Environmental Series session on Smart Meters. The session was at the Drake Center from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Gypsy Chief estimates the audience at around 40. Other sessions in the series consist of self-selected audiences interested in trees, gardening, composting, and such. These topics are non-controversial for the people interested in them. Last night’s session was different.

City Has a Problem

The facts of the case are fairly simple. Utilities already does augmented utility metering on large commercial electric accounts. They have received a grant of $16 million from the US Department of Energy. That grant has a time deadline. Utilities proposes to spend $32 million to replace existing electric and water meters city wide. A contract has been let. The new meters will contain smart cards from China. The meters will be assembled in North Carolina and deployed during 2012 – 2013. Smart meters will displace twelve full time walking meter readers. Managers estimate that salary savings will lead to a simple payback period of ten years. Next question: Why does the city want to deploy smart meters? FC Utilities thought that smart meters would be perceived as a forward looking step much like the decision to underground all utility lines. They seemed totally unprepared for the audience reaction they got.

Varieties of Opposition

Perhaps the first mistake was to turn the microphone over to a failed mayoral candidate who received twelvish percent on April 5. This gentleman filibustered the session with accusations that the payback calculations are flawed, that council acted improperly, that staff are lying to customers, etc. The next gentleman presented the ICLEI conspiracy case. Gypsy Chief’s take on these two is that FC Utilities should simply ignore them and deal with the less irresponsible opposition. These included health concerns around radio frequencies, privacy concerns around time-of-day metering, perceived social engineering and real questions about the future of distributed energy.

A Missed Opportunity

One of the strongest arguments in favor of smart-grid technology (which require smart meters) is that better management may avoid the need to construct more dirty coal generating plants. The comment came from audience member Dolores Williams, a local environmentalist. To be fair, staff made similar comments too but not very forcefully and they were loaded with jargon. A gentleman asked about rooftop solar. The presenter, Cavanah, absolutely blew an opportunity to make the case that smart meters when deployed will make it possible for the customer to sell excess power back to the utility. Another gentleman asked about off-grid solar. FC Utils missed an opportunity in answering this question. On-grid versus off-grid questions should be and can be answered in one sentence. Utilities needs to prepare for questions like these; not get into the weeds because they distract from the main message. The city will deploy smart meters, date and times are set. The city thinks there will be benefits in doing this. They need to practice their communication skills because there is a case to be made.

Final Snarky Comments

Presenters spent way too much time collecting meaningless statistics. The audience sample was not representative of the city as a whole. I would also challenge the notion that the audience represented opinion leaders. So why collect statistics at all? Questions surfaced about an opt-out provision. Seems like Utilities is actually considering this in some form. Well, let’s say the city wanted to build a library. They tell citizens if you are never going to go to the library you don’t have to help pay for it. How many libraries would ever be built? We are either all in this together or we are not. That’s my take. So we get down to health concerns and privacy concerns. Health concerns (radio frequencies) are being addressed. FC Utils had a pretty good answer on this. A doctor is doing a literature search on health effects of radio frequencies.

Privacy concerns when expressed in a responsible way need to be dealt with. I hope that responsible managers will hone their message.

CU White Paper on Privacy

Michelle Martens arrived with links to University of Colorado’s White Paper on Smart Grid Deployment (pdf)
Quoting from that document:

The essential innovation behind the smart grid is information—highly detailed electricity usage data communicated by and between the utility, the consumer, and in many instances, third-party vendors. However, while this information—and the extrapolations that can be made from it—is what enables the smart grid to be “smart,” it is also what makes the smart grid so potentially invasive of individual privacy. Smart grid data is a double-edged sword. The sharper the blade in terms of informational granularity, the more it can be wielded to achieve both societal benefits, such as grid reliability and energy efficiency, and invasions of privacy. As a recent report by NIST puts it: “The major benefit provided by the smart grid, i.e. the ability to get richer data to and from customer meters and other electric devices, is also its Achilles’ heel from a privacy viewpoint.”

Quoting again:

The possibility for gleaning potentially private information from this data is truly staggering, including when a resident showers, watches TV, and how often she prefers microwave dinners to a three-pot meal. The richness and detail of the insights provided by this newly refined and individualized information is matched only by the number of potentially troublesome uses for such data, which range from the targeted and nefarious to the structural and discriminatory. Furthermore, energy use itself has become tied to judgments about an individual’s social responsibility, and so, while data collection booms, intuitions about the private nature of that data may well be shifting to be more protective of its disclosure.

Folks at Smart Grid Live in Fort Collins are aware of the CU White Paper. See Smart Grid Live – Segment Two. Tom Plant from the Governor’s Energy Office referred to the white paper. His presentation starts at around 16 minutes into the presentation and continues until 24 minutes. His final comment was that privacy concerns as expressed in the document are being addressed at the state government level.

Paul Mauldin writing in Smart Energy Portal, reports on recent polls making smart meter deployment a tough sell

Residential energy management is considered a big piece of Smart Grid benefits. But the industry must do a better job of clarifying what those benefits mean to residents. Hand waving explanations and reliance on ratepayer faith in the local utility just won’t work anymore.

He says that there is a widespread mistrust of governments (and corporations) as well as misgivings about loss of privacy. To quote Michelle Martens at the session:

If your lights go on every night at 3 a.m. your car insurance company might get the idea that you have been drinking.

FC Utils demonstrated that they were not ready to answer these concerns at the moment. I believe they need to understand that smart meter rollout is more than an engineering issue. Can Utilities develop their communication skills so they address non-engineering questions as well?

Image Credit: Penton Media now called Smart Energy Portal

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Swiped from their website

To help to kick off National Volunteer Month in April, we’re hosting a community volunteer fair on Tuesday, March 29 at the Hilton Fort Collins from 3:00-6:30pm. Forty agencies from various fields will be onhand to discuss available volunteer opportunities including special events, fundraising, mentoring, restoration, animal care, office work, boards of directors, and more!

More: Volunteer Fair – Hilton Fort Collins

Participating Agencies

Animal House, Boys & Girls Clubs of Larimer County, City of Fort Collins Recreation, Crossroads Safehouse, Denkai Animal Sanctuary, District Attorney’s Office, Food Bank for Larimer County, Fort Collins Cat Rescue, Fort Collins Catholic Charities, Gardens on Spring Creek, Habitat for Humanity- Ft Collins, Hope Lives, Junior Achievement, KRFC 88.9fm, Larimer County DHS, Larimer Humane Society, Legacy Land Trust, March of Dimes- Larimer County, Neighbor to Neighbor, Overland Mountain Bike Club, Partners Mentoring Youth, Pathways Hospice, Poudre School District, Poudre Wilderness Volunteers, Project Self-Sufficiency, RamStrength/Lubick Foundation, Realities for Children, SAVA Center, Ten Thousand Villages, The Atmosphere Conservancy, The Family Center/La Familia, The Matthews House, The Wild Animal Sanctuary, Turning Point, United Way of Larimer County, USDA Forrest Service, Volunteers of America- NoCO, Wildland Restoration Volunteers, WOLF Sanctuary, Women’s Resource Center

Who Speaks For Wolves?