City, Environmental Board push to embed sustainability in South Suburban operating agreement

The Environmental Stewardship Board asked the Littleton City Council on the study-session agenda to pursue changes to the city’s operating agreement with South Suburban Parks and Recreation District (SSPRD) that would embed routine sustainability and stewardship practice into how South Suburban manages city-owned parks and open space.

The board’s recommendations include creating a sustainability-management body inside SSPRD analogous to Littleton’s Environmental Stewardship Board, producing an environmental stewardship action plan for SSPRD, adding community engagement requirements tied to environmental decisions, including sustainability updates in routine SSPRD reports and committing to periodic reviews of the operating agreement. The board also recommended more transparent South Suburban board elections, including the option of mailed ballots to reduce barriers to running and voting.

Why it matters: Littleton owns significant park and open-space land but contracts day-to-day management to South Suburban. The council and the board framed the request as an update to an operating agreement last revised in 1983, and sought mechanisms that would make stewardship a continuous institutional practice rather than ad hoc activity.

Council members and board representatives stressed the need to balance ambitions against SSPRD staffing, capital priorities and financing constraints. Councilors and staff noted that South Suburban manages an extensive urban forest with a small crew and that some recommendations — for example, stormwater retrofits or major forestry investments — could require additional capital or operating funds and explicit bargaining with other member jurisdictions that share South Suburban services.

Board and council members discussed coordination with other campuses and municipalities served by South Suburban. Littleton staff said the board had already shared draft recommendations with other cities in the district; councilors suggested coordinating a multi-jurisdictional request to increase leverage and avoid each municipality negotiating separately.

Council members asked that any changes to an operating agreement include measurable metrics or baselines for outcomes such as water use, pesticide application or forest health so negotiators can set target reductions and track results. Staff said baselines and specific metrics are likely to be part of later negotiations and that some measures (for example, stormwater permitting) already fall under the city’s MS4 permit obligations.

The board described prior engagement with SSPRD staff — including an operations manager and a former executive director — and said some SSPRD staff previously convened internal sustainability groups but those efforts waned. The board proposed reestablishing a formal sustainability body and suggested representation from municipalities with their own stewardship or sustainability boards.

Next steps: The council and staff said they would incorporate board recommendations into near-term negotiation priorities with South Suburban and recommended a joint meeting with SSPRD after the district’s board election. Staff also committed to review other municipalities’ operating agreements and to look at Lone Tree’s more recent document as a model to adapt rather than starting from scratch.

Ending: Council and the Environmental Stewardship Board agreed to continue refining the recommendations and to return to the topic with more specifics — including suggested metrics and a draft stakeholder list — before opening formal negotiations with South Suburban.