Fort Collins Council to Send Hughes Stadium Initiative to November Ballot After Clerk Confirms Signature Count

Fort Collins City Council voted 7-0 on July 15 to send a citizen-initiated ordinance about the former Hughes Stadium property to the Nov. 4, 2025, municipal ballot after the city clerk’s office confirmed the petition contained more than the required valid signatures. The resolution approved by council modifies the ballot submission clause to specify the property must be designated and used 100% as a city natural area.

The clerk’s office, which handled the signature review, told council the petitioners submitted the packets in June and staff examined every signature using the city and county voter databases. City Clerk Dylan Coldiron said staff reviewed more than 7,500 signatures and found just over 6,300 that were valid; the petition required 5,070 valid signatures to be sufficient. Coldiron also said a protest period following his sufficiency determination produced a protest that was later withdrawn.

Clerk Coldiron outlined the administrative process to council, explaining that each signature is matched against the Larimer County registration database, affidavit and notary dates are checked, and multiple signatures by the same registered voter are removed. He said the office coordinated with Larimer County elections for final verification.

Members of the petition committee and supporters addressed council during public comment, seeking edits to the city-drafted ballot language. Melissa Rosas, speaking for the Friends of Hughes Natural Area petition representatives, asked council to replace the word “modifying” with “clarifying,” reorder the terms “acquire” and “rezone” to reflect the sequence of city actions, and to use the word “designate” rather than inserting the phrase “100%” into the submission clause as written by city staff. Rosas said those changes would more precisely reflect the petition text.

Council members discussed the requested edits. Several members said they were willing to adopt two of the petitioners’ suggested wording changes (reordering of actions and restoring the word that conveys designation), but they declined to adopt the request to substitute “clarifying” for “modifying.” Several council members said they wanted unequivocal language on the ballot to reflect the petitioners’ intent, and the council motion that passed placed the requirement that the property be designated and used 100% as a city natural area on the ballot.

The council resolution (as amended on the floor) forwards the petition text and the city’s submission clause — updated to read that the property “be designated and used 100% as a city natural area” — to the municipal ballot for the regular election on Nov. 4, 2025. Council and staff noted that, because the protest deadline for the published ballot title had passed, changes to the submission clause at this point are council-initiated amendments rather than part of a protest process.

No ordinance adopting the citizen language outright was advanced tonight; instead, the council chose the pathway of referring the question to the voters. The clerk reminded the public that ordinances adopted directly by council would follow the normal ordinance process, including a second reading and an effective date after that reading.

Council members praised the clerk’s staff for the detailed signature review and thanked petition circulators for their work collecting signatures. The council vote to place the item on the ballot was unanimous. Voters will decide in November whether to require the former Hughes Stadium property be designated and used 100% as a city natural area.