Greeley City Council talks redoing grass at Bittersweet Park just two years after $1.5 M in changes
By Trenton Sperry
During a Greeley City Council work session Tuesday evening, the seven city leaders grappled with what Councilman Johnny Olson called “the No. 1 issue” of his 2021 campaign: the purported bungling of a transition of about 20 acres of bluegrass to native grasses at Bittersweet Park in 2020, which along with updates to the park’s irrigation system cost the city about $1.5 million.
When the changes were proposed in 2018, it was argued that water savings from the sod mods would save Greeley about 7 gallons of water per square foot per year. But residents say the turf ruined the beauty of the park, which contains memorials to veterans and police officers and is one of the most visible in all of Greeley.
Interim Culture, Parks and Recreation Director Kelly Snook attributed that unhappiness to the staying power of invasive weeds, slower-than-anticipated growth of the native grasses that were seeded, and the ill performance of a contractor terminated from the project before its completion.
Mayor John Gates said he is “delighted” the item is back in front of the council; he indicated he regrets the changes to the park and that he gets more feedback from residents about this issue than any other.
“I don’t really want to see us spend a lot of money on this change,” Gates said, “but I think the current aesthetics are terrible.”
But council invariably will have to spend a lot of money if it wants to backtrack on the 2020 reseeding project – as much as $1.4 million for new grass alone, without accounting for additional water and mowing costs. City staff provided the council with a range of options going forward:
Leave the park as it is, keeping the existing bluegrass, native grass blend, and salt-tolerant grasses as they are. It’s really only been one growth season, city staff noted, and the grasses need three to five seasons of growth before their true appearance will manifest.
Convert the areas around the park’s memorials (about 3.4 acres) back to bluegrass or perhaps a fescue blend. This option would cost $153,450 should the council opt for fescue seed or $204,600 should it opt for bluegrass sod, which city staff noted also takes more water to maintain and requires twice as much mowing.
Convert the “high-profile” areas of the park – the portions along 16th Street and 35th Avenue totaling about 8.5 acres – back to fescue or bluegrass. This option would cost the city $385,650 should it opt for fescue seed or $514,200 should it opt for bluegrass sod.
This option would represent the city’s mea culpa. It would require the removal of the salt-resistant grass blends and conversion of the vast majority of the park (about 21 acres) back to fescue or bluegrass. This option would cost more than $1 million if the council opted for fescue seed or nearly $1.4 million if it opted for bluegrass sod.
City staff noted that fescue, although cheaper than bluegrass, would have to be seeded, and so it too would take a few growing seasons to reach its true potential, so the park’s aesthetics wouldn’t improve overnight, or even for a year after seeding. Even then, its seeding would require two passes, and those would have to be done in phases if a large portion of the park is converted.
No option garnered the unanimity of the council Tuesday evening, although newly minted City Manager Raymond Lee III said community input on the options must be gathered anyway. Still, the council appears splintered on which type of grass to bestow upon Bittersweet, let alone how much.
“That park is the diamond of our park system,” said at-large Councilman Ed Clark. “I sure would not like to bring fescue in as another yellowish grass.”
“But I don’t want to spend $1.5 million (on bluegrass) to fix something that we spent another $1.5 million on in the first place,” Olson said.
In the leadup to the change to native grasses in the park, the city and its contractor hosted community meetings and sought input and engagement from the nearby residents about the plans. The city touted its efforts at reducing water use and decreasing the necessity of mowing.
Newly minted Councilwoman Deb DeBoutez, who was a city employee at the time and attended some of those meetings, said she came away from them believing there was widespread support for the move.
“I thought there was consensus in the community around (the initial changes),” DeBoutez said. “I’m frankly surprised we’re having this conversation about going back to the way things were.”
Mayor Gates quipped that the discrepancy between those initial meetings and the torrent of complaints he’s faced since could be because city leadership is more likely to get feedback from the community about things they don’t like rather than when residents believe city leadership is doing a good job.
At one point during the meeting, Olson offered that because the water used to irrigate the grass in the park comes from the pond contained within it, any increase in watering for additional bluegrass wouldn’t matter.
“It’s essentially free water,” Olson said. “Is there any way to get some good trees on that northern side, too? … I have a bigger vision for this park. I want to make it a real destination. People should be going here instead of Windsor Lake.
“Just for the record,” chimed in at-large Councilman Brett Payton, “there is no such thing as free water in Colorado.”
Next steps
City staff are willing to refine the options available to council and the estimated costs associated with them, as well as to host meetings with the community about what to do going forward. Another presentation to council was proposed for March.
Other things the council addressed Tuesday
Olson noted that during his attendance at the meeting of the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization, it was clear Weld County is prepared to sue the Environmental Protection Agency over virtually all of Weld being designated an Air Quality Nonattainment Area. The EPA notified Weld in late November that the EPA’s final rule for ozone standards determines that all of Weld is out of compliance with federal air-quality standards. The expansion to all of Weld came after the D.C. Circuit Court ruled in the EPA’s favor over the agency’s 2015 standards, so it’s unclear what legal recourse the county might have.
Dan Frazen, Greeley’s emergency manager, gave an update on COVID-19 in the city. Frazen noted both of the city’s hospitals – North Colorado Medical Center and UCHealth Greeley Hospital – are virtually at capacity, and UCHealth’s intensive care unit is completely full. He also noted Greeley’s testing centers are only contracted through March, so the council will have to decide what to do about them soon. Additionally, Frazen said the city is looking into bringing in a company that can conduct rapid testing at a site in the city, though those talks are in the early stages. As for city staff, Frazen noted there were 27 employees unable to work due to COVID on Tuesday, including eight employees at the police department. City Manager Lee also said the fire department is being affected. Councilman Tommy Butler (Ward I) requested that city staff give COVID updates to council at every regular meeting going forward.
Randy Watkins, CPA, informed the council of the results of a routine audit of the city’s finances and financial processes. Watkins said this particular audit focused on the city’s handling of federal COVID relief funds, and that substandard tracking and reporting of $312,000 has potentially left the city open to having to repay the feds that portion. The money was eventually properly tracked and recorded, Watkins said, but there is a possibility of payback necessary in the future because of some “sloppy” practices. He said many clients are facing these same issues, particularly with the haphazard rules the federal government gave cities and states for the initial rounds of funding, but that ultimately he recommends the city hire a full-time employee to handle grant compliance and reporting. John Karner, the city’s director of finance, said that’s been his department’s plan since the summer and it’s included in his 2022 budget. He said he hopes to begin recruiting for such a position rather quickly.
Council got an update on the potential purchase of about 980 acres of open space between Greeley and Windsor containing Missile Park, the Cold War-era missile silo site currently operated by Weld County as a campground. The property is known as ShurView, and Greeley and Windsor have been in talks to acquire the area for decades. The Trust for Public Land has stepped in as a partner and plans to purchase the property for eventual conveyance to the cities, at a cost of $5 million to Greeley and $250,000 to Windsor, with an additional $1.75 million in grants and conservation funds and another $500,000 still to be raised. In addition to some early sketches of what the open space could look like and a timeline of how quickly the Trust would like to move on the proposal, council made clear their intentions to ask Windsor to pony up a bit more, given the cost disparity between the cities. City Manager Lee said he could try to set up a meeting with Windsor’s town staff in that regard, and Mayor Gates said he would like to attend. Councilman Olson indicated he’s hesitant to spend so much money simply to acquire the land, with the costs of construction and maintenance of a recreation area yet unknown.
Council generally agreed with City Manager Lee’s proposal to produce a calendar of city council meetings and work sessions that could be made available to residents. Some notable changes from the every-Tuesday-evening format:
No work session Feb. 22.
No regular meeting July 5.
No work session Nov. 8 (Election Day).
Move the work session scheduled Nov. 22 to Nov. 29. Councilman Butler recommended simply canceling this session altogether, given its proximity to Thanksgiving.
No meetings or work sessions Dec. 20 and Dec. 27.