Berthoud Weekly Surveyor | Covering all the angles in the Garden Spot

A lot on Berthoud’s Plate

By: Dan Karpiel | The Surveyor | September 29, 2022 | Local News

In his bimonthly meeting with the Surveyor on Monday afternoon, Berthoud Town Administrator Chris Kirk expressed excitement and optimism that significant progress and several major initiatives are underway and residents will be seeing a lot of progress in the months ahead.

Kirk conceded that some unforeseen developments regarding the town’s mosquito spraying policy and the unfortunate process whereby the town board had decided to remove from November’s ballot a measure regarding the potential annexation proposal at the TPC Colorado property at the request of some of the shareholders of the Handy Ditch Company.

As Kirk explained, “There were a handful of out-of-the-blue issues we had to get sorted out, the Handy Ditch issue, the mosquito issue, have pushed us back a little bit with some of the bigger picture issues we’ve been trying to deal with like oil & gas, metro districts, our water policy, but all of those are ready to go and get back in front of the board in the next month, next month and a half.”

Regarding the future of the potential for the annexation of lands around McNeil and Welch Reservoirs for additional golf-related amenities, Kirk said such decisions will be entirely in the hands of the Handy Ditch shareholders and board. He stated further that he believes an expansion at TPC would be a good thing for the town, the golf course and for Handy Ditch and that any future proposals will be undertaken with more diligence than the most recent attempt.

Kirk reiterated a point he made at the special board meeting on Sept. 15 by saying, “The lesson learned for us is to not respond as quickly in the future to requests, that’s hard to admit because everybody wants to be efficient, government is always criticized for being slow, and I said it in the board meeting, but there is a reason why bureaucracy exists and, this instance is a good example of why. In the future, we will be a little bit more deliberate in requiring proof and documentation that we didn’t require in an effort to expedite this request.”

The town board was able to hold their long-scheduled retreat last week, whereby the board members and town leadership worked to prioritize big-picture, strategic initiatives. Kirk said the biggest thing to come out of the retreat was the collective desire by all parties involved to get a number of big items that have been underway for a significant period of time wrapped up.

“For us, the big focus for the rest of the year is going to be wrapping up a lot of the things we’re already underway on,” Kirk said and cited the town’s policy on oil and gas development, metro districts, continued park developments, downtown construction projects, continued work on infrastructure specifically continued road and sidewalk maintenance and upgrades, bike lines, trail work and water and sewer infrastructure. “The next 18 months or so we will have made enormous progress, even more than we’ve made in the last four years, which was already substantial,” Kirk said.

One of the projects that will begin soon is the additional bike lane striping projects to increase the ease of bicycling around town. Kirk explained the first three of four phases for the project are out to bid currently and the project is almost exclusively related to striping roadways but that a section of Berthoud Parkway will need to be widened so there will be some physical construction occurring.

Kirk said the final design concepts for the redevelopment of the old town hall site will likely be ready to be put before the board for a final vote in the next meeting (Oct. 11). Kirk said that, if the board approves the final design plans as expected, that construction on that project could begin before summer of next year.

The board also recently voted to approve the largest of the three presented design proposals for the bike park with the one-acre pump track on the northwestern side of town. Kirk said the town has already budgeted “about half” of the funding needed for the project in this year’s budget and will be able to fund the rest of the project as part of next year’s budget, stating the town has more than adequate reserves for the project to be completed in full.

Additionally, Kirk explained that building the bike park and undertaking the first phase of the Town Park redevelopment project can happen simultaneously, saying, “The bike park and Town Park are not an either/or, they are a both … we will add money to the budget next year to do that and then we also have the money in the bank to construct phase one of town park as well.”

The board will also soon be seeing the design concepts for the massive Richardson Park development but said that project will be worked on in phases over the next three years. “The concepts for Richardson Park include a big outdoor pool and aquatics facility, eight new ball fields, and multi-purpose fields. It’s big, big project we can take that project on in phases, we can look for grant funds, there are a lot of funding options available, and we’re hopeful we can push that project ahead in the next three years. It’s going to be one of the best parks in Northern Colorado.”

Lastly, Kirk explained that there is continued progress on the current commercial projects, with work underway at Heron Lakes Commons, which will include a Kum & Go, Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Taco Bell, but that the rest of the subdivided commercial tracts in that are likely, “to be developed in the next 24 months.

On commercial development, Kirk stated, “It’s an important reminder for folks that we don’t build commercial space, we don’t choose who fills that commercial space, we don’t take applications and screen businesses and decide who is allowed to come here and who is not, despite what a lot of folks wish was the case. What we can do is safe ‘if you’re going to build here, you’re going to build the nicest project you have with your corporation or your business in the state of Colorado,’ that is our goal.”

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