Photo by Will Cornelius
Berthoud’s new town board was sworn in on Tuesday.

By Brendan Henry
The Surveyor

Berthoud’s board of trustees held their regular bi-monthly meeting on Tuesday with all trustees in attendance. To start the meeting, Mayor Will Karspeck read out loud a goodbye speech for Mayor Pro Tem Mike Grace, who was present. Following the memory-filled speech, Karspeck presented Grace with a plaque and allowed Grace to speak.
“Truly, I appreciate serving with all of you,” Grace said. “I would not have chosen a better committee if I got to pick. We’ve all been incredibly fortunate that we’ve kept partisanship far away, we’ve been looking at what the future of the town is, not our own agenda.” Grace said the experience has been humbling and thanked his wife for being there for him.

Following both speeches, trustees May Albrecht and Chris Kurtz along with newly elected trustee Brett Wing were sworn in for their upcoming term on the board of trustees. Mayor Karspeck was also sworn in following his reelection as mayor.

The board took a five-minute break to do a roster switch, with Wing sitting in the spot that Grace had occupied.
After the break, Mayor Karspeck opened things up to public comment. Lauren Roth, who is currently on the PORT committee, approached the podium to discuss Richardson Park. She expressed disappointment after discovering that phase-one plans for the park have developed to a point of being unable to change and is concerned that the public survey worked on by the PORT committee would be pointless. She cited that the committee had previously voted unanimously for changes to the pool planned for the park and said that unanimous vote was ignored. Roth urged the board to pause the development of the park to reevaluate and ensure that public input is no longer ignored.

Another resident believes that the oil and gas regulations vote on the board’s agenda in May should be advertised to promote public engagement. The next resident was not pleased with the lack of proper trails in the Heron Lakes development, saying that it created a hazard for bike riders. The last resident urged the board to pressure CDOT to improve the signaling at the intersection of Berthoud Parkway and Highway 287 after witnessing a fatality there.

The board moved on to unanimously pass the consent agenda and held a vote for a new Mayor Pro Tem after Grace’s departure. Trustee Karl Ayers nominated Trustee Sean Murphy for the position and the motion for Murphy to become Mayor Pro Tem was approved unanimously.

District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin provided the board with a public safety update. One of the biggest issues facing Larimer County has been the distribution of and death resulting from fentanyl and this has been a focus for law enforcement. McLaughlin said that social media is the new “street corner” when it comes to the distribution of drugs.
Community Development Director Anne Johnson replaced McLaughlin at the podium to switch the topic to an introduction to the adoption of the national electric code. Town ordinances were modified to reference the new code, definitions were cleaned up and a few additions were made for developers to adhere to. A motion to set May 14, 2024, as the date of the public hearing where the adoption of the 2023 national electrical code will be considered was passed unanimously.

Johnson remained for the next item regarding the Heron Lakes 17th filing change of zone public hearing. The applicant is requesting to adjust the zoning lines to reflect the final design of filing 17 and the acreage in question is 0.66 for area one and 0.66 for area two. The motion to approve the Heron Lakes rezoning map due to the findings in the staff report was approved unanimously.

The board moved on to approve the Right of Way Use Agreement with Hilltop Broadband, the company that the town agreed to work with to deploy fiber optics using the town’s right-of-ways.

Whitney Way, owner of City Star Brewing, and Steve Byers, CEO of EnergyLogic, approached the board to discuss the idea of a DDA, or Downtown Development Authority. The DDA would run along Mountain Avenue to U.S. 287.

Following a lengthy executive session, the board authorized the town administrator to sign a contract to purchase 138-acres of land on County Road 15 for future open spaces.

The next town board meeting will be held on May 14 at 6:30 p.m.