The US Forest Service is uniquely tasked with protecting streamflows in much of the West. But our investigation found the agency has threadbare oversight of thousands of dams, ditches, reservoirs and pipelines that take water from forests. (Thread!).

Auf wiedersehen, Fort Collins. Until we meet again.👋❤️.

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If you ever need to reach me for whatever reason (except for PR pitches lol), my email is my first and last name at gmail.

I never came up with a better name for the ~city council club~ but please be advised that membership is for life, so you’re all stuck with me even if I’m not live-tweeting the meetings anymore.

. and all the awesome civically engaged folks who dedicate their attention and perspective to local government.

But I want to say thanks to all the wonderful people I’ve gotten to work with in this role: Our thoughtful and approachable city council members, our crazy-smart, passionate and helpful city staff. .

I’m acutely aware that this is starting to sound a bit Oscar-acceptance-speechy and Twitter is about to play the metaphorical music on me. .

But I do know that I want my life’s work to foster that same sense of understanding. After all, if we don’t know our communities, how can we ever hope to know ourselves?.

That’s why I’ve always gravitated toward explanatory pieces that break down complexity and invite regular people inside the echelons of their local government. I’m not sure exactly where life is taking me next – I have the incredible luxury of time to figure it out.

I love Fort Collins, and my love for this community has grown so much deeper as I’ve come to see how it works and what our civic leaders are working toward. I want everyone in this city to feel that same love, a love born from understanding.

And the most important part of a local reporter’s job is providing that accountability while also holding empathy for the community you cover – because it’s your community too. I did my best to get that right.

If your feet aren’t on the ground, it’s easy to miss the errors in execution – the times when intention doesn’t align with action. I think upholding that sense of accountability for our leaders and institutions is the most important part of a reporter’s job.

I see this dream so clearly, and I believe in it – that’s what has made this job so fulfilling. But I’ve also tried, both as a reporter and as a person, not to get too swept up in it.

. in the sense that many of our community’s challenges are driven by national and global ills. But I’ve watched for three years as our city leaders have locked eyes with this problem and tried to solve it, regardless of what’s going on in Congress or on the international stage.

So the dream, as I see it, is to preserve all the stuff that makes this city wonderful while whacking away at the weeds obscuring that wonderfulness. It’s almost an impossible problem. .

And, honestly, I think Fort Collins' awareness of its own greatness can get in the way of meaningful progress.

Our residents are largely dependent on cars, vulnerable to the brunt of relentless climate change and saddled with a cost-of-living that grows less tenable with each annual lease renewal.

And yet: The stress of population growth pulls at the city like a snug polyester shirt. Life here is objectively worse if you’re not wealthy and white.

Fort Collins is the Pawnee to Boulder’s Eagleton and the Eagleton to Loveland’s Pawnee.

It’s a forward-thinking place, where our local leaders take on goals and challenges that a skeptic would reserve for bigger cities. And it’s a place that remains forever in touch with its roots, a hybrid of a small city & a big town even as more and more people come to live here.

It’s an optimistic place, where ambition blooms in the ever-expanding ranks of breweries, food trucks and start-ups and residents vote to tax themselves at an amazing rate because they trust their community to follow through.