Upcoming Volunteer events in Ute Valley Park and Vote Yes on TOPS Renewal!

Borrowing a line from a Simon & Garfunkel song – “Look around, Leaves are brown,
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter” – yep we know winter is still upon us. The only recent givens we seem to have are a lot of discussion about 10 cents a bag in stores and it snows every Wednesday.

If you have lived here more than a minute you know that Spring is typically about a week and a half in May. Then Summer shows up. The weekly snow events we have experienced are likely to be with us for a while, but that does not keep us from looking ahead. But those wintry episodes will eventually move to our memory, and we can all return to consistently enjoying the great Colorado outdoors in Ute Valley Park.

Also returning will be the Volunteer Trail Workdays in Ute Valley Park. From April through September the work days will happen on the FIRST and THIRD Wednesdays of every month, from 5:30 to 7:30PM. The workdays are organized by the Friends of Ute Valley Park in conjunction with the Colorado Springs Park, Recreation and Culture.

Specific information coming from our Ute Valley Park Ranger Mark Tatro about the projects this season is as follows “most of the season is going to be spent doing restoration in the area that the new Regional Trail is going through. This includes closing and restoring the old utilities access road that the Regional Trail is replacing; closing and restoring the fall line sections (2) near the arch, rerouting of the connections between the Regional Trail and Rocky Top Loop; closing, restoring, and rerouting the 3 fall line trails that act as the western edge of Bea-Ute-iful Loop. If there is additional time in the season, we may look to complete the reroute of the far north end of Rattlesnake Ridge.

Help is always needed, so if you have done so in the past we hope to see you again. If you have not previously helped we encourage you to check the Friends of Ute Valley Park Instagram, Facebook page, or www.friendsofutevalleypark.com to find out details on signing up.

Our Colorado Springs City council unanimously voted to take a revised version of the TOPS tax question back to the voters for the April 2023 City of Colorado Springs Election. TOPS tax is the Trails Open Space and Parks sales tax that goes toward purchasing and preserving public land. Voters rejected an extension request in 2021 that asked for an increase to the tax. The 2023 version returns to the original amount of .01% sales tax or one cent for every ten dollars.

The latest version specifies that 75% of TOPS money must go toward acquiring open space and park property. If this measure succeeds the TOPS tax extension will go through December of 2045. The Friends of Ute Valley Park are in support of this effort to benefit all of us in the region. Time spent here would indicate you are interested in all things Ute Valley Park. It would then make sense that you are interested in all things park in general. With that in mind we would ask for an additional form of help by casting a yes vote in the upcoming election to support the renewal of the Trails Open Space and Parks Tax.