Today’s updated election results from the City of Fort Collins Government are posted: https://www.fcgov.com/elections/results
Nick Armstrong – 3390 (49.76%)
Susan Gutowsky – 3423 (50.24%)
It’s easy to become disillusioned when your favored candidate isn’t elected, especially in close races like ours. Disillusioned about the state of things – your neighbors’ priorities, the City, the future.
The better opportunity is to connect, collaborate, and learn from each other.
Walking every neighborhood in the District and talking to every neighbor that I could reach, here’s what I learned about District 1 neighbors:
- You are creative, smart, talented, clever, and deeply kind,
- You face important, urgent infrastructure gaps affecting your quality of life and safety, and
- You feel disconnected from City processes and your elected officials.
Regular communication, clarity, and connection are key, our conversations reaffirmed this. But at the heart: you are creative, smart, talented, clever, and deeply kind.
Congratulations to the newly elected City Council and Councilmember Gutowsky. Thank you to my amazing campaign volunteers, supporters, and voters – and thank you, also, to every engaged citizen who voted.
Neighbors disagree, vote, and prioritize differently. That’s OK.
Remember and rely on kindness to connect us again and again.
Connect to understand, honor, and value our differing perspectives.
Connect with neighbors to meet the challenges we face together.
Connect to do the hard work worth doing – not just for your personal benefit but for all your neighbors’.
Fort Collins is so consistently ranked “the best place to live” not by accident, but through kindness, connection, vision, and doing work worth doing.
The results in District 1 – and any close race – could be perceived as a divide. A fault line between neighbors. Half voting for one methodology, half voting for another.
I don’t see a fault line. I see an opportunity to connect and forge a better pathway together by doing work worth doing.
And there is so much work worth doing. I’m not waiting around and neither should you.
Clearly, neighbors expressed different perspectives and priorities on the ballot. Let’s honor that – not with an exclusionary victory lap – unwarranted by a split of only 33 votes, but with collaborative listening sessions that connect neighbors together.
Together there is no problem we cannot solve. My commitment to you: I am here, ready to work on the good work worth doing. As neighbors, we can and will work side by side to build a better future for Fort Collins.
Let’s get to work.