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OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD

Record of Proceedings

Colorado Springs Historic Preservation Board Meeting - August 3, 2026

City Council — Monday, August 3, 2026

BodyColorado Springs, Colorado

SessionCity Council

DateMonday, August 3, 2026

StatusFILED

Video Record

0:00 / 1:47:21

Transcript — VerbatimClick a line to jump · ⧉ to share it

0:00

I want to talk about the impacts.

0:02

I heard a few speakers ago talk about water.

0:05

So I'm a national leader on the Status Center conversation, and we don't know a lot about what's being disclosed about what's going in the water.

0:12

So in a race to use less water in uh the West and the Southwest, we're now turning to chemicals.

0:18

You heard about PFAS and Forever Chemicals, hydrofluorocarbons that actually put the hole in the ozone or ethylene glycol.

0:25

And guess what?

0:26

These chemicals are made in industrial areas in Houston and other places that also have people living on the fence line.

0:33

So it's a supply chain of suffering that gets pushed down in our race to use less water.

0:38

And without knowing exactly what's going to be in these chemicals, an absent state policy, which I worked on to disclose this transparency, you're repeating the mistakes of the past, like with fracking.

0:48

Do you know if your wastewater utility can remove these and to what efficacy and what that cost will be?

0:53

Because you simply must go down the road to fountain where they had to spend millions and get grants in order to clean up the PFAFs that is coming from military waste that is a legacy waste.

1:03

And so we're here today in support of our members in Colorado Springs and to be a resource for you all.

1:08

And I'll close by saying when I heard a state uh uh an employee say there are people yes and no, tell us exactly how many, because I used to work for the Denver City Council Man Board, and we would say those facts, not just say there's some yes and some no.

1:20

Thank you.

1:22

Thank you very much.

1:27

Next we have Dr.

1:28

Tracy Musgrove, followed by Leah Pateka.

1:43

If there's an usher in the audience that can assist with the microphone, does that work?

1:49

Thank you.

1:51

It's not made for short people.

1:55

I am loud enough to go without the microphone.

2:01

That'll work.

2:02

Thank you.

2:03

Good afternoon, commissioners and fellow residents.

2:05

My name is Dr.

2:06

Tracy Musgrove.

2:07

My uh doctorate is in environmental toxicology.

2:10

And I'm sorry, I'm still heartbroken by what the other woman said about the generations.

2:15

Um I'm speaking today because I'm deeply concerned about the uh severe air quality risk that this data center will likely inflict on our community.

2:25

I lived in Lubbock, Texas for two years, and within two years, never having had asthma, I developed asthma because of the high particulate matter in the atmospheres.

2:37

So, um, while the developer promotes this project as a clean zero water facility, um this is not a minor footprint, and it is not innocuous.

2:48

It is still a hundred excuse me, a hundred megawatt industrial instinction requiring 72 chillers and 60 emergency backup generators.

2:57

By trading water for an enormous continuous electricity draw, they are forcing Colorado Springs utilities to burn more fossil fuels, shifting a massive particulate burden onto our regional air basin.

3:10

Even with modern tier four engines, routine testing of up to the 60 industrial generators will highly inject will inject highly concentrated spikes of toxic soot directly into the Garden of the Gause residential corridor.

3:24

This infrastructure will hit our families with three district three distinct sizes of particulate matter.

3:30

The first is the PM10, which is the coarse desk.

3:33

And for the size you think about as human hair.

3:36

Okay, about five to seven of these PM tins will fit on the width of a human hair.

3:42

Um from the retrofit construction in the diesel ass, which aggressively inflame the eyes, nose, and throat, in addition to the upper respiratory tract.

3:50

Secondly, the PM 2.5s, which would fit 20 to 30 um on the same width of hair.

3:56

Uh they are 30 times thinner, basically, than a human hair.

4:00

And this from is is from diesel exhaust.

4:03

They pass, they bypass our own respiratory defense and go straight into deep into the lungs, triggering acute asthma attacks, bronchitis, and long-term cardiovascular disease.

4:14

Ma'am, thank you.

4:16

Your two minutes are up.

4:18

I know it goes incredibly fast.

4:20

Thank you so much.

4:26

Next we have Layla Bateta, ticket number 35, followed by Matt Styes, ticket 36.

4:36

Hi, my name's Leela, and I am a concerned teacher and resident.

4:40

I implore the planning commission to listen to the words of not just me, but your concerned residents.

4:44

From the start, communication and planning from Raden has been rushed and inconsistent.

4:49

The first meeting claimed phase one would be 50 megawatts and 200,000 gallons of water day one and no more.

4:57

The phase rhetoric was then dropped at the second meeting.

5:00

When I confronted Daniel Sexton about it, he told me that they now only planned one building at 50 megawatts, so they wouldn't have to repeat the public notice process with each phase.

5:09

Later documents show conflicting info from double the 50 megawatts to over 420 megawatts.

5:15

This entire process between Jason Green of Raiden, city planning, and CSU has overall lacked basic transparency.

5:22

Furthermore, I would like for you guys to address how exactly you plan to handle this very blatant conflict of interest with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Shrek as they lobby not only city council here in Colorado Springs, but also they represent Raiden.

5:38

Former Mayor Southers has allegedly told Raiden and Jason that they would receive a waiver, allegedly, uh and that this would be approved no matter what.

5:46

Any city that evalues integrity and honesty will be willing to address these concerns on public record in the open.

6:07

If this facility is allowed to be non-transparent here and now, what else will they do to the city and citizens?

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting

Environmental Protection███████████████████████████████████████39%

Public Engagement██████████████████18%

Data Center Regulation████████████12%

Procedural████████8%

Water And Wastewater Management████4%

Public Health███3%

Noise Pollution Regulation███3%

Land Use and Zoning███3%

Military Coordination██2%

Summary of Proceedings

Colorado Springs Historic Preservation Board Meeting - August 3, 2026

The Historic Preservation Board of Colorado Springs met on Monday, August 3, 2026, at 4:30 PM at 30 S. Nevada Ave., Suite 102. Four members were present and three were absent. The board received staff administrative and policy updates, approved minutes from two prior meetings, considered a report of acceptability for a structure in a historic overlay, and heard a presentation from a History Colorado preservation planner.

Call to Order & Roll Call

Present (4): Board Member Beerbaum, Board Member MacEnulty, Alternate Baumgartner, Board Member Fitzsimmons
Absent (3): Chair Lowenberg, Board Member Musick, Board Member Potter

Staff Communications & Reports

William Gray (Bill Gray), Senior Planner in the Urban Planning Division, introduced himself as the designated Preservation Planner liaison to the Historic Preservation Board. He stated he has been with the City for nearly six years and reported to Ryan Tefertiller, Planning Manager, who was in attendance.
Gray introduced a new staff member who previously worked for two years in the Historic Preservation field and was invited to attend the meeting.
Gray announced an upcoming meeting with the Historic Neighborhood Partnership on August 7, 2026.
Gray stated that City Council staff were working on appointments to move alternate members into voting member positions.
Gray alerted the board to potential federal changes to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which he described as an important tool for historic preservation, and asked members to review the information.
Gray proposed shifting board meetings to an earlier time within standard business hours (between 9:00 AM and typical start times), noting that other bodies such as the Parks Board meet as early as 7:30 AM, while City Council typically begins at 8:00 or 9:00 AM. He stated that Chair Lowenberg had requested that he notify the board of this proposal. (The source materials also spell the chair's name "Loewenberg"; both spellings appear in the minutes and transcript.)
Gray asked board members to review the City's historic preservation webpage over the coming week and email suggestions for revisions.
Tefertiller reminded members never to use "reply all" to avoid group email discussions.

Board member responses:

Board Member Beerbaum requested that staff send out a notice soon to finalize the proposed meeting time change and asked that the agenda's board comment section, which had recently been overlooked, be restored.
Board Member MacEnulty asked whether upcoming website updates would address the historic preservation page; Gray explained that a team had been formed to work with each division, including historic preservation.
Board Member Beerbaum updated the board that History Colorado had denied a request; the minutes do not specify what was denied.
Board Member Fitzsimmons asked why local landmark procedures would apply in a particular case; the source text is truncated, but Gray explained the applicable historic preservation processes.

Minutes Approval

May 5, 2026 minutes (HPB 2321): Motion by Board Member Beerbaum, seconded by another board member (name not recorded in the available minutes). Approved 4-0, with Chair Lowenberg, Board Member Musick, and Board Member Potter absent. The May minutes were signed by Patricia Musick as Acting Chair.
June 1, 2026 minutes (HPB 2322): Motion by Board Member Fitzsimmons, seconded by Alternate Baumgartner. Approved 4-0, with the same three members absent. The June minutes were signed by Chair Lowenberg.

Consent Calendar

The minutes note that items were called off the consent calendar but do not specify which items.

Discussion Item: Report of Acceptability

William Gray presented a proposal that staff found met all criteria for a report of acceptability. A speaker (identified as "she" in the transcript) explained that two structural walls would be added.
Board Member Fitzsimmons asked whether the house dated from 1985 and whether it was a non-contributing structure within the overlay. Gray explained that because the property is in the overlay, a report of acceptability must be reviewed by the board.
Fitzsimmons said he would not want the applicants to go through unnecessary additional process (the source text is truncated at this point).
A motion was made by Alternate Baumgartner, seconded by a board member (name not recorded in the available minutes). The recorded outcome of the vote is not included in the available materials.

Presentation: History Colorado

Lindsey Flewelling, Preservation Planner with History Colorado, presented on the value of historic preservation, noting that preservation of historic spaces can result in affordable housing.
She discussed the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, which created State Historic Preservation Offices and federal project review under Section 106, and described how designation and design review decisions ensure consistency and clarify codes, with clear reasoning when precedent does not apply.
She highlighted the role of historic context and described preservation as comprehensive and selective.

Note on Transcript Discrepancy

The raw transcript provided for this meeting contains substantial content that does not match the Historic Preservation Board minutes. Beginning approximately midway through the transcript (after the History Colorado presentation), the material shifts to what appears to be a different proceeding: a Colorado Springs Planning Commission appeal hearing regarding "Project Taurus," a proposed data center.
That portion includes public comments opposing the project, references to the project proponent Raiden (including representatives Jason Green and Daniel Sexton), Colorado Springs Utilities, a June 11, 2026 administrative approval, the Waldo Canyon fire, and direct addresses to the "Planning Commission." It also includes a moderator's reference to three hours allotted for commentary in support of the appeal and public speakers being given two minutes each.
Readers should treat that content as belonging to a separate proceeding, not to the Historic Preservation Board meeting of August 3, 2026.

Meeting Transcript

I want to talk about the impacts. I heard a few speakers ago talk about water. So I'm a national leader on the Status Center conversation, and we don't know a lot about what's being disclosed about what's going in the water. So in a race to use less water in uh the West and the Southwest, we're now turning to chemicals. You heard about PFAS and Forever Chemicals, hydrofluorocarbons that actually put the hole in the ozone or ethylene glycol. And guess what? These chemicals are made in industrial areas in Houston and other places that also have people living on the fence line. So it's a supply chain of suffering that gets pushed down in our race to use less water. And without knowing exactly what's going to be in these chemicals, an absent state policy, which I worked on to disclose this transparency, you're repeating the mistakes of the past, like with fracking. Do you know if your wastewater utility can remove these and to what efficacy and what that cost will be? Because you simply must go down the road to fountain where they had to spend millions and get grants in order to clean up the PFAFs that is coming from military waste that is a legacy waste. And so we're here today in support of our members in Colorado Springs and to be a resource for you all. And I'll close by saying when I heard a state uh uh an employee say there are people yes and no, tell us exactly how many, because I used to work for the Denver City Council Man Board, and we would say those facts, not just say there's some yes and some no. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next we have Dr. Tracy Musgrove, followed by Leah Pateka. If there's an usher in the audience that can assist with the microphone, does that work? Thank you. It's not made for short people. I am loud enough to go without the microphone. That'll work. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners and fellow residents. My name is Dr. Tracy Musgrove. My uh doctorate is in environmental toxicology. And I'm sorry, I'm still heartbroken by what the other woman said about the generations. Um I'm speaking today because I'm deeply concerned about the uh severe air quality risk that this data center will likely inflict on our community. I lived in Lubbock, Texas for two years, and within two years, never having had asthma, I developed asthma because of the high particulate matter in the atmospheres. So, um, while the developer promotes this project as a clean zero water facility, um this is not a minor footprint, and it is not innocuous. It is still a hundred excuse me, a hundred megawatt industrial instinction requiring 72 chillers and 60 emergency backup generators. By trading water for an enormous continuous electricity draw, they are forcing Colorado Springs utilities to burn more fossil fuels, shifting a massive particulate burden onto our regional air basin. Even with modern tier four engines, routine testing of up to the 60 industrial generators will highly inject will inject highly concentrated spikes of toxic soot directly into the Garden of the Gause residential corridor. This infrastructure will hit our families with three district three distinct sizes of particulate matter. The first is the PM10, which is the coarse desk. And for the size you think about as human hair. Okay, about five to seven of these PM tins will fit on the width of a human hair. Um from the retrofit construction in the diesel ass, which aggressively inflame the eyes, nose, and throat, in addition to the upper respiratory tract. Secondly, the PM 2.5s, which would fit 20 to 30 um on the same width of hair. Uh they are 30 times thinner, basically, than a human hair. And this from is is from diesel exhaust. They pass, they bypass our own respiratory defense and go straight into deep into the lungs, triggering acute asthma attacks, bronchitis, and long-term cardiovascular disease. Ma'am, thank you. Your two minutes are up. I know it goes incredibly fast. Thank you so much. Next we have Layla Bateta, ticket number 35, followed by Matt Styes, ticket 36. Hi, my name's Leela, and I am a concerned teacher and resident. I implore the planning commission to listen to the words of not just me, but your concerned residents.

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