Our Story

On August 28, 2025, Sierra Club’s Poudre Canyon Group (PCG), which worked to safeguard and monitor environmental issues affecting northern Colorado for 30 years, was abruptly dissolved by an unelected body of the Colorado State Sierra Club.

As a result of this dissolution, some of the core members of the former PCG have decided to form a new group, with no Sierra Club affiliation, to carry on the mission of protecting Larimer and Weld counties’ air, water, and open spaces, and addressing environmental concerns. This website is our beginning, and we believe we owe an explanation to previous PCG members to explain what brought us to this point.

In the fall of 2024, the PCG held an annual election to fill four seats on its 7-member executive committee (ExCom). Two of those seats were held by incumbents. As is often the case with volunteer organizations, new candidates did not readily come forth. However, last fall, four unknown young candidates with impressive environmental resumes put their names forward. None of the core members or existing ExCom knew the new candidates, and none of the candidates had ever attended a PCG meeting or event. The four new candidates, however, were elected, ousting the two incumbents.

Before the first meeting of the new ExCom in January 2025, two core PCG members were alarmed by the election results. At the January meeting, the new members were asked if they were members of the local Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) group, which all present denied. 

Over the course of the next few months, it was discovered that YIMBY founder Chris Conway (Fort Collins District 1 City Council candidate) urged YIMBY members to run for the PCG ExCom so that they could guarantee endorsements for YIMBY-friendly candidates and policies, some of which ran counter to PCG's mission of protecting the environment. YIMBY members also were encouraged to join PCG to vote in the 2024 election; many did and they were provided with the names for whom to cast their vote. The core PCG obtained screenshots of these conversations between Chris Conway, Eric Jensen (one of the newly elected PCG ExCom members), and other YIMBY members. While not illegal, these actions were obviously coordinated, manipulative, and unethical. And the newly elected Eric Jensen lied for three or four months during ExCom meetings that he was not associated with YIMBY and did not manipulate the election. (See below for obtained screen shots that confirm these actions by YIMBY.)

In any Sierra election, members receive an email or regular mail notice of upcoming elections. That list of members is not available to anyone except through the state Sierra. Apparently, YIMBY did have access to those member rolls. In addition, several long-time PCG members did not receive any notice of the 2024 election, an anomaly that has never been adequately addressed.

Contention over these issues was present at the ExCom meetings from January through May 2025. When one of the four new ExCom members in early spring resigned and left Colorado, the YIMBY-backed candidates no longer held a majority on the ExCom. At that point, newly-elected Eric Jensen filed a complaint with the state Sierra. Shortly after, Chris Applegate, the director of the state Sierra, abruptly announced that the PCG would be dissolved. Mr. Applegate had not discussed such an action with PCG chair Dr. Cory Carroll, and did not honor Dr. Carroll’s request for a meeting. Mr. Applegate instead set up a state Sierra meeting in July to discuss dissolution.

At the May 2025 ExCom meeting, Mr. Jensen was asked specifically, three times, if he wanted to see PCG dissolved. He never answered the question, although in an October 2025 Coloradoan article, he claims dissolution was never his intention. (See link to Coloradoan article below).

Two days before the July state Sierra meeting, Mr. Applegate recused himself from the meeting, saying he was biased on this issue, even though he initiated the idea of dissolution and set up the meeting to meet his schedule. During that meeting, members of core PCG and members from other Colorado Sierra groups attended. Every comment was against dissolution, and several attendees pointed out that Mr. Applegate and the state steering committee had not followed appropriate Sierra Club procedures for such a move. The meeting was adjourned with no decision, and a new meeting on Zoom was set for August 28, 2025.

Evidently, the decision to dissolve PCG was made before the August meeting. That Zoom meeting itself lasted about five minutes. Dr. Carroll had joined the meeting about four minutes before it officially began without the knowledge of the state steering committee. In those four minutes, the members laughed and gleefully agreed that dissolution was a done deal. (Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_Ur-NvdWR4.)

Also, it appears that a Fort Collins City Council member (J. Pignataro) was directly involved in encouraging the dissolution of PCG, and was inappropriately invited and attended the state steering committee dissolution meeting. The PCG endorsed Pignataro for her first very narrowly-won city council campaign, but endorsed her opponent for her second campaign in 2024.

To shed some light on why Sierra Colorado made the decision to dissolve PCG, we go back three years to when Sierra Colorado was sanctioned by the national Sierra Club. A series of allegations of disrespect and intolerance arose between the elected volunteers who then ran the state organization, which included two members of PCG. As a result, national Sierra investigated the state organization with little input from the various chapters around the state, and decided to suspend the chapter for three years.

That suspension meant that the elected state steering committee members were dismissed, and that an unelected individual was named by national to set up another steering committee for the 3-year period. That individual is Chris Applegate, the person who directed the dissolution of PCG. He is unelected and holds a personal grudge against PCG, and he apparently convinced national Sierra that Colorado is not ready to be “unsanctioned,” even though the 3-year sanction is up December 2025. Normally by this time, Sierra Club members would have received a slate of candidates to elect a new state steering committee. However, that opportunity to vote now appears unlikely. The national Sierra Club also is going through turmoil. The New York Times covers the issues at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/us/politics/sierra-club-social-justice.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zU8.Uw-H.iCymAEFdR1yp&smid=url-share.

Below you will see screenshots of the YIMBY conversations. You also can listen to Dr. Carroll speaking to the Fort Collins City Council about the dissolution (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfpFbDlrSiI&t=2s) and to an interview with Dr. Carroll by Fort Collins Public Media ( https://www.fcpublicmedia.org/throughanotherlens/episode/1b11f144/dr-cory-carroll-disillusioned-by-pcg-dissolution). You can read the Coloradoan article about our story here.

We hope you will join us in making the Poudre Canyon Environmental Group (PCEG) as, or more, effective as the former PCG. To do this we ask that you purchase an annual membership for $20 that will help us pay for participation in local events, host member meetings with speakers, and cover costs to set up our website and other administrative costs. Currently we have two ways for you to buy a membership: through our Venmo account, @PoudreCanyonEG, or you can send a paper check. Until we get our bank account set up, please address the check to: Ted Manahan, 919 Fossil Creek Parkway, Fort Colling CO 80525.

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