NoCoPolitics.com

"The Colorado Model"

Required reading if you follow Colorado politics.  (And I'm going to assume that if you're reading this blog, you follow Colorado politics.)

Fred Barnes' "The Colorado Model" is the cover of the Weekly Standard.

The Democratic surge in Colorado reflects the national trend, but it involves a great deal more. There's something unique going on in Colorado that, if copied in other states, has the potential to produce sweeping Democratic gains nationwide. That something is the "Colorado Model," and it's certain to be a major topic of discussion when Democrats convene in Denver in the last week of August for their national convention.

While the Colorado Model isn't a secret, it hasn't drawn that much national attention either.  Democrats, for now anyway, seem wary of touting it. One reason for their reticence is that it depends partly on wealthy liberals' spending tons of money not only on "independent expenditures" to attack Republican office-seekers but also to create a vast infrastructure of liberal organizations that produces an anti-Republican, anti-conservative echo chamber in politics and the media.

Here's Jon Caldera's take (he's quoted extensively in the article).

John Andrews on the story:

What he sees won't cheer up my fellow Republicans, but it's a picture we need to face unblinkingly.

Well, At Least Someone's Working on Transportation

... and it's the Republicans.

Statehouse Republicans have been working on two plans to create transportation funding which, if combined, could yield as much as $5 billion over the next 10 years. This week they made their pitch to Colorado’s Blue Ribbon Transportation Panel in hopes of gaining more support.

At Tuesday’s meeting — part of an ongoing series of conferences that will continue well into the fall — a trio of Republican lawmakers discussed two plans: petitioning a measure onto the November ballot and resurrecting a failed 2008 bill for the 2009 legislative session.

The ballot measure, Initiative 120, would reroute severance tax income into the transportation infrastructure. The GOP estimates that Initiative 120 could provide as much as $90 million in 2009 alone if it’s approved by voters this fall. Reps. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, and Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, are leading the campaign, known as Better Roads Now. They’re in the process of gathering petition signatures, and must collect 76,074 by the Aug. 4 deadline in order to qualify for the ballot.

A Few Books...

David May of the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce offers some summer reading recommendations:

Ever scratch your head over local government actions and wonder what they were thinking? "The Best-Laid Plans" by Randal O'Toole pokes massive holes in the tenants of so-called smart growth with its unintended consequences. A local example would be imposing unnecessary regulations on the construction of single-family homes that drive up costs, then wondering why there isn't enough affordable housing. The book is well-researched and will make you question many planning principles now in use.

Another book that does a take-down of common myths is "Economic Facts and Fallacies" by Thomas Sowell, who is one of the best thinkers alive today. For the non-economist, he's able to make the complex understandable in a nonpolitical, fact-based manner.

To broaden your understanding of climate change, here are a couple of good offerings: "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" by Bjorn Lomborg and "The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria" by Lawrence Solomon. These two books cut through the shrill we're-all-going-to-die-tomorrow emotionalism usually associated with this important topic. That's particularly helpful with so much questionable and very expensive public policy being advocated.

Trash Trucks

OH, by the way, City government wants to tell you what vendor you can use or not use when it comes to picking up your rubbish.  Rubbish, what's next, telling us what mail carrier we are allowed to use, UPS, FEDX, USPS?  I'm sure they are wearing on our roads.  Maybe the milk truck delivery services should be divided up into districts as well.  Let's decide which cement trucks are allowed in what parts of town...let's address all delivery type services.

Citywide Home Owners Association

Let's ask ourselves, do we really want further expansion of City government telling us when we need to paint our house, replace a board on our fence, repair a door screen, etc, etc.? 

The City's stick keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Colorado the Battleground State

Rasmussen's Colorado polling:

Obama, 43%
McCain, 41%

Norton's National Role

From the NCBR:

GREELEY - University of Northern Colorado President Kay Norton has been named by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities to serve on a national commission that will examine the role of public universities in a global economy.

Doctors for Vaad

In the Tribune:

The Colorado Medical Political Action Committee announced its support for Rep. Glen Vaad, R-Mead, in his re-election bid for State House District 48.

We're Number 2!

Have you heard?  We're number two this year in Money Magazine's rankings of best places to live.

Yes, yes, they did indeed mention the Bike Library and the open space - and I'm sure we'll be hearing more and more about this. 

But a look at the ranking process reveals a very different story. 

The biggest determinants?

Housing costs, income levels, job availability, crime, commute time, cost of living, school quality and health.  Yes, things like the Bike Library and our cultural offerings were factored in, but they were part of a much larger process.

Moreover, if you fail on the big financial factors, you never make it to the stage where they even begin to take things like the Bike Library into account.

First, you have to be between 50,000 and 150,000 people.

Second, you have to be roughly in the median of your state's income and ethnically diverse.

Third, you can't have a high crime rate, long commutes or high unemployment.

Fourth... well, here is where we see the first sighting of things that even begin to resemble the Bike Library.  If you've got low crime, short commutes, decent median income and low unemployment, THEN they begin to look at factors such as "job growth, income increases, cost of living, housing affordability, school quality, arts and leisure options, safety, medical care, diversity and several ease-of-living criteria."

And even then that "arts and leisure" portion is one of more than 10 other factors that they take into account... after you make it through the first three rounds.

So how do you make Money Magainze's list? 

Start with strong economic fundamentals, low crime and good schools.  All of the Bike Libraries in the world don't get you far if you don't make the list to begin with.

(Cross posted at Fort Collins Now.)

I'd Better Get My Fence Fixed

It's being held up by materials that are not "of comparable size and color" in the back-right corner, and there's a missing slat where the neighbor's dog likes to poke his nose through.

The Boucher Household = In violation of the City of Fort Collins' proposed "property rules."

This is an easy town to write a column about.  There's no end to the nanny-state, we-know-better-than-you attitude coming from our City Council.