Governor visits Colorado Springs
An audience of more than 400 people welcomed Gov. John Hickenlooper for a lunchtime speech Wednesday at the Antlers Hilton Hotel downtown.
Hickenlooper, in the first month of his second term, summarized aspects of his recent State of the State address but tailored it to reflect its impact on the local area.
“The economy is better but still not good enough,” he said during the luncheon sponsoresd by the city’s Regional Business Alliance. “It’s good because business owners like you are taking risks. It’s just that you may not be seeing the success yet.”
The key to the area’s continued economic recovery, Hickenlooper said, is to become more diversified and promote its strong aerospace industry.
“Diversification is why places like Denver and Boulder weren’t as hard hit (economically) as Colorado Springs,” he said.
The governor said the city also must find a way to attract more young professionals to supplement an aging population.
“I have a plan to hire what (Mayor Steve Bach) calls free agents or independent contractors,” he said. “They’re 18 to 35 and they don’t want to work for a large company. They want to work on projects with different groups of people. No one’s really looking at what they need. They need office space, high-speed Internet and health care. We could subsidize that.”
Eliminating unnecessary regulations, providing more support to small businesses, and investing more in education were mentioned by Hickenlooper as methods to revitalize the local economy.
“We also need to get out of what I call a fiscal thicket,” he said. “(We need to) find a way to make the Tabor Amendment, the Gallagher Amendment and other financial legislation complement instead of contradict each other. It’s part of why we don’t have the money for much-needed infrastructure repairs.”
One example of the local economy’s improvement, the governor said, is that Colorado led the nation in reducing unemployment during the last quarter of 2014.
Hickenlooper said that while Colorado is struggling to recover from the 2007-08 recession, states like Utah are far ahead in many respects.
“Since (Utah) had the (2002 Winter) Olympics, they’ve really taken off,” he said.
Fort Carson is another point of emphasis for the governor. The Army is considering a possible reduction of up to 16,000 personnel there.
“It has the highest re-enlistment ratio in the country and it’s vital to our economy,” he said. “That should make it off-limits to reductions. But we’re not taking anything for granted.”
Hickenlooper said he’ll send some of his staff to monitor the “Keep Carson Strong” public support campaign when it meets with Army leaders next week.
“It’ll be all hands on deck,” he said. “We can’t afford another economic downturn.”
Finally, the governor said he’d like to promote Colorado Springs as a location known for more than just tourism and scenery.
“I want to create a North American Summit,” he said. “Bring governors from Canada, Mexico, the United States, bring them to a summit. And what better place to bring all these leaders and their staff, than Colorado Springs?”
Mike Jorgensen, a former Alliance chairman and businessman, largely agreed with the needs outlined by Hickenlooper.
“But I think what’s really needed is a collaborative effort by our state legislators,” he said. “Get away from the partisan bickering with a real emphasis on how we can move our state forward.”
