The natural resource based economy that dominated the Western Slope of Colorado for so many years is making a come back.

As Jason Blevins writes in the Sunday Denver Post, mining is coming back to a number of communities due to increasing demand and prices for precious minerals like molybdenum.

If the recent natural gas boom in Garfield County offers any crystal ball, more Western Slope communities are due increasing revenues, stressed infrastructure, a quick disappearance of affordable housing, and a shortage of workers.

The natural amenity and natural resource economy are colliding and the only thing they have in common is a reliance on nature.

Robert Pear writes in the NY Times about a new federal study that shows that there is a significant range in health care spending per capita among the 50 states.

Massachusetts led the way in per capita health spending at $6,700, while Utah was less than $4,000 per capita. As he writes,

The study, published on Monday in the Web edition of the journal Health Affairs, said that Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Alaska and Connecticut had the highest per capita spending on health care in 2004.

The lowest-spending states were Utah, Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico and Nevada. Per capita spending in Utah was 59 percent of that in Massachusetts. [ . . .]

Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, said, “The variations help explain why some states can achieve health care reform on their own, without a huge infusion of federal money, while others cannot.”

“In a low-spending state like New Mexico, you have less money in the health care system that can be recaptured and invested in coverage for the uninsured,” she said. “In a high-spending state like Massachusetts, the health care system has the resources to subsidize coverage of the uninsured.”

Read the full article . . .

The Colorado Senate endorsed Gov. Bill Ritter’s plan to overhaul the state’s oil and gas regulatory process.

The Senate approved House Bill 1341, which will expand and change the makeup of the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to include environmental, wildlife, public health and landowner representatives.

The bill will reduce from five to three the number of industry voices while expanding the commission to nine members.

The seven-member panel is dominated by oil and gas
representatives, which critics say amounts to the industry regulating
itself.

Read the full article . . .

Despite two and a half years of planning and support from both the City of Glenwood Springs (deferred payment of $800,000 in development fees and construction of a park on the property) and Garfield County ($1.5 million in cash), a proposed 120-unit lower-income apartment project at Glenwood Meadows is dead.

The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority turned down a request from the Aspen-based Dunrene Group for $8.9 million in tax credits.

Arny Porath, the project’s developer, is hoping to build the project on another property, but finding that property could be a challenge.

CHFA previously had awarded the project the tax credits, but developers couldn’t meet the deadline to use them. They reapplied once they had put together a package that included the city and county assistance, but CHFA worried about continuing increases in construction expenses for the project.

While the developers can reapply for the tax credits later this year, but Dunrene Group’s Robert MacGregor said he couldn’t afford to losing another construction season and the prospoect of even higher construction costs.

Macgregor said he expects he will look to partner with a developer of more traditional middle-class housing on his property. Such a project would have to comply with Glenwood Springs requirement to provide 15 percent affordable housing, or contribute an equivalent amount to an affordable housing fund.

Read Dennis Webb’s full article . . .

Eagle County residents are considering their second proposed home rule charter in six months. Voters rejected the last charter proposal in November 2006. The ballots are due back to the County Clerk’s Office by May 1.

The biggest changes proposed in the new charter would be the addition of two county commissioners, the re-districting of the county for elections, the ability for citizens to put their own proposed laws on election ballots and the removal of the county surveyors position.

Article Seven of the proposed charter calls for the ability of citizens of Eagle County to have the right to petition initiatives and referendums onto the election ballots. Citizens would be able to create or repeal laws through this process on everything except land use and budget issues. To start a citizen-led initiative in an election, 15 percent of the total number of registered voters in the county would have to sign a petition in order to introduce the question on to the ballot.

More info is available at www.homerulefacts.com

Saanich, BC wants residential builders to build “green” by cutting “red” tape. It is giving priority to applications for housing projects using energy-efficient components and provide those builders rebates of up to 30 per cent on building-permit fees.

Read the full article . . .

A decade ago, writing about the hellacious commute many put up with to get into Aspen, was almost a daily occurance. It looks likethe region is heading into another similar cycle of concern

As Charles Agar writes in the Aspen Times Weekly,

Perhaps the most obvious human cost of the upper valley’s stratospheric real estate market is the ever-longer commutes from affordable homes to higher-paying jobs in or near Aspen. Long commutes cost time and money; they pollute the environment and erode people’s sense of community. Most of the those who spend hours of each working day on Highway 82 have accepted the commute as a necessary trade-off, but it’s getting harder for upper valley employers to find the help they need . . .

More and more Aspen workers are commuting over the Grand Hogback, an area named for a ridge along Interstate 70 west of Glenwood Springs, to towns like New Castle, Silt and Rifle.

“Ridership is going through the roof,” said Dave Iverson, operations manager with Roaring Fork Transportation Authority. Statistics for city transport in Aspen and Glenwood have increased sharply, and the number of riders traveling the length of the valley and along the Hogback are rising steadily. In December 2006, nearly 23,000 riders made the round trip to Carbondale, and nearly 6,000 made the trip through the Hogback area, he said, a rise of 13 percent since 2005 . . .

Aspen faces a shrinking labor market, and even Aspen’s affordable housing program, which provides the option of lower-cost home ownership in Aspen, is not enough to entice many to the area. Many home-buyers choose the free market, even if it means moving to western Garfield County, over the 3 percent appreciation caps on employee-housing units in the upper Roaring Fork Valley.

Read the full article . . .

Garfield County joined the billionaires club in 2006 as the volume of all real estate sales in the county topped $1 billion for the first time last year. The $1.04 billion in total sales for 2006 was an increase of 22 percent over the 2005 mark and growth of 137 percent from 2003.

The oil and gas boom in western Garfield County is driving the real estate development boom in western Garfield County. An estimated $75 million of the $1 billion in commercial and residential sales in Garfield County occurred in Rifle last year.

Meanwhile, Pitkin County has remained above the $1 billion level in annual sales volume for each of the last four years. Sales volume topped $2 billion in 2005 and soared to $2.64 billion last year.

Read Scott Condon’s full article …

Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute has just released a report on transportation programs and policy reforms that can support environmental, social, and economic goals - a triple bottom line. As he comments in the introduction,

People often assume that environmental, social and economic goals conflict. For example, policies to reduce climate change emissions and programs to improve accessibility for disadvantaged people are often opposed on grounds that they are costly and harmful to the economy. But such conflicts can be avoided. Some strategies that support environmental and social objectives also benefit the economy.

This paper identifies more than a dozen such strategies, which we call Win-Win Transportation Solutions. These are cost-effective, technically feasible policy reforms and programs that help solve transport problems by improving transport options and correcting market distortions that result in economically excessive motor vehicle travel. These are considered “no regrets” strategies because they are justified even if the severity of environmental and social risks is uncertain.

Read the full report . . .

Governor Bill Ritter completed his cabinet appointments with the selection of Rifle native Russell George to head the Colorado Department of Transportation. George is a well respected former state legislator, speaker of the house, and Director of the Department of Natural Resources under Governor Bill Owens.

During his tenure as legislator, George sponsored the Rural Transportation Authority Act, which enabled local communities to create transportation districts to fund transit and road improvements. Communities in the Roaring Fork Valley had asked George to sponsor the legislation and were the first to use it to fund transit operations in the region.

The selection releaves some of the angst felt by Western Slope residents over Ritter’s the lack of Western Slope representatives to his cabinet. In selcting a Republican, Ritter also shows his willingness to work across political lines for the benefit of Colorado.

Read the article in the Denver Post . . .