Civic leaders launch Colorado Project to produce blueprint for 'sustainable and inclusive' growth

Dozens of civic, political and private sector leaders from throughout Colorado met online Tuesday to kick off a months-long conversation designed to produce a long-term game plan for growth in a state that's used to shouting about the topic.

The organizers of the ambitious initiative, dubbed the Colorado Project, said they hope the endeavor will also demonstrate that advocates representing a range of competing interests can reach the kind of consensus that seems elusive in the current, polarizing climate.

Participants said the end result — expected by the end of the year or early next year — will lay out a "sustainable and inclusive" plan for growth, addressing key aspects, from water and energy needs to workforce and housing challenges.

Sponsored by the University of Denver's Korbel School of International Studies and its Scrivner Institute of Public Policy, organizers said they envision the program as an annual project involving the university's students to help sort out longstanding challenges confronting the state. Participants plan to meet regularly — in person, starting with a session this week in Buena Vista, and remotely.

"The idea of the Colorado Project is to provide a forum for the community and policy leaders from across the state with different sets of expertise and different backgrounds and different perspectives to help shape an economic future for Colorado that's inclusive of all, that's economically sustainable, and that really maintains what is great about this state," said Fritz Mayer, dean of the Korbel School, in welcoming remarks on the Zoom teleconference platform.

"At its heart, the initiative is both about building a stronger Colorado and about strengthening democracy."

Mayer added that he believes the project can not only produce "innovative and compelling policy ideas" but can also be a "model for how meaningful engagement among community and policy leaders can reduce the polarization that we see, can improve policy and really strengthen the spirit of democracy in the state."

One goal, said Scrivner Institute Director Naazneen Barma is to use the "nonpartisan convening power of the university ... to serve as a platform for these substantively hard and politically difficult discussions that need to happen if we're going to move the state and the country forward in the context of our democratic project."

It's a tall order, a series of speakers agreed, though they all expressed confidence that the more than three dozen assembled community leaders can make it happen.

"If I were going to put together a group of people in Colorado to solve whatever problems that afflict us, this is the group of people I would put together," said U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, whose wife, Susan Daggett, the executive director of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute, is among the group. Others on the panel include a bank president, a suburban mayor, a rural county commissioner, leading environmentalists, a power company executive and representatives of the state's farming and ranching industries.

Bennet lamented that too many Americans "are giving up" on what he termed the country's "potential of pluralistic democracy." The project, he suggested, could be an antidote.

"We're broken in many places," Bennet said. "I think there are a lot of reasons why Colorado can set the example, but I think you guys in particular can do it."

Bennet compared the project to the process that yielded a national immigration reform proposal more than a decade ago, when former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown, who also spoke at the event Tuesday, convened a similar group.

Brown cautioned against misunderstanding the connection between growth and the state's water resources, arguing that those concerned about rampant growth tend to focus on the wrong thing.

"We do indeed have a water problem, but it's not a water shortage, as many people think," Brown said. Noting that the vast bulk of water consumed in the state goes to agricultural use, not municipalities, Brown added: "We have more than enough water for more growth than any of us would ever want for the state of Colorado. But, tragically, people have in their concern over growth in Colorado have become opposed to water projects and water storage."

"The simple reality is this," Brown continued. "The victim of not building adequate water storage is our environment, not our growth. Growth will be there, whether we want it or not. What will be a challenge for us is the impact of growth on the environment. Without water storage, we have a chance of destroying much of the wonderful environment we have."

He urged the project's participants to "develop an education system or a system that helps Colorado understand our need for water storage," calling that outcome a "great favor" for the state.

Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet said she was excited at the prospect of getting to work on such thorny questions.

"I think it's really important to stress that this is a bipartisan effort," she said. "This is not a D or an R, it's not a red or a blue. I think it is a really wonderful opportunity to meaningfully engage with a diverse group of individuals to make our state stronger. It is a collaborative effort to ensure Colorado is strategically positioned to deliver an inclusive, sustainable future for the people and the businesses that are blessed to call this state home."

JB Holston, a consultant who specializes in sustainable and inclusive growth, said it's all connected.

"I think that the basic theory of the case here is that our future lives and livelihoods have to be sustainable and inclusive and growing," he said. "And while that may sound like pablum, I think it is very easy to not understand how interrelated all those things are.

"So I think the perspective that I come to this with, is that clearly we need to have a sustainable future from a climate perspective. Inclusion is fundamental to who America is, and we're still on that journey. But you can't deliver on those two without growth, and to a greater degree those conversations have been too siloed. So I think this is an opportunity to bring those together and in the classic, collaborative Colorado way — work together to figure out what we can do as a state to grow faster than our competitors by embracing these things, collectively."