WCC meets with Bernie Buescher… King a No-show

WCC members met with Bernie Buescher (D-House Dist 55) on Saturday to discuss the 2008 legislative year.  Oil and Gas ruling making, public lands protection, and water issues were among the topics discussed.  It’s too bad that Rep. Steve King (R-54) and Sen. Josh Penry (R-7) weren’t there. Both were invited to the meeting more than 5 weeks in advance – and both said they’d be there.  Mr. Penry’s staff called two weeks later and canceled after a few letters to the editor from WCC members were published – letters that didn’t exactly thank him for his efforts to back the oil and gas industry’s position on the rule making process.  We thank Senator Penry for calling to let us know that he wouldn’t be able to meet with our members – Mr. King on the other hand, was a no-call, no-show.

My first job in high school was in the service industry. I worked at a restaurant as a short-order cook and dishwasher.  Whenever someone did a ‘no-call, no-show’ they were fired – no questions asked.  If you didn’t have the courtesy to pick up the phone to let your co-workers know that they’d have to pick up the slack that day due to your absence, you were gone.  Apparently Mr. King doesn’t feel the need to give a courtesy call?

 

WCC members headed to Washington

We’re GOING TO WASHINGTON!  WCC staff (me!) is gearing up to take 4-5 WCC members to our nation’s capitol to rub elbows with our elected leaders.  A dream assignment that I’ve been waiting three years to organize.  We’ll partner with our Washington-based coalition partners – Campaign for America’s Wilderness (CAW) – a top-notch, non-profit that supports local efforts to protect America’s public lands.  In fact, WCC sponsored a visit from Doug Scott, a wilderness expert from CAW, in February.  Doug visited four western Colorado communities to get us pumped-up about Wilderness!  Doug is a walking Wilderness encyclopedia -  He can spit out historical Wilderness information faster than Google.

CAW lobbyist will give WCC members a  ‘lobbying 101′ session on Monday morning then cut us loose on Capitol Hill to make our case for the red rock beauty of western Colorado – Dominguez Canyons!

This Dominguez legislation is one of the biggest victories for WCC in my four-and-a-half year tenure.  I’m proud to be part of it and I’d like to give a special shout out to all those west slopers that have sat through all the meetings, scoping sessions, congressional staffer visits, press conferences and conference calls.  Even I wasn’t sure that this campaign was going to find it’s way to Washington – In the end, persistence and love of our public lands has prevailed.

Congratulations!

 

A blog is born!

With a lot of support and encouragement from Dave Grossman and Mark Beckner of Grand Junction, Western Colorado Congress is launching some new internet-based communications — one of those being this weblog!  We hope to provide more current and engaging information to our community than has currently been available through our website.