 Colorado Department of Local Affairs News
Greetings!
On behalf of the employees at DOLA, I wish you all the best as we move ahead through Spring. Lots of exciting developments are on the horizon. TBD Colorado is underway and we continue to make ourselves available as local communities embark on this grassroots effort. Within DOLA, we're beginning the process of updating our Strategic Plan and will be incorporating more input from employees and communities to make the Plan the most relevant and effective it can be. Executive Order 5 implementation continues and we as always, look forward to feedback from our partners to ensure communities have access to timely information about potential mandates. Another major development has been the Lower North Fork Fire. I want to take this opportunity to thank our staff in the Division of Emergency Management for all of their hard work to serve as liaisons and support to the communities impacted by this tragic disaster. Yet another example of how partnerships are vital in all that we do. Sincerely, Reeves Brown
Executive Director |
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TBD Colorado
TBD Colorado is an unprecedented effort to engage citizens across the state in a non-partisan conversation to find common-sense solutions to some of the biggest public policy challenges facing our state:
· Providing for a quality education system,
· Providing for accessible and affordable health care,
· Maintaining an effective transportation system,
· Sustaining a functional state budget, and
· Ensuring a quality state workforce.
TBD will be unique in several ways:
SIZE: By hosting meetings in over 30 communities throughout the state, TBD will be one of the largest and most inclusive civic engagement efforts in our state's history.
SCOPE: The whole purpose of the TBD dialogue is to make citizens aware of the major public policy challenges facing our state and, by putting each of these issues on the same table for discussion, require citizens to consider the relative importance of each issue and make the difficult value judgments necessary to help develop a comprehensive plan forward for Colorado's future.
STRUCTURE: The TBD conversation will take place through THREE conversations in each community during the months of April, May and June. The April meeting will establish the baseline facts of each issue so that we're all operating from the same set of data.
The May meeting will engage the participants in a discussion to define the nature of the problem, and possible strategies forward.
The June meeting will evaluate the relative appeal of different potential strategies.
In order to best ensure a constructive dialogue on these important issues, participation in the April and May conversations will be limited to a group of 35-50 selected citizens within each community who collectively represent the diversity of that community. Because of DOLA's unique relationships in the 20 rural TBD regions of the state, our eight DLG Regional Managers are playing a lead role in working with community leaders in each of those regions to help identify these lists of meeting participants.
TBD FAQs TBD Meeting Schedule TBD Map
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Main Street Program Helps to Revitalize Communities
 | Photo by Dean Howard
Sculpture in Downtown Fruita |
DOLA manages the Colorado Main Street® Program, which is funded by a grant from the State Historical Fund. The program provides technical assistance and services in the four areas of the Main Street Approach®(economic restructuring, design,
organization, and promotion) to competitively selected communities that are working in historically relevant business district settings and that meet certain threshold criteria. Main Street's Eight Guiding Principles provide a comprehensive approach to district and downtown revitalization.
Recently, the program and the City of Fruita were featured in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, highlighting the benefits of the program.
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Upcoming Events
Developer's Toolkit Workshop
April 30 & May 1, 2012
Developer's Toolkit Workshop DOH will be presenting the Developer's Toolkit on April 30 & May 1, at the Mile High United Way, Founder's Room, 2505 Eighteenth Street, Denver. Registrations are due on April 16th. This class often fills up quickly. So if you are planning to attend, register soon!
Registration form is on page 2 of the brochure. Contact Denise Selders (303-866-4650) or
Free energy code trainingSponsored by DOLA's Division of Housing and the Governor's Energy Office is being made available to provide comprehensive support to help jurisdictions successfully adopt and begin reaping the benefits of the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC).
More trainings are being added. In addition, additional trainings may be arranged through Colorado Code Consulting at 303.400.6564.
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Kudos Corner
We take pride in our work with you, our partners.
We'd like to share some of the positive things we hear from you to celebrate the good work we accomplish together (and to boast a little bit).
This week, the Lower North Fork Fire has been a sobering reminder of wildfire danger. A critical tool for the emergency management community is the ability to assess, from a geographical perspective, impacted areas and properties. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office has hosted a Google Map of the incident that has integrated sources of information from multiple levels of government. As of this writing, this map has received over 1.8 million direct hits and has been embedded into news sources such as The Denver Post, 9 News, Fox 31, and 7 News among others. Staff members from many agencies are working together to make this public resource available. Instrumental in this effort is Victoria Smith of DOLA's Division of Emergency Management. Victoria, a Mitigation Technical Specialist, has worked extensively to make this a game-changing tool that is ushering increased efficiency in the emergency management world.  | Victoria Smith
Division of Emergency Management
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