The last bill of the legislative session has been signed, and it's all over but the shouting -- particularly in front-page stories over the governor's vetoes of union-friendly bills (and likely when the governor is on Mike Rosen's show at 9:15 a.m.). But Bill Ritter also managed to please at least one important group, as evidenced by a big advertiment in today's Denver Post sponsored by Amgen, the Colorado BioScience Association, Metro Denver, Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and Pharma. The ad touts how "Bill Ritter understands Colorado's Economy" -- specifically, that part of the economy focusing on biotech, the pharmaceutical industry and health-care.
And today, the Provider Fee Oversight and Advisory Board -- which is working with the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing to implement the Colorado Healthcare Affordability Act, signed into law on April 29 -- will hold its first meeting, to figure out how more than 100,000 uninsured Coloradans will get care through the $600 million raised from a new fee on hospitals (and matched by the feds).
That's government at the nitty-gritty level. Then there's the We the People Congress, which hits Colorado today, with a press conference at the State Capitol at 9 a.m. and then a meeting in the Colorado Springs City Auditorium at 6 p.m. tonight.
"Our current work focuses centrally on the long-forgotten First Amendment Right to Petition," the group avers. "The Congress is determined to resurrect the 'Capstone Right' of the Bill of Rights as an exercise of the People's natural Right to Sovereignty over their servent governments." There's more, of course; if you want to learn of the group's plans for a Continental Congress on November 9, 2009, go to www.wethepeoplecongress.org.
A more down-to-the-ground congress comes to town June 10-14. The seventeenth Congress for the New Urbanism will be meeting in Denver, the city where the group last met a dozen years -- and a dozen new urbanism projects -- ago. For the complete conference schedule, go to www.cnu.org/cnu17
Colorado Ski Country USA holds its annual industry meeting starting June 10 in Boulder, with plenty to discuss after this last difficult season. To learn more, go to www.coloradoskicountry.com. At 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. hosts its annual Investors and Awards Luncheon with keynote speaker Daniel Gross of Newsweek; www.metrodenver.org has the details.
And talk about new urbanism: With public housing coming down all over the city, at 10 a.m. on June 13, the Denver Housing Authority will host a Home Ownership Fair at the PPA Center, 2105 Decatur Street. For info, call 303-654-2526.
