The Rocky Mountain News
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Vote on growth bill stalls again
With one week to go before the session ends, Democrats vow discussion starts today

By Michele Ames
May 2, 2001

Demonstrations on the Capitol steps and the threat of a special session didn't stop Senate Democrats from stalling a pivotal vote on growth legislation Tuesday, for the second time this week.

The Democratic leadership promised the discussion will begin this morning -- one week before the end of the regular session and a week after Gov. Bill Owens said he will keep them working until a bill is passed.

"The governor can call 50 special sessions if he wants; we aren't going to pass something we're not proud of," said Sen. Ed Perlmutter, D-Jefferson County, the Senate sponsor of the growth bill. "We're not going to pass junk."

If Senators take up the bill today, the earliest it could move to the Republican-controlled House for reconsideration would be Thursday.

Early Tuesday, House Speaker Doug Dean, R-Colorado Springs, said the Senate would have to hand the bill over to the House today or he "would have to start making some noise."

But after a meeting with Sen. President Stan Matsunaka, D-Loveland, Dean said he could accept the bill by the end of the week, which still would leave House members time to weigh-in on the issue before the session ends May 9.

"As long as it looks like we're making substantial progress, I'll hold off," Dean said.

The decision not to debate the bill Tuesday came after Democrats, who have a one-vote majority in the Senate, met at noon to discuss where negotiations stood.

While the lawmakers were meeting, a group of environmentalists gathered on the Capitol steps to demand laws that put tough restrictions on growth.

Perlmutter said some key compromises have been reached but that drafting the legal language took longer than expected.

Perlmutter also laid out some of the major sticking points on which senators will be debating amendments:

· Most agree that all cities and counties shouldn't be treated the same. Some need growth management. Some need economic development because their growth is stagnant.

Senators have been hung up on how growth planning should be handled in areas such as Pitkin County, which has a smaller population but high-end development.

A formula that will require some cities and counties to do growth planning, while allowing others with lower populations to opt out could be one of the amendments debated today.

· Ideas about regional planning in the Denver area are expected to be tweaked. Currently, the bill requires that after a regional plan is developed, cities and counties must certify that any changes they make are still in keeping with the plan's goals.

· Also unresolved is what sort of development, if any, can happen outside so-called urban service areas. The areas are basically local government's projections about where they expect growth to happen over the next 20 years.

Senators are still hashing out a compromise on what sort of development can happen outside the 20-year boundaries. The goal is to maintain property values by not putting overly strict limits on growth in rural areas while still ensuring that some agriculture and open space will be preserved.

Last week, Republicans attacked the Senate Democrats for holding the closed-door meetings with developers, environmentalists and others rather than working out the bill's details in public.

In threatening the special session, Owens lambasted the Democratic leadership saying, "the public's business should be conducted in public."

But by Tuesday afternoon, Owens spokesman, Dick Wadhams seemed convinced that progress is being made.

"We believe that they will move the bill (today)," Wadhams said. "That should be plenty of time for the process to work."