Colorado Politics

Polis continues stimulus bill signing spree with stops on the Front Range, Eastern Plains

Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday continued his flurry of Colorado Recovery Plan bill signings with a whirlwind tour of the northern Front Range and Eastern Plains, where he put pen to paper on six bipartisan state stimulus measures.

The bill signings scheduled for Tuesday come on the back of Polis signing seven bills from the $800 million package over the course of four stops on Monday around the Denver metro area. Tuesday’s schedule was far heavier on transit, with stops in Longmont, Greeley and Fort Collins as well as a jaunt east for events in Fort Morgan and Sterling.

The governor kicked off the day in Longmont at Jack’s Solar Farm with a signing ceremony for Senate Bill 235. The legislation from Sens. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Longmont, and Kevin Priola, R-Henderson, and Reps. Tracey Bernett, D-Niwot, and Karen McCormick, D-Longmont, sends the Department of Agriculture $5 million for energy efficiency and soil health programs.

Polis then headed to Evans and Greeley for a pair of rapid-fire signings.

At the Evans Community Complex, the governor signed Senate Bill 204 from Sens. Kerry Donovan, D-Vail, and Bob Rankin, R-Carbondale, as well as Reps. Mary Young, D-Greeley, and Tonya Van Beber, R-Eaton. The bill puts $5 million toward a pair of rural economic development grant programs administered by the Department of Local Affairs.

Those include the Rural Economic Development Initiative, a program set up by legislation approved last session to create new jobs in rural communities, as well as the Rural Economic Advancement of Colorado Towns program. That program, created by 2018 legislation, put DOLA in charge of coordinating the state response to major economic upheavals such as plant closures or major layoffs in rural areas.

After a short trip northwest to The Arc of Weld County in Greeley, Polis signed into law House Bill 1166, the lone piece of legislation on Tuesday’s agenda that was not part of the state stimulus package. The bill from Young, Rep. Perry Will, R-New Castle, and Sen. Joann Ginal, D-Fort Collins, trains cross-system behavioral health crisis responders to help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The governor then headed east to Fort Morgan, then on to Sterling before rounding out the day in Fort Collins. On those stops, he signed Senate Bills:

  • 234, a measure from Jaquez Lewis, Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, and Reps. Lisa Cutter, D-Littleton, and Richard Holtorf, R-Akron, that creates and puts $3 million toward the Agriculture and Drought Resiliency Fund;
  • 229, from Sens. Jessie Danielson, D-Wheat Ridge, and Tammy Story, D-Conifer, as well as Rep. Judy Amabile, D-Boulder, and Minority Leader Hugh McKean, R-Loveland. The bill creates a grant program for businesses that open in a designated rural jump-start zone;
  • 240, legislation from Danielson, Sen. Cleave Simpson, R-Alamosa, and Reps. Cathy Kipp, D-Fort Collins, and Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, which puts $20 million into watershed restoration grants as well as a watershed analysis; and
  • 258, from Ginal, Rankin and Reps. Marc Snyder, D-Colorado Springs, and Meg Froelich, D-Greenwood Village, which expands the allowable use of wildfire mitigation funding and pumps more than $31 million over two years into wildfire risk mitigation efforts.

All four of those measures are part of the stimulus package, which brings the total number of bills from the package that have been signed into law to 16.

In this March 16, 2021, file photo Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks during a news conference in Denver. Polis and Colorado fire officials announced the 2021 wildfire season mitigation plan Thursday, April 8, 2021, following an unprecedented 2020 wildfire season with three of the largest fires in state history. 
(AP photo/David Zalubowski, file)
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