Jefferson County

Thanks for having me.

And now we turn our conversation to Kami Welch, the CEO of the Jeffco Economic Development Corporation.

Cami's organization has not issued a counter report like Denver South did, but it's been carefully watching the national rankings and their impact on business recruitment here in Colorado.

And Kami, a member of the Colorado Chamber of Board of Directors, is very familiar with locally done assessments, including the Chamber commissioned report finding Colorado is the sixth most regulated state in America, and another from the same organization finding that 98 companies relocated or chose to expand elsewhere between 2019 and 25, taking with them 13,607 jobs.

We also need to start having some really hard conversations.

And so we're doing some comparative analysis right now to not just what's happening here in Colorado, but what's happening across the country so that we can understand where are we missing the mark so we can have those dialogues with our local elected officials and policy leaders about how can we do a better job of attracting great companies and then telling that story about what it means once we do.

When you dig into this kind of lastly here with both the headwinds and the tailwinds you've described, is there a particular industry or particular opportunity that you think not just Jeffco, but statewide economic development leaders need to lean into and take advantage of? Is there something that even with everything is pushing against Colorado is really right and appropriate for Colorado right now?

I am really excited about two industry sectors, and there's many, but I think the ones that I have a lot of energy behind them today are aerospace, I think is one that we absolutely need to double down on here in Colorado.

I'm going to get some books here.

A micro good news today and actually the four days from through Sunday and we started yesterday is this Jefferson County Library Foundation.

It's our annual whale of a book sale.

I'm going to read books to my cats.

My good news is today I'm working at the Jefferson County Library Whale Sale, and we just sent a customer through who bought probably 300 books, a wagon load full.

So we know it'll support the libraries, and I appreciate that.

What book would you read to your cat?

with all of the things that come with that, that's something that I really enjoy doing.

I'm a mom, I have two boys, and some of my previous experience, I've been, I was a treasurer on a school board in Jeffco for almost six years, and I've I love volunteering at my church and in our community and at our kids' school.

Okay.

These positions are very important.

Yeah.

So like I said, budgeting and finance is kind of my thing.

And What I've been finding as I've been diving into things within Jeffco, I've been looking at the budgets and things over since 2015.

And I believe we don't have a spending problem.

And that started by a geologist, retired geologist, piloting another retired geologist as a passenger.

They came up with this idea and went through Dinosaur Ridge and Jeffco roads and they made it happen.

So Dinosaur Ridge is an offering every week.

We go to Waterton Canyon every Thursday morning through October.

So yesterday, we talked about how he had resigned as general or as, uh, the election official.

And Pam Anderson, former JeffCo clerk, who was the Republican nominee for Secretary of State in twenty twenty-two, she's replacing him.

And look, the mess happened.

You need somebody who can come in and at least do some cleanup and make sure things are in order as best you can, and I think they'll be able to do it.