The Business Issues Shaping Colorado’s Governor’s Race

When we last spoke, you acknowledged that Colorado has issues, particularly around the length of time it takes to get permits to open businesses that's hurt its economic competitiveness.

Since then, we've seen more examples of this from a drop to number 25 for the state and CNBC's rankings of business friendliness to a recent report saying we're in danger of losing our edge in the aerospace sector.

At this point, As you've been talking about this over and over, do you have a specific policy plan for how we address these issues and make Colorado a leader in business friendliness again?

And I've got a multi-part strategy.

And the first one gets to what you talked about on permitting.

We need to change the culture so that for the state and for local governments, the goal is how do we help you get started as quickly as possible? Too many people are being held up for too long, often for no good reasons.

I'll give you an example.

I was just with a business the other day.

They build the same type of store over and over again, often in the same jurisdiction over and over again.

After you do the first one, and it's been licensed, it's got its permit, and they're asking for another store, just like the first one, it shouldn't take six months.

But that's happening.

We've got to fix that.

Second, there's all sorts of regulatory requirements that have been adopted for lots of different well-meaning purposes, but we haven't taken the time to look at them and ask...

Do they make sense? Are they necessary? Or are they overly burdensome? I'm committed to going through that work, both as to any future potential requirements, but also looking back at existing requirements.

And third, I want to make sure that we set up the necessary mindset and focus so every business knows the state of Colorado is here to support you.

How can we help? That's the mantra that we're going to have.

Understanding people's pain points, understanding people's opportunities, going to bat to get businesses here, to help businesses build here.

And by the way, that's my background.

I founded Startup Colorado.

That was the same mantra we had.

The Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network.

Our secret sauce in Colorado, why I'm still optimistic, is we do want to help each other.

I'll bring that leadership as governor.

Well, that's a good point-by-point plan there.

Let's break down to some other pain points, as you mentioned here.