{"id":804283,"date":"2020-02-17T17:33:25","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T00:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=379150"},"modified":"2020-02-17T17:33:25","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T00:33:25","slug":"colorado-senate-hopeful-john-hickenlooper-talks-public-lands-at-frisco-roundtable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/colorado-senate-hopeful-john-hickenlooper-talks-public-lands-at-frisco-roundtable\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Senate hopeful John Hickenlooper talks public lands at Frisco roundtable"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper discusses his public lands policies during a roundtable Monday, Feb. 17, in Frisco.<\/strong>
Sawyer D\u2019Argonne \/ sdargonne@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

FRISCO \u2014 Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper stopped by Frisco on Monday morning to participate in a roundtable discussion with members of the public, hoping to touch base with area stakeholders and discuss the rollout of his agenda ahead of November\u2019s senate race.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper, who served as Colorado\u2019s governor from 2011-2019, has kept busy since leaving office, including diving into a now defunct presidential campaign \u2014 what he called a bucket-list item for himself  \u2014 before returning home to throw his hat into the ring of Democratic candidates hoping to take on incumbent Republican Cory Gardner in the 2020 Senate election.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Hickenlooper\u2019s team gathered alongside community leaders at the EVO3 Workspace on Main Street in Frisco \u2014 including former Breckenridge Mayor John Warner, Colorado Rep. Julie McCluskie and representatives of the Summit County Open Space Advisory Council, among others \u2014 to discuss wide-ranging topics in the realms of outdoor recreation, the protection of public lands and other key campaign policies announced last week.<\/p>\n

During the conversation, Hickenlooper gave some casual opening remarks before shifting into questions and suggestions from participants in attendance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been frustrated by Washington as a governor,\u201d Hickenlooper said. \u201cAgain and again, you get frustrated by things that are obvious and should be bipartisan. \u2026 What we announced last week is the framework \u2026 some of the basic things that Washington should be doing, such as not just celebrating our public lands but making sure we have more access to it. In a place like Summit County, that is clearly precious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper emphasized a few priorities from his \u201cCOnservation Agenda,\u201d<\/a> a plan to maintain the state and country\u2019s recreational amenities and natural resources, including continuing efforts to pass the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, expanding access to federal lands and establishing a National Recreation Office.<\/p>\n

The CORE Act seeks to protect about 400,000 acres of public land in Colorado along with establishing new wilderness areas and designating Camp Hale as a National Historic Landscape, among other goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole thing is so well thought out,\u201d Hickenlooper said. \u201cWhat\u2019s amazing is every single county commissioner in every county in which there\u2019s land that\u2019s going to be dedicated or reallocated \u2014 Republicans and Democrats \u2014 all support it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Former Gov. John Hickenlooper discusses his public lands policies during a roundtable Monday, Feb. 17, in Frisco. Local participants included former Breckenridge Mayor John Warner, Colorado Rep. Julie McCluskie and representatives of the Summit County Open Space Advisory Council, among others.<\/strong>
Sawyer D\u2019Argonne \/ sdargonne@summitdaily.com<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In regards to expanding access to federal lands, Hickenlooper pointed to the \u201cColorado the Beautiful\u201d initiative developed while he was governor, which created digital maps of the state\u2019s recreational trails for easy exploring. In addition to considering the development of a federal counterpart to that initiative, he also voiced a desire to dedicate 3% of the Land and Water Conservation Fund to be used each year to create more accessible public lands.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper also expressed plans to establish a National Recreation Office, which he said could serve as a catalyst in creating conservation policies and promoting further outdoor recreation opportunities on federal land.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we look at ways to expand and accelerate our embrace of outdoor recreation?\u201d Hickenlooper asked. \u201cPart of what I want to do in Washington is have a national office of outdoor recreation. We started one here in the state of Colorado. Now we have 15 (around the country). \u2026 Our goal is to have a nonpartisan lobbying organization for clear air, clean water and the conservation of public lands. \u2026 It could really accelerate and help empower outdoor recreation in every state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper then opened the conversation up to community members in attendance at the meeting, hoping to potentially take some of their suggestions back to Washington if he\u2019s elected later this year. Among popular topics were expanding outdoor recreation opportunities to more people and less trafficked areas, and helping to better fund land-management efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that is crucial is to refund the land management agencies in a way that recreation and conservation are on par with extraction and other uses,\u201d said Laura Rossetter, a member of the county\u2019s Open Space Advisory Council. \u201c\u2026 In this district, a lot of the recreation improvements are done by volunteers \u2026 and that\u2019s great, although I think the land management agencies have a lot to offer, and their knowledge we\u2019ll never have. So we need to have their engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to think progressively in terms of having a bus on the hour that goes to the different trailheads,\u201d added Pete Swenson, Frisco Nordic Center and Trails Manager. \u201c\u2026 What we can\u2019t neglect is it shouldn\u2019t just be the elites that can drive to these wonderful oases and trails. We need to connect Americans with the open space and with the trails. There\u2019s a great opportunity there where everybody wins when communities have more jobs and more access to the outdoors. But don\u2019t neglect getting people to the trailheads and to the outdoors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper will face off against other Democratic candidates during the state\u2019s primary June 30. The general election will be held Nov. 3.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper discusses his public lands policies during a roundtable Monday, Feb. 17, in Frisco.Sawyer D\u2019Argonne \/ sdargonne@summitdaily.com FRISCO \u2014 Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper stopped by Frisco on Monday morning to participate in a roundtable discussion with members of the public, hoping to touch base with area stakeholders and discuss the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-804283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-22 11:35:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}