Dead people are so rude. They never call. They never write.
I know that’s an illogical reaction when learning of the death of somebody with whom you have had a relationship. But it’s a very human one. It’s hard to accept that you can never again discuss the things you had in common with the departed acquaintance.
I felt that way this week when learning of the death of Bryan Sullivant, a former legislator who played a pivotal role in reigniting the “smart growth” debate in Colorado in 1998. The brief stories about his death by drowning in Lake Dillon last weekend made no mention about his part in one of Colorado’s longest-standing political dialogues.
I began covering the growth issue shortly after I joined The Post in 1972. Our late, great city editor Bob Carrington told me to start covering the land-use debate. I showed my mastery of public policy issues by immediately replying: “What’s land use?”
“Land use” turned out to be an umbrella label covering a host of issues we now discuss under the rubric of growth. Carrington’s immediate concern was the carving up of much of the San Luis Valley into barren waterless lots peddled to suckers back East as overpriced “ranchettes.” Those and other stories in The Denver Post prompted several laws regulating subdivisions and developers, culminating in the landmark House Bill 1041 of 1974.
The growth debate in the ’70s featured the same basic tensions that still divide Coloradans. It pitted developers and business advocates against anti-growth environmentalists. But it also featured a division between citizens who wanted a strong statewide policy and those who wanted to keep such decisions at the local level. In 1974 and the sequel debate a quarter century later, local control won out. No matter how much those visionary planners in Boulder wanted to impose their views on Aurora, they settled for local control after realizing the trade-off would be that Aurorans would have a similar say in Boulder’s future.
HB 1041 basically handed cities and counties strong tools for planning and developing their territories and let it go at that. But however desirable local control may seem, it inevitably raises larger questions. Who serves as referee when two or more local jurisdictions fight each other? How do we handle problems such as transportation, air pollution, and other issues that don’t respect political boundaries?
The original draft of HB 1041 went well beyond local control to establish strong regional commissions to reconcile city vs. city or city vs. county conflicts. A strong state Land Use Commission had the authority to impose and enforce statewide guidelines as well. Those regional and state powers were largely stripped from the final version. But in 1997, then-state Sen. Pat Pascoe resurrected the notion of strong regional powers with her Responsible Growth Act to establish strong rules to regulate growth. Because she was a member of the then-minority party, Pascoe’s bill was easily killed. Then Sullivant, a Republican, revived the notion in 1998 and 1999. Despite valiant efforts, he likewise failed to win passage of the legislation because of the hostility of Senate President Ray Powers, R-Colorado Springs. But he kept public attention focused on the issue.
After Sullivant left the Senate in 2000, Democrats gained control and Pascoe was elevated to a key policy post. She continued the drive for a new “smart growth” policy. More deadlock ensued, but finally Gov. Bill Owens won passage of a growth package in a 2001 special session with the critical help of then-Senate President Stan Matsunaka and Sen. Ed Perlmutter, who is now running for Congress in the 7th District.
That special session passed the most meaningful package of growth legislation since the 1974 laws. One measure required cities and counties to mediate inter-jurisdictional disputes. If they can’t reach a compromise, a court will decide the matter based on rational land-use standards. A newly created state Office of Smart Growth is able to aid local officials in planning. The most important bill allowed counties and statutory cities (those without home-rule powers) to collect impact fees for such direct costs of new developments as roads and sewers.
The package didn’t include the mandatory regional plans sought by both Pascoe and Sullivant. But that failure means little in the Denver area since the 49 member governments of the Denver Regional Council of Governments already have drafted a regional plan and now are working successfully to carry out MetroVision 2030.
The passage of the crucial FasTracks regional rapid-transit project in 2004 is at least in part due to that vision of regional cooperation which Pascoe and Sullivant infused into our public arena.
Bryan Sullivant didn’t pass a lot of bills in his eight years in the legislature. But he cared deeply about Colorado and made a positive difference in our lives. That’s not a bad epitaph.
Bob Ewegen (bewegen@denverpost.com) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post. He has written on state and local government since 1963.
