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<br />Supreme Court may decree whatever steps are necessary to achieve compliance. There is no prohibition against my <br />imposing management standards upon Colorado should Colorado fail to do so through its own processes." <br /> <br />This ruling lDlderscores the importance of our working together as Coloradans to do what is best for the Basin. That <br />continues to be the goal of the state. I mow that is a goal of the water users in the Arkansas Basin. I look forward to <br />continued progress and a good working relationship in the year to come, <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />I think we also made a lot of progress in the area of growth. As you know, we've been working very hard over the last <br />year with the Governor's Smart Growth initiative on two parallel processes. One was a process of regional coordination <br />and a visioning process to look at what is important to each of the diverse areas of Colorado and try and formulate a plan <br />for the future and a pathway to achieve that plan. The second parallel process was a working relationship that the <br />Governor established with representatives in each of the regions of the state through what we call the interregional <br />cOlDlcil. <br /> <br />In the lower Arkansas Basin, there were a number of priorities that were identified, including economic development, <br />providing quality health care services, emphasizing the important role of the three community colleges in Southeastern <br />Colorado, developing a firm direction on water supplies, dealing with the affordable housing issues in this area and <br />looking at the transportation needs including the prospects for rail line preservation in the important economic role the <br />rail line has to this basin. <br /> <br />In the upper Arkansas Basin, the priorities that were identified include a diversified economy, enhancing the <br />communication technology in the upper basin, maintaining a sustainable agricultural production, again looking at <br />transportation needs and the need to preserve the rail line and affordable housing and the relationship that the upper <br />Arkansas basin has to ski areas in Summit and Eagle counties. <br /> <br />Both the interregional council, the statewide council and the regional cOlDlcils provided a number of recommendations <br />including recommendations for legislation, executive branch, policy and local action. I'm going to talk a little bit about <br />the process that we hope to lDldertalce in conjlDlction with local areas in a minute, That's kind of, in a nutshell, what <br />we've been doing -- the major issues we've been dealing with over the past year. And, again, I think we've made a <br />tremendous amount of progress in those areas. What can we look forward to in the year ahead? <br /> <br />I want to talk about, again, four areas. FIrst, Smart Growth; second, the progress that I hope we can make in the next <br />year toward our goal of a new state park in southeastern Colorado; third, what we need to do to implement the state <br />engineer's rules in the basin; and fourth, some legislation that we are looking at to provide the tools necessary for us to <br />move forward in the water area. <br /> <br />In the area of Smart Growth, we will be pursuing all of the ideas that were recommended by the interregional colDlcil. <br />There were 70 some recommendations that came through that state-wide process and I'm going to talk about a couple of <br />those specifically. Again, they represent legislative action, executive branch action and local action. The Governor has <br />already issued an executive order directing all executive branch agencies to align their policies and processes to the <br />greatest extent possible with the regional visions. His goal throughout this process was a bottoms-up process where <br />state governments and local areas would be aligned together on the same page in the same directions toward the visions <br />that were established in these regional conferencing efforts, and he has backed that up through an executive order <br />directing state agencies to do that on the ground, Hopefully, that will result in some continued close communication and <br />cooperation between state agencies and local governments. <br /> <br />Th~ Governor, as you know, appointed a blue ribbon transportation committee and that committee has been looking at <br />the difficult transportation issues that we have in this state. <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />Another issue that has come up through the process was an initiative relating to the State Land Board, The State Land <br />Board is currently composed of three full-time, paid commissioners who are appointed for six-year terms. Those <br />commissioners manage 3 million surface acres ofland under a constitutional mandate established 120 years ago at a <br /> <br />Arkansas River Basin Water Forum <br /> <br />4 <br /> <br />"A River of Dreams and Realities" <br />