ANTONITO — Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter expressed his sympathy to the locked-out workers of the Harborlite Corp., telling a crowd of about 45 Conejos County residents filling Dos Hermanos Restaurant in Antonito Friday evening  that he worked as a pipe layer during his school years "right up until the time I became a lawyer."  He added that he came from a a family of 12 and all his brothers became involved in construction.

"They told me I had gotten involved on the wrong side of the law," he told the crowd, but emphasized they weren't serious.

Answering a number of questions about what could be done to help the Teamsters Union Local 455 members, he said that Colorado unemployment benefits were not available to those locked out, especially if the wages were paid for New Mexico-based work.  

Although there is a Harborlite shop near Antonito, the Perlite mines 20 miles away are in New Mexico.  The lockout must be legal to prevent benefits from being available.

A union member told Ritter, "We put a lot of effort into negotiating," and the governor asked when talks had ended and wanted a copy of the letter Harborlite sent the union declaring a lockout. Ritter also said that he would bring the matter to the attention of the Colorado Department of Labor to determine what the state could do. He reassured them, "We'll be back in contact."

While the labor issue occupied a good part of the time beginning the hour-long get-together, several other topics were raised, and Ritter brought out what the state government is trying to do to address those issues.  Social services, power transmission lines, transportation funds, and changed prison release dates were discussed, along with steps taken to balance a Colorado budget that faced a $1.8 billion deficit at one time.

Conejos County Commissioner John Sandoval told the governor he did not want to see local areas lose control of social services.  

While Ritter responded with sympathy, he emphasized that his main concern was with public safety, noting that 14 children in the state had been killed "while under the watchful eye" of social service agencies during the past year, including two recently.  He stressed the idea of regionalization of social services administration was under study and final decisions on what changes might be implemented have not yet taken place.

One sore point in Conejos County that was brought up to Ritter was the increase in licensing and trailer fees.  Here, the Governor answered both concerns.

First, he said a study showed 125 bridges in Colorado were regarded as unsafe, and "We're not going to have a bridge collapse such as the one that happened in Minnesota," so for public safety, hard choices such as increasing licensing fees were a necessity and one that was an alternate choice to just increasing gasoline taxes once again.

Regarding increases in trailer fees, he happily said that was going to be reversed. This response came after Conejos County Clerk Lawrence Gallegos pointed out that in agricultural regions, such increases really could hurt, when a farmer or rancher might have eight or 10 vehicles, not just one or two, as is often the case in urban areas.





For the complete article see the 10-14-2009 issue.