Economic Growth & Opportunity

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SD4 Powers Colorado. Now Let's Power SD4.

Healthcare workers in Salida. Farmers and ranchers across Park County. Corrections officers in Fremont. Hotel and restaurant operators in Buena Vista. Miners at Climax. Aerospace suppliers feeding Lockheed. Public servants doing the work of government. These are the industries that anchor SD4 — and these are the industries that keep the entire state of Colorado running. The prosperity these workers generate keeps flying right over them. Colorado lost 11,700 jobs in 2025 — the first net decline since the pandemic. The hardest hit sectors were professional services, manufacturing, and retail. Exactly the industries anchoring Fremont and Douglas counties. The national...... Read The Rest

Families & Future

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A Community That Can't Support Its Families Can't Grow.

Eight rural Colorado counties have ten times more young children than licensed childcare slots. Fifty-four childcare centers closed between April 2024 and early 2025. More than 4,300 openings — gone. The CCCAP subsidy program is frozen in 21 counties, cutting nearly 19,000 children from the help their families need so parents can work. Meanwhile, state mandates have added tens of thousands of dollars to new home construction with no rural relief. A corrections officer commutes from Pueblo because Cañon City priced them out. A nurse turns down the job at St. Thomas More because there's nothing affordable to buy. A...... Read The Rest

Honoring Those Who Serve

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They Answered the Call. Colorado Should Answer Theirs.

SD4 carries an outsized share of Colorado's public safety burden. Fremont County alone hosts nine state correctional facilities, every one of them staffed by people who live here. The Florence Veterans Community Living Center cares for veterans, their spouses, and Gold Star families across this entire region. Rural law enforcement, fire, EMS, and 911 dispatch agencies train their people here — and watch them leave for Front Range pay. Officers working mandatory overtime at FCF because the state won't fund adequate baseline staffing. Volunteer fire districts trying to recruit while equipment ages out. Dispatchers handling Teller County's emergency calls in...... Read The Rest

Our Water, Our Land

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We Are the Headwaters. We Come as Partners, Not Sellers.

The water that sustains this entire state originates here. The Arkansas River starts in Lake County. The South Platte headwaters run through Park County. SD4 is not downstream — we are the headwaters. Front Range cities have been treating our water rights like commodities to purchase. We come to that table as partners, not sellers. Meanwhile, the families who built these communities through agriculture and ranching are being taxed off land they've worked for generations. Statewide rate reductions don't fix resort-inflated valuations in counties where second-home buyers reset the market. A long-time Salida rancher shouldn't pay property taxes based on...... Read The Rest

Public Lands & Federal Infrastructure

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SD4 Carries the Federal Load. Colorado Should Have Its Back.

Federal lands cover huge portions of SD4. Park County. Lake County. Chaffee, Custer, Fremont, Teller — the federal footprint here is among the highest in Colorado. Those acres can't be taxed by counties. But the roads still need maintenance. The fire response still has to happen. The infrastructure still has to function. The bill still comes due. Federal PILT payments — Payments In Lieu of Taxes — are supposed to compensate counties for that gap. They're written into law specifically because Congress recognized the unfairness of forcing counties to maintain federal land at local expense. But PILT is subject to...... Read The Rest