Larimer County hosted its annual dinner in Fort Collins last night. It started with the Century Club where a room full of people chatted with Sen. Bob Bacon, former Sen. Peggy Reeves, Gov. Bill Ritter, U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, former state Rep. Angie Paccione and her successor state Rep. Randy Fischer. Various candidates for city council were there, as well as our friends from the Northern Colorado Labor Council.

It was a multi-faceted dinner. Governor Ritter gave a short speech before flying off to El Paso County for their dinner. Like in Pueblo the night before, he talked about the accomplishments of the governor and the legislature. He particularly discussed renewable energy and the package of legislation that was just passed by the state house and senate.

After Adam Bowen, the new chair of the Larimer County Democratic Party, made introductions of all the local and other officials in the room, Sen. Bob Bacon introduced one of the keynote speakers, Congressman Mark Udall. Rep. Udall made a moving speech about the need for Western leadership and what that meant. He stressed our independence and our understanding of the relationship to the land and the environment. Rep. Udall, most significantly, confirmed that he is a candidated for the U.S. Senate in 2008. While we all expected to hear this soon, he received a standing ovation.

Dani Newsum, who has become an annual attendee, like myself, of the Larimer dinner, presented the Volunteer of the Year Award to Steve Rose. She then presented an award to John Jones, former chair. His work with DonkeyNet has made a significant difference in voter turnout.

Finally, Randy Udall did an engaging slide show on energy independence. Tracing the use of energy from Cleopatra to the present, he showed how she used 60 slaves to generate 6 horsepower, and today we use 200 horsepower in our cars using fossil fuels. The challenge of energy is that we need to cut down on our use of fossil fuels and find alternatives.

Congratulations to Adam, Nancy Tellez and all of the other planners for an evening of fun and information. Pat Waak

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Counties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.