Projects
The Southwest Colorado Council of Governments has six main goals to guide our work: Ageing, Environment, Housing, Telecommunications, Transportation, and Tourism.
Ageing
The SWCCOG is working with organizations such as the Area Agency on Aging to learn about how the future will be shaped with an older population. We are also working on how communities and citizen needs change as the population ages.
Environment
Southwest Colorado has a rich and varied environment. Many of the counties have sizeable amounts of federal lands managed by many different agencies, including Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, State Parks, and National Park Service. In addition, the natural resources are a staple of the economies for the Southwest region.
Housing
Housing is a continuum incorporating everything from homelessness prevention to first time home ownership and everything in between. We work with exisiting housing providers in the region to develop a variety of strategies to work on many aspects of housing.
Telecommunications
In 2010, the SWCCOG was awarded three million dollars from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) to construct a regional telecommunications network for the five-county region. Participating governments provided twentyfive percent, or one million dollars in match. The Southwest Colorado Access Network (SCAN) created a state-of-the-art private telecommunications network supported by publicly owned or leased infrastructure to provide secure connections between community public offices, including government, education, law enforcement, search and rescue, and medical facilities. The project was completed 31 March 2014.
Transportation
A Regional Transit Coordinating Council (RCC) began meeting in September 2010 and is open to area transit service providers, human service providers, government entities, and other interested persons committed to regional transit services improvement in the region.
In March of 2014, the Southwest Transportation Planning Region (SWTPR), voted to move administration of the CDOT grant to the SWCCOG starting July 1, 2014.
Tourism
Tourism is one of the major economic drivers in the five county region. People travel from all over the world to visit and enjoy our unique history, culture, and environment.
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