Growing pains.

• Author: Lewis, David
• Position: Interview with David E. Bailey of the Denver Chamber of Commerce - Interview

Denver's chamber chair takes on an issue politicians like to avoid

David E. Bailey, president and chief operating officer of Norwest Bank Colorado, is also chairman of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. You don't get establishment credentials any more establishment than that. But Bailey has taken a step or two outside the mold.

The scene: the Denver chamber's annual luncheon. The occasion: his inaugural speech as chairman, following speeches by gubernatorial candidates Gail Schoettler and Bill Owens, senatorial candidate Dottie Lamm, and a sub for Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell. The context: the candidates' speeches, which uniformly failed to address Colorado's No. 1 issue, growth.

Then Bailey stepped into the breach and out of the chamber of commerce stereotype, exhorting the Denver-area business elite to get serious about growth policy. So ColoradoBiz was curious: Why did Bailey feel the need to address the issue, when Colorado's political leadership did not?

DB: One of my disappointments during the campaign was the fact that nobody addressed the transportation issue, because transportation is one of the biggest problems created by growth. Nobody really wanted to take a position.

Subsequent to the election, I'm encouraged by some of the appointments (Gov. Bill Owens) has made - namely Tom Norton as head of CDOT (the Colorado Department of Transportation). If there's anybody that can grapple with this kind of a problem, it's Tom Norton. Transportation, education and growth issues are on everybody's mind. At least we're making progress now.

Cbiz: What is the chamber trying to do?

DB: We continue to struggle. My point was, No. 1, to alert people that this (economic) bubble is not going to last forever. It can't last forever, especially when some economists are now saying we're not going to have business cycles anymore - so I know we must be pretty close to the next business cycle. But most importantly, I just wanted to get people to start talking about the issue.

We worked with Gov. (Roy) Romer on quality growth kinds of issues. You know, he'd go around the state asking, 'How do we do smart growth?'

My concern is what happens if we don't. It's not necessarily creating policy, but a matter of acting like people who have to live in this environment. If we don't care, then what happens is you get a no-growth knee-jerk reaction, and people turning off water taps or something like that.

We've seen this happen before. I remember the recession of...