Colorado’s at it again.  Economic developers from across the state are on their second
annual Valentine’s love fest with California, well as it pertains to the businesses across
the Golden State.

Again, a specific group of California businesses, apparently 500 executives as identified
by Colorado officials will receive Valentine Day cards and chocolates specifically in Los
Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area in the effort to sweet talk them to move their
operations to Colorado.

In a quote to the San Francisco chronicle, Erin Bodine, Executive Director of the Metro
Denver Economic Development Corporation they have had some success with generating
inquiries through last year's campaign.   She identified Bay area companies setting up
shop in Denver and surrounding environs, although she could not validate their efforts
were the reason behind the site selection decisions.  They include Novato's SPG Solar,
which is opening an office in Denver later this year, and Foster City's Solar City, which set
up an operations facility in the region last year.

In the meantime, San Francisco-based Charles Schwab & Co. is locating 500 high-tech
jobs to Denver, along with Mountain View's Intuit Inc. which opened a call center in Englewood,
Colo., in August, prompted in part by the area's "deep talent pool" and its more attractive
operating costs compared to Silicon Valley, an Intuit spokesman said at the time. And
formerly from El Segundo, DaVita Inc., a kidney dialysis company moved its corporate
headquarters last year to a suburb of Denver, prompted by its "lower costs and desirability
as a place to live," the company's CEO told the Denver Post.

"We want California to recover, and quickly. But ... the Golden State has a state constitution that
is even goofier than ours. Its legislature has an even bigger Gordian Knot tied around its hands
than ours. Both states need to unravel those 'governance knots' if we can ever hope to be a nimble
and innovative player in the global marketplace."

                             A blog post from Metro Denver EDC's Tom Clark

Maybe Colorado would have greater success if they just showed up with money.