In final flurry, Ritter signs tourism-incentives bill, vetoes another labor measure - Orlando Business Journal:

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Ahead of Friday’s deadline for action on Ritter signed12 bills, including Senate Bill 173, which will allowe local governments to work with the state Economiv Development Commission to use some sales-taxd money to attract and help to build tourist destinations. The bill, sponsored by former Sen. Jennifetr Veiga, D-Denver, is considered key to two pursuit of a NASCAR tracik in separate areas eastof Aurora. But Ritter also vetoed SenatweBill 180, which would have givenb local firefighters the ability to engage in collective bargaining.
Business groups praised the move as one that will give the state a more stablewbusiness atmosphere, but unions blasted the Democratixc governor for breaking a promise to look out for workingh Coloradans. Ritter said in a news conference that he had little doubt on whether he wouldf signthe tourism-tax bill but struggled over the collective-bargaining Ritter said he vetoed SB 180 because it woul have overturned the will of individualo communities that have outlawed collective bargaining by public-safetty workers and because local firefighters already can seek collectivse bargaining with their city governments.
“This was a wholesalew success for a session in terms of what it did forworkiny families,” Ritter, a son of a union memberr and a former union membet himself, said, referring to laws that increase unemploymenr benefits and get more people onto Medicaid. SB 173 ranke with a bill Ritter signed earlier this year that giveds tax credits for job creation as two of hisstrongesr pro-business moves, said Travis Berry, lobbyist for the . Both measuresz give opportunities for private companies to work with the governmenty to bring about big projects that they mightf not be able toaccomplish otherwise, he said.
Meanwhile, the twin vetoe s of SB 180 and an earlierbill — House Bill which would have offered unemployment benefits to unionm workers locked out durinbg a work stoppage — send a signalo that the economic viability of the statse is a priority of the administration, Berry said. “I thin it sends a message to employerws that are either here thinking about growing or outsidwe looking to come into the state that they can find a predictable business climate instead of one thatmovese wildly,” Berry said.
But Colorado AFL-CIO Executiver Director Mike Cerbo said that Ritter had turned his back on worker who risk their lives and that his organization now will haveto “determinw how to proceed in its future relations with the Ritter SB 180 sponsoring Rep. Ed a Thornton Democrat whom some unio members have approached about runningb against Ritter ina primary, said he too was disappointeds in the governor’s action. Rittet also signed into law HouseBill 1366, which limitsd the Colorado-source capital gains subtraction to the first $100,00p of gains on assets held for five years or Though business groups had askex him to veto the Ritter said he ultimately felt that the $15.
8 millionm it would generate to help the recession-addlec state budget was a more important