Guest Column: Rob Dolan on the launch of our Alliance in Garfield County

Rob Dolan of Silt, CO has been a member of Western Colorado Alliance since 1980.

I took the opportunity to participate in a community engagement session last month hosted by Western Colorado Alliance of Garfield County, in Rifle. The event was well attended by residents who represented Garfield County’s diverse population.

I’m not a stranger to these types of gatherings. I’ve been fortunate to be part of Western Colorado Alliance (formerly Western Colorado Congress) since the ’80s, and I have witnessed firsthand the power of local communities to facilitate positive change through education, organized campaign development, and community participation.

This meeting wasn’t designed primarily to relay information but rather encouraged conversations, feedback, and input from the participants on systemic hurdles that present challenges to experiencing a successful and productive life in Western Colorado. Attendees engaged in discussions with the goal of prioritizing issues that would offer the greatest opportunity for making a measurable change to better the population of Garfield County.

It’s not a simple process and the work can be messy as reaching consensus is not often a linear journey. It involves not only speaking your mind but actively listening to the opinions of others. For the attendees, the issues were very personal; their presence was not necessary to participate in just an educational lesson in discourse but to reach a consensus with other attendees about how to prioritize and begin the process of making change from a grassroots level up. 

The power of people to facilitate change in their lives is one of our most fundamental rights in our democracy. By being an active part of the change process, we gain both confidence and skills to be successful in confronting what currently presents a challenge, but also by proactively being a part of creating a future.

Our future can’t only be accomplished from top-down mandates or legislated fixes created by our elected officials. It is our responsibility as Garfield County residents to identify, inform, organize, and act collectively to bring about change that benefits our residents. Western Colorado Alliance of Garfield County can assist us with the skills to accomplish what we identify as needing change, but it is up to each of our local residents to support and power that collective effort for the good of all.