Ritter pledges to pay special attention to Western Slope

Western Slopers are still demanding appeasement for Bill Ritter's Front Range-centric cabinet appointments. (See Colorado Confidential and The Grand Junction Sentinel.) Nevermind that Ritter got to make "so few" appointments, according to Republican Rick Enstrom. And nevermind that a majority of applications came from in and around the metro area. And nevermind that the new cabinet has won bipartisan accolades.

Ritter has pledged to pay special attention to the concerns of the Western Slope. From the Sentinel:

Ritter, who said he was surprised at the lack of Western Slope candidates who made it through the candidate selection process, said he plans to work with his Cabinet to ensure the western half of the state does not fall off the map. "In the meantime, I will pay attention personally to the issues (the Western Slope) cares the most about..."

Since I crunched these numbers, I'm going to share them. Colorado is home to 4,301,261. A slight majority - 2,224,804 - live in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver and Jefferson Counties. Include Colorado's biggest Front Range counties - El Paso, Larimer, Pueblo and Weld - and you add another 1,090,831. Meaning 77% of the state lives in a handful of Front Range counties. Meanwhile, all of Colorado's western-most counties - Delta, Delores, Garfield, Jackson, La Plata, Mesa, Moffat, Montezuma, Montrose, Ouray, Rio Blanco, San Juan and San Miguel - combined have 368,086 residents, or 9% of our state's population.