Civic Group Holds Sterling Session, Seeks 2030 Agenda for Local Democracy
On November 11, 2025, Courageous Colorado held a listening and engagement session in Sterling aimed at strengthening local democracy and building cross partisan collaboration. The meeting asked residents how to make local government more representative and how to scale community ideas into a statewide 2030 civic agenda, a process that raises specific questions for smaller, rural communities.
Courageous Colorado, also reported as Courageous Colorado Action, hosted a community engagement session in Sterling on November 11, 2025. The event was led by Dr. Landon Mascareñaz, the organization executive director, and formed part of a broader series of listening tours and local sessions the group is conducting across the state. Organizers described the work as an effort to translate local conversations into a 2030 civic agenda that would outline statewide priorities and a framework for civic reform.
The Sterling session focused on two central questions. First, how to make local government more representative of the diverse voices within communities. Second, how to inspire broader civic reform across Colorado so that ideas generated in towns like Sterling can influence statewide policy and institutional practices. Residents were invited to share perspectives on barriers to participation, representation gaps on boards and councils, and ways to build cross partisan collaboration in routine civic life.
The initiative matters for Logan County because it aims to convert grassroots feedback into concrete policy proposals and institutional strategies. A 2030 civic agenda could influence priorities for election administration, public engagement practices, and municipal governance models. For example, a statewide set of recommendations could lead counties and towns to reexamine outreach to underrepresented voters, invest in civic education, or pilot new meeting formats and voting access measures. Those kinds of changes would have direct implications for how local officials interact with constituents and how residents access the levers of local power.
Organizers and attendees engaged on practical challenges that are especially acute in rural communities. Sterling and other small towns face limited staff capacity, tighter budgets, and geographic barriers that complicate outreach and election administration. Local participants raised questions about whether proposals developed with larger municipalities in mind will translate effectively to places with fewer resources and smaller populations. The issue highlights a core tension for statewide civic reforms, namely how to balance uniform standards with local flexibility to accommodate varied institutional capacities.
The listening tour approach emphasizes civic engagement as an ongoing process rather than a one time consultation. Courageous Colorado plans to synthesize feedback from sessions like the one in Sterling into its 2030 agenda, and to advance a set of statewide priorities under its leadership structure. For residents and local officials, the critical next steps will be monitoring how community input is reflected in concrete policy proposals and assessing whether recommended reforms are feasible given Logan County institutional constraints.
Logan County residents who wish to follow the process should watch for public releases from Courageous Colorado and engage with local officials about how potential statewide reforms would apply here. The Sterling session underscored demand for inclusive conversation, even as it raised practical questions about implementation in smaller communities.
