Kim wrote:

> So, if you are looking to get your business out of California, please
don't
> bring it any closer to Denver than say, Boulder ...
>
>Or perhaps, consider Utah.

Hey - how about the other side of Denver?  Kansas would more than welcome
any expansion.  We have one excellent airport in the state that is open to
commercial air traffic (that's in Wichita) and several smaller airports
conveniently served by high-cost, no-frills commuters partners of either
United or American.  We also have access to the Kansas City (Missouri),
Oklahoma City and Tulsa airports - all of which are served capably by a
number of quality airlines and Southwest!  Although, western Kansas is
actually closer to the DIA than anything else.

We have a very low population base (slightly fewer in the entire state than
in Denver).  We have a very low crime rate (hey, where there's no people,
there's no crime!).  We take a sizeable tax bite out of the individual, but
the corporate rates are excellent.  We have a moderate climate (hot in the
summer and cold in the winter, but most of the state gets very little snow).
You don't have to worry about traffic or pollution.  Despite media claims to
the contrary because of the ongoing discussion of whether to teach evolution
and/or intelligent design in our science curriculum, the schools rank very
well against most districts in the nation (generally scoring in the 70-75%
on most standardized tests).  We boast numerous quality universities
(besides the well know University of Kansas and K-State programs).

The really great part of it all is the extremely low cost of home ownership.
Starting with housing prices that are among the lowest in the country (a
two-story, 3 or 4 bedroom, 2000 sq. ft. house will run between $90K - $120K
in Wichita, slightly more in the KC area and considerably less in other
parts of the state).  The average electricity costs are below the national
average.  Most western Kansas towns supplement the supplies of Kansas Gas
and Electric by generating their own electricity during peak times.  The
side benefit of this is that towns like St. John get to issue a rebate to
their electricity users this winter (showing up on our January - March
bills - the average rebate will be 10% of our bill for those months!).  For
those with cramped office space, our state is awash in quality options for
telecommuting.  Although relatively few locations support DSL, most of the
towns in Kansas have local ISP that are more than willing to work with
companies or individuals who wish to achieve 105kbps throughput via
dual-modem configurations.  While most areas of the country are screaming of
high heating bills, our bills have gone up but have remained reasonable.
[Personally, our December bill went from $117 last year to $144 this year...
a 30% rise, but far less than the national average!]

We take our politics, like most of our religious life, on a conservative
scale.  The state has been overwhelmingly Republican since being founded in
the mid-1830's.  Remember Carry Nation?  Well, she was a native-Kansas...

Glenn Koster
Quintessential School Systems
Developers of QWEBS (www.qss.com)

Disclaimer:  All the comments in this post are the complete responsibility
of me personally and are not the views of QSS.