Driving into town on Monday for a bill-signing ceremony, Gov. Bill Ritter passed a sign that says, “Why Does Ritter Hate El Paso Cty?”

That’s the message. The sign along Interstate 25, near the exit to the empty industrial plants of Garden of the Gods Road, gives no phone number or Web site, no clue as to who might have put it up, or why.

But it might not be too far off to speculate that the signmaker thinks the Democratic governor has given short shrift to the heavily Republican Pikes Peak region.

Ritter mentioned wind- and solar-power manufacturing jobs that his office helped bring to other Front Range towns: Pueblo, Longmont and Thornton. It has not gone unnoticed here that Colorado Springs is not on the list.

Asked about the sign, the governor sprang to his defense.

“I’ll put my attention that I’ve paid to El Paso County against any governor in my lifetime,” Ritter said. “Every part of the state matters and counts. And it doesn’t matter to me what the vote is.”

“There’s going to be an announcement by the City Council,” Ritter said, “that Hewlett-Packard is going to build a data center here in Colorado Springs. It’s going to be 400 construction jobs. This is not any easy feat, right? We worked with Colorado Springs, your economic development council, to see that that happened.”

“We’ve worked to keep the United States Olympic Training Center here,” he continued.

Finally, Ritter said: “So what I would say to the person who put up the billboard is, ‘Take it down.'”

In this film publicity image released by Paramount Pictures, Zachary Quinto stars as Spock in a scene from, “Star Trek.” Photo by (AP Photo/Paramount Pictures)

AP