Public Comments

We thank you for listening to the North Fork Valley in keeping our watershed intact. We support the Second Staff House and Senate Maps for HD 58 and SD 5, which keep the North Fork of the Gunnison River Basin and most of the Gunnison River Basin intact. We encourage you to keep this watershed intact and these communities of interest together--Eastern Delta County, Gunnison County, Montrose, Ouray, Hinsdale and San Miguel in HD 58. As the North Fork Valley and Roaring Fork Valley share a local food economy, we support the SD5 configuration.

I have reviewed all three maps and, realizing that compromises must be made, I feel that these maps represent a significant improvement from the previous versions. It appears that the changes that have been made from the current districts are as minimal as can be made within the guidelines of your work. I think that is important. I am glad to see the third district remain mostly a western slope district. I think that is important. The state senate and house districts retain their rural flavor. Thank you for the work you have done.

Thank you for listening to rural Colorado. ! We appreciate you have us recognized on this flattest congressional map.

Correction to previous comment When listing the mapping plans as out 4th choice we made a typo and entered 2nd Staff Plan and that is not correct, our 4th choice is actually the 1st staff paln Sorry Thomas McKenna

Keep the district in 2, no redistricting is needed.

With all the maps being presented,however at this late date here are our choices: 1) Tafoya 007 (HeadwatersPlan) 2) Sheppard-Macklin (Shushter Plan) 3) Tafoya 5 4 2st Staff plan Thank you Thomas McKenna On behalf og the Concerned Citizens of True Southenh Colorado

On your website soliciting public comment on the Staff Plans you state that you “are especially interested in what Coloradans view as their communities of interest.” You then define communities of interest as “(A) Shared public policy concerns of urban, rural, agricultural, industrial, or trade areas; and (B) Shared public policy concerns such as education, employment, environment, public health, transportation, water needs and supplies, and issues of demonstrable regional significance.” Please reconsider the communities of interest you think Loveland shares with the rest of CD-4 to justify excluding Loveland from CD-2. Most of CD-4 is rural. Loveland is not. A substantial portion of CD-4 is devoted to agricultural. Loveland is not. A substantial portion of CD-4 is devoted to ranching. Loveland is not. A substantial portion of CD-4 is devoted to oil and gas production. Loveland is not. In fact, Loveland is concerned with mitigating the air pollution we suffer from the oil and gas production in CD-4. The economic drivers of CD-4 are not. Loveland lies along the northern Front Range. The rest of CD-4 does not. We are concerned with public and private transportation along the northern Front Range. CD-4 is not. We are concerned with water needs and the water supplied by the Poudre and Big Thompson rivers. CD-4 is not. We are concerned about the environment along the northern Front Range and up into Rocky Mountain National Park. CD-4 is not. We are concerned about numerous issues that are peculiar to our area because of its proximity to the foothills and mountains. CD-4 is not. These points were repeatedly brought to the Commission’s attention in public comments, comments that were summarily ignored despite your assurance that you were especially interested our views. Today’s issue of The Colorado Sun has an article that succinctly states the key reason behind the Commission’s action – “[CD-4] would include parts of Larimer County to meet population requirements, primarily the cities of Loveland and Wellington.” Population requirements do not constitute a community of interest. There are myriad ways to balance the population of the eight Congressional Districts and still accommodate the legitimate public policy concerns Loveland shares with Lafayette, Boulder, Longmont, Berthoud, Fort Collins and all the areas along the northern Front Range.

The newest map that has been proposed by the county commissioners is a much better representation of districts than the first. It gives those of us in rural counties a voice that we would not have had if we had been grouped in with larger cities. Please keep the newest version. It seems across the country small towns and counties are getting lost. This helps fix this problem. Small towns have different concerns than big cities.

We live in City of Loveland now represented by Joe Negeuse in CD2. It is a travesty to separate Larimer county into 3 different districts. We should be linked into CD2 as a whole as 1 community of very likeminded, substantial, common interest. Our County Commissioners and Congesmam are all Democratic to show you how changed Loveland and Larimer County have become. Please link the conservative community of interests in Weld with some other likeminded jurisdictions. This is going to create a need for many and definitely us to move out of Larimer County, Loveland if you do this. There is NO way City of Loveland has a community of interest with the anti VAX, anti mask, Greeley and Weld County. This should be unconstitutional to put an area into severe Red community of interest with COVID still running rampant. Think this over, folks. This is not fair and effective representation to stick us with people who don’t share our values. Keep Larimer County in CD2. Stick the nutcases into CD4.

Fellow Coloradans, I have followed your decisions closely to see the extent to which you repeated past proposals as opposed to offering redistricting solutions which addressed our current conditions. You seemed to be doing well until you offered today's state legislative map which came straight out of a 2011 Republican proposal to give the GOP an advantage if not an outright lock on a seat in the state legislature. That proposal, like your latest one, divided Fort Collins into districts stacked one on top of another The rationale for that arrangement was that the north district would represent "traditional" (and Hispanic) Fort Collins while the more southerly one would represent the theoretically more "forward looking" entrepreneurial, wealthy (and white) citizenry. This characterization of Fort Collins was the product of the thought that our city was segregated into two separate communities. Fort Collins was linguistically segregated at least into the 1960s with many stores in what is now Old Town sporting signs that said "English Trade Only". We do not need to revivify these sentiments in the 21st century. Much of the community work today is predicated on the idea that we are a successfully unified (or at least unifying) community. The traditional legislative division of Fort Collins along either side of a north/south axis is a reflection of that belief. I am surprised to see this proposal pop up from the commission again. I successfully spoke against it ten years ago at a hearing on the best way to organize our legislative districts. I ask that you restore the earlier (First Staff) maps. Thank you for all your hard work.