Public Comments

Staff Plan 2 is the best that I have seen overall with the exception of Routt, Jackson and Grand Counties which have much more in common with the 3CD than with Ft. Collins. Perhaps Weld County should go into 2CD. Crowly, Otero and Las Animas would be better in CD4.

Broomfield is one community and should not be divided. Thank you

Dear Commissioners, My name is Heather DeVos and I have lived in Steamboat Springs, Routt County, for 46 years. I was appalled when I saw the first draft come out linking Steamboat with Boulder within a voting district and carving up our county into pieces! We have zero community interest with Boulder and 100% interest with all of Routt County and our fellow counties to the west, southwest and northwest bundled together by the Yampa river drainage, Colorado River and other upper river drainages in rural areas. Any voting districts (state house, state senate, US Congress, and US Senate) needing more than Routt and Moffat together should be bundled with western slope counties and other rural counties to the southwest (Yampa River drainage) primarily and south (Roaring Fork) and to our northeast/east like Jackson (north Platte) and Grand (Colorado River) as needed but never crossing the front range nor eastern slope. The I-70 corridor for smaller voting districts is a much different area than the U. S. 40 corridor but the biggest line of divide should always be west slope versus east slope or the front range mountains for the following reasons. #1 WATER- west slope water and water rights are in direct opposition to eastern slope’s and voting districts should never cross it. #2 ECONOMY/BUSINESS - our biggest businesses/industries are primarily recreation, still coal despite laws passed to kill this industry, and agriculture! Steamboat, Oak Creek, Yampa, Hayden, Craig, Walden, Meeker - these are communities whose populations are connected by jobs and the roads they must travel to get to them, not those over the continental divide or front range. Our businesses almost all are small businesses as coal is being phased out with the exception of ski areas. So if our voting district must be enlarged it should be to join us with the major destination ski resorts of Vail and Aspen ski areas and then the other large but smaller in size and skier days like Winter Park, Breckenridge, and Copper. The high tech, massive universities and other industries of the front range going north and south from Denver for 30-50 miles are communities of interest - those counties should remain as units and joined as needed and carved up as needed to make population proportions equal - and have nothing in common with us economically, socially or I’m values. They are communities of interest diametrically opposed to our west slope. #3 ROADS - We care primarily about U.S. 40, CO 9, CO 131, CO 13 not I-70 other than to keep it open and not direct the horrendous traffic that was rerouted through Steamboat this past summer because of Glenwood closure of it to the east. We certainly have little interest in I-25 and other front range corridors. #4 LIFESTYLE/VALUES- Our love of forests, mountains, rivers, open spaces rural way of life, and small towns unite us. Putting us in with a megapolises like Boulder is making us be like ants living with a giant gorilla. How will we ever prevail in preserving and protecting what we cherish? #5 INTERNET/PHONE SERVICE - Again zero community of interest with Boulder and Front range and 100% with all of west slope and east of the divide only if adding extreme south or extreme north counties of this state for voting districts. A good idea for this is keep west slope congressional district as it is adding another one to the eastern plains carefully keeping it separate from Denver and it’s suburbs as well. The argument that affordable housing should unite us with a Boulder is unsupportable. Affordable housing is a problem everywhere but these need to solved by like minded and like economy driven communities. The west slope congressional district has been perfect for decades and needs to be joined with rural small business counties with the smallest cities/communities as possible as another congressional district is added and certainly not a Boulder, nor any other suburb of Denver that would rule over us. The large ski areas of our current congressional district in our small towns have very similar constraints (topography, high mountain river valleys, etc.) and interests as far as affordable housing goes and are vastly different than any front range Denver area corridor with vast open spaces to the east. Thank you for considering my viewpoints, not supporting this 1st published draft and redrawing these districts in line with historical ones to protect our rural, small business, recreational driven way of life and values. Sincerely yours, Heather DeVos P. S. My husband Rick DeVos is in total agreement with these statements and should be added to this as a voice. He was a past V.P. of the Steamboat Ski and Resort Corporation and the Executive Director of the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, the largest ski and snowboard club in Colorado and probably the nation and the premier club with the USSA.

Stop rigging fair elections!

Broomfield is one community and should not be divided. Please do not divide our community. It is one fabulous community right now. Thank you

Please keep Broomfield in one district. I remember when we were multiple counties and it wasn't good. Broomfield is one city/county and it deserves to be heard as one community.

I’m submitting written comments that capture and expound upon my virtual testimony on Saturday August 18. My name is Liz Smith, and I’m a county commissioner and former lecturer at Western Colorado University (WCU). I’m testifying on behalf of citizens in our county because the most recent state senate and house maps seriously dilute our voice in issues related to some of the biggest economic drivers for our county, like higher education, tourism and recreation. The preliminary maps better represented these communities of interest by pairing us with counties like Chaffee, Lake, and Pitkin. In his testimony on August 18, Gunnison County Commissioner Mason pointed out some of the ways our ranching community differs from other agricultural communities we’ve been drawn in with to the west; e.g. our ranchers have one cutting of hay per season instead of 3-4 cuttings of alfalfa. I’d just add that as a headwaters community that’s home to the biggest reservoir in the state, our water goes downstream to the rest of the basin in drought years. We have significantly different challenges that should be considered when it comes to pairing us with other agricultural communities of interest. The current house district map splits our county to the east and the west, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. Currently, our county is in two house districts with HD61 covering the north and HD59 covering the south. This has actually worked out really well for us because we’ve had representation for Crested Butte Mountain Resort with other ski and recreation communities to the north while WCU is in the same district as Fort Lewis. If you divide us, I urge you to keep the north/south division we currently have. Higher education, especially in rural Colorado, will be facing a lot of challenges in the next decade. It looks as though other communities of interest will have a higher priority when it comes to rural higher education, and so pairing Gunnison County with Fort Lewis in La Plata County or Adams State University in Alamosa County seems unlikely. There is benefit, however, to keeping WCU connected to tourism and recreation-based economies in the high country based on our institution’s unique strengths. Our campus is home to High Country News, a thriving Environment and Sustainability major, a Master in Environmental Management program, and an Outdoor Industry MBA program in the School of Business. Our new School of Engineering and Computer Science (a partnership with CU-Boulder) is endeavoring to expand into outdoor equipment and gear testing with the potential to drive innovations in the materials and designs used in the outdoor recreation industry. Thus, in the event WCU is unable to be paired with one of its peer institutions like Adams State or Fort Lewis, connectivity to other tourism and recreation markets will be of great help to our institution. Our issues with housing are also significantly different from communities in the newest state senate and house district maps. I know most of Colorado is struggling with housing, but like other ski and tourism-based communities, we’re in a full blown crisis right now. We have a 0% vacancy rate. One of our affordable housing projects is about to open, and we have over 500 people on a waiting list for 76 units. Unlike Telluride in San Miguel County, we don’t have satellite workforce communities like Montrose. I have taught many homeless students at the university over the years, but we’re also going to start having serious issues with student retention if we don’t find solutions for our housing crisis. This vitality of the university is essential to Gunnison’s economy, and I worry we won’t get that representation in the current maps. I know some testimonies have focused on Gunnison County’s relationship to Montrose for shopping, medical services, and transportation connectivity. Gunnison County is hard to get to no matter where you’re headed in the state. Personally, I end up driving to the front range far more than Montrose for shopping and medical needs, and it’s significant that people who live on the front range are buying up properties in the city of Gunnison (not Crested Butte) for second homes and recreation refuge. It’s significant that our community is now seen as a satellite to the front-range workforce. Our community is changing rapidly, and with the increase in location-neutral workers, the issues we face in the coming decade are in much more alignment with tourism-based communities on the I-70 corridor than places like Montrose or even Telluride. With regard to medical services, Gunnison Valley Hospital (GVH), which is county owned, has significantly expanded medical services because our rural reliance on Montrose simply doesn’t work well for many of our residents. Within the past year, GVH opened its own services for mental health because our contract with the Center for Mental Health (based in Montrose) wasn’t able to serve the demand in our local area. Lastly, our citizens in Gunnison County care deeply about issues like climate change, environmental sustainability, and protections for public lands. I want to point out the most recent maps place us entirely in districts that seriously dilute our voice in these issues and the urgent challenges we face related to our tourism and higher education economies. Without revision, we may not have a single person representing these interests at the state legislature in the next decade. Please consider how to ensure we have a voice on these issues as revisions continue. Thank you.

My comment on redistricting would be for two (2) rural districts because us in rural colorado deserve a voice in our government as do the agricultural people.

I’m watching, be honest and fair.

Leave District #3 alone. We're happy with the boundaries as they now are. We're happy with our District #3 Congressional Representative and don't want a Boulderite representing us.