Public Comments

The September 15 redistricting proposal violates the the commission's charter by ignoring geography, economics and history by cleaving the city off as the largest part of Larimer County to be part of the Congressional District 4. A primary criterion for drawing district is to “Preserve whole communities of interest….” Loveland is culturally, socially and economically tied to the interests of Larimer County, Fort Collins, Longmont, and Boulder. Loveland’s burgeoning tech sector and long-time status as a tourist center connect it to its neighbors. Many Lovelanders work and learn at the large universities nearby, creating durable ties. Rural counties where ranching, agriculture and oil predominate don’t have the same interests at heart as Loveland. It seems the commission reacted to feedback from their September 3 proposal. Western Slope communities objected that they had little in common with the northern Front Range. That’s just as true about them to the Front Range as it is to Loveland and eastern and southeastern Colorado. Please try again and maintain the integrity of redistricting by matching Loveland with communities of similar interest in CD2 or CD8.

Thank you for genuinely listening to comment from the public. I live in Loveland, CO. I am strongly opposed to the current redistricting maps that are being reviewed, as Loveland has been combined with Weld County and other counties on the east portion of the state. Loveland’s community would not be well represented as part of that district and combined with those other cities, especially considering how differently the pandemic has been handled by the very different counties of Larimer and Weld. Please reconsider this change.

Hello, I live in Loveland, CO. Loveland is part of the Front Range, and has much in common with the other communities of the Front Range--traffic issues, employment issues, cooperating on rail and transit issues, and health care, among many other things. Loveland needs to be represented by a Congressional district whose elected representative will reflect Loveland's interests. Placing us in a district with the entire Eastern Plains does not represent Loveland well. Its Congressperson will concentrate on rural issues - as they should, for rural areas make up the bulk of the district. Fort Collins, Greeley, and even Berthoud, a more agricultural community than Loveland, are slated to be part of a district with a substantial Front Range constituency - why not Loveland? It feels like gerrymandering to me. Please consider adding Loveland to a district that will represent the needs of this growing community.

Fremont County is a rural/ranching/farming area and should be in a district that has those characteristics so their voices can be heard and not drowned out by large metropolitan areas.

I don’t think that western and southern CO should be combined. They should be separate

Your latest proposal removes Loveland from the rest of Larimer County. Will you PLEASE KEEP OUR ENTIRE COUNTY IN ONE DISTRICT! Your goal should include keeping communities together. Separating Loveland - or any other community - from the rest of their country is NOT what the Legislature or the citizens of Colorado want or intended. Thank you.

Please leave Eagle County in CD3.

To whom it may concern, I am writing to ask that you please not include Loveland, Colorado in with Weld County. Loveland is no longer rural and is very much an extension of Fort Collins to the north, which is where Loveland belongs when voting. Lumping Loveland with Windsor, Greeley and other places in Weld County is longer no valid and does not align with the modern flow of life and commerce in Loveland. Please stop including us with Weld County.

Sorry folks, Thank you for your time and efforts but I don’t care for your plan. Your plan waters down agriculture’s voice. Thank you.

On Aug. 17, 1962, President John F. Kennedy spoke to a capacity crowd at Pueblo’s Dutch Clark Stadium. “I don’t think there is any more valuable lesson for a President or Member of the House and Senate than to fly as we have flown today over some of the bleakest land in the United States and then to come to a river and see what grows next to it, and come to this city and come to this town and come to this platform and know how vitally important water is.” Kennedy had traveled to Pueblo to announce the Fryingpan-Arkansas project, an enormous trans mountain project to divert Western Slope water to the Arkansas River basin. In all, it required six storage dams, 17 diversion dams and structures, hundreds of miles of combined canals, conduits, tunnels and transmission lines, and two power plants, switchyards and substations. The project took 10 years for authorization, spark-plugged throughout by Colorado’s powerful 4thDistrict Congressman Wayne Aspenall (D-Palisade), and another 20 years to construct. “This is a national responsibility,” Kennedy said in 1962. “When Theodore Roosevelt became President after being Vice President, the leader of his state said, ‘my God, they have put that cowboy in the White House.’ Well, because he had been a cowboy in North Dakota, and had spent some of the most significant years of his life there, he became committed to the development of the resources of the West, and every citizen who lives in the West owes Theodore Roosevelt, that cowboy, a debt of obligation.” These words uttered by one of this country’s most-iconic leaders, delivered in a football stadium in the heart of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, are as prescient now as they were nearly 60 years ago. Consider the Colorado River Compact, a 1922 agreement among seven U.S. states within the Colorado River basin governing the allocation of the water rights among the parties to the compact. It serves to this day as a foundational document in water law. Or the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, the largest trans mountain diversion project in the state, which annually delivers some 213,000 acre-feet of water from the headwaters of the Colorado River to the South Platte River Basin. Then there’s Dillon Reservoir and the Harold Roberts Tunnel, which delivers Colorado River headwaters to the North Fork of the Platte River to serve a thirsty Denver metro area. The list goes on. The point is, past projects to divert and share water have been expensive, generational endeavors involving participation and coordination, arm-twisting and teeth gnashing, among all manner of federal, state and local officials. And the fights over Colorado’s headwaters will only gain in importance over the coming decades, as global climate change influences our weather and thirsty citizens clamor for their piece of a dwindling pie. In pondering the boundaries of a 3rd Congressional District that must by nature encompass nearly half of Colorado’s land area; water policy is the one, clear, universal “community of interest” that has historically impacted the entire area, continues to do so today, and will continue to do so well into the future. In this context, I urge the Commission to give its utmost consideration to Commissioner Simon Tafoya’s redistricting plan, illustrated in the “P.005.Tafoya” map submitted Sept. 13, 2021. Tafoya’s plan is the only one among the 120-or-so I have reviewed and continually reported on that puts this vital community of interest front and center in constructing the boundaries of the 3rd District. It seems like the kind of plan that would have brought the rousing support of a young president from Massachusetts, a powerful Congressman from Palisade, and “that cowboy from South Dakota.” It is a nod to our region's past and a powerful recognition of our inevitable future. Mark Craddock Walsenburg, CO. 81089 (submitted by email 9/16/21)