Public Comments

Dear Commissioners, Thank you for all of your hard work updating maps with the latest Census data! I really appreciate seeing that our neighbors in towns like Longmont and Erie were kept together, even across county lines. My request is related to where CU students live. As a partner of a CU graduate student who lives near CU east campus, I would like to see the CU student community kept together. I feel we share particular interests around affordable housing, educational opportunities, and a variety of other issues that are more common amongst younger people. I recognize there are a lot of factors that play into how Boulder was split up. I feel the current line drawn down Broadway and US36 disproportionately impacts community members connected to CU, in particular young adults living in the dense apartment area surrounding campus. With the current map proposal, CU student housing is cut into two house districts (HD 10 and HD 13). Most notably, The Hill neighborhood (precincts 875 and 876), where many students live and a hub for Greek life, is separated from the CU campus. In addition, there are a number of student houses to the south along Moorhead avenue. There are also plans for CU south campus to develop into a residential area for students. In the current map, that area has been cut off from the main CU campus. While not developed yet, it is expected to develop while these maps are still in place. Areas that I would consider to have a large presence of CU students includes: from the CU main campus west to 9th street, north to Valmont, east to 55th, and south to Broadway/Lashley. Please consider redrawing the area to encompass a slightly larger circle around CU Boulder that includes more off-campus student housing areas. Thank you for your time and consideration, Shelby Bates

The Western Slope’s vital relationship with water alone is enough to designate it as a community of interest bound by the shared responsibility of stewardship. However, the Western Slope also has commonalities regarding how the region uses water. The Western Slope’s agricultural, industrial, and recreation economies rely on well-informed local representatives to protect the community’s water at the state and federal levels. To split the Western Slope in any way would compromise the unity required to properly represent water interests in the region. There is also a clear divide between the Western Slope and front range communities, clearly designating western Colorado as a community with unique federal interests. Though many of our communities do not have the tax base of their front range counterparts, they still must provide the essential services of government: safe roads and bridges, law enforcement, public schools, and critical infrastructure with minimal resources. These challenges are not experienced by front range communities where virtually no federally owned lands exist. While federal lands are preserved for the benefit of all Americans, the day-to-day responsibilities of preservation fall upon those who live closest to those lands. These lands are managed for multiple uses – from livestock grazing to energy extraction to outdoor recreation. Over generations, communities on the Western Slope have worked with federal agencies to develop and demonstrate best practices for multi-use lands for the country and these uses are limited to county border. The Western Slope must be maintained as a result. Colorado has more than 24.4 million acres of forestland and many of these forests include the headwaters of rivers that provide reliable, affordable water supplies which are foundational to the environment, economy, and quality of life in rural Colorado. In fact, rangeland and forest are the predominant land uses in the Colorado Basin (85%), with forested land present throughout many parts of the basin. A substantial portion of the basin is comprised of federally owned land, with livestock, grazing, recreation, and timber harvesting as the predominant uses on those lands. A Colorado Statewide Forest Resource Assessment identified 642 watersheds susceptible to damaging wildfire, and 371 forested watersheds with high to very high risk from post-fire erosion, many of these watersheds, encompassing about 9.4 million acres of spruce-fir, aspen and pine forests that contain critical infrastructure for municipal drinking water supplies., ALL of these forests reside west of the continental divide. The San Luis Valley has unique agriculture interests and should not be divided. This region should be kept whole and united with other communities of interest. All of these above needs are best accomplished through the map released with the preliminary plan in June. I ask the Commission to adopt a map that closely resembles that initial plan.

We do not have anything in common with the I-25 Corridor or Boulder. Colorado is a lot more than the I-25 corridor. This Violates the most fundamental principle of congressional redistricting: that communities of interest have representation in our Congress. Give those areas on the Front Range their Congressional voices, and give a voice to the Western Slope by keeping all of the Western Slope in CD3.

If you redistrict and divide the counties into anything other than the Preliminary Congressional map, you will be excluding the voices of rural communities. We need to have a voice in Congress, both state and national. If you do this, rural Colorado will never be heard again and you will be telling us that you don’t care about the voice of those who produce and grow your food. Our community of interest (eastern Colorado farmers and ranchers) is already underrepresented. Please don’t do this.

My vote should count and we shouldn't be put with a county that will 75% of the vote will be driven by that county! Do not put Fremont County with Jefferson County! This is so wrong!

Remain in CD-3. I have been a resident of Eagle for 15 years. I can assure you that the residents of Eagle have very little in common with the residents of CD-2, specifically Boulder and the I-25 corridor. Please maintain the integrity of CD-3 and keep Eagle in CD-3.

Dear Redistricting Commissioners, I want to express my general support for the Colorado House Districts First Draft Plan as it was reported in the Steamboat Pilot on 9/13: https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/draft-of-colorado-house-district-map-splits-steamboat-from-rest-of-routt-county/ As a small business owner in a resort community, we are struggling with issues that effect our ability to hire and retain employees like affordable housing, lack of childcare, and a need for improvements to our regional transit system. These challenges are shared broadly with other resort communities grouped into our proposed district and it makes sense that we have a voice in the state legislature who can represent our concerns at the state level. Thank you for your hard work and the thoughtful process and engagement. Jon Quinn President - Northwest Data Services, Inc.

The latest congressional redistricting map has the city and county of Broomfield split in two and paired with areas that do not share our socio economic goals and needs. Broomfield is a city and county of 70,000 - not a bedroom suburb! - that has transportation health, water, oil and gas, and economic needs that are not similar to Weld or Jefferson or Adams counties or any of the cities there. Historically and socio economically, Broomfield County has always been strongly aligned with Boulder County, or CD2. Our families, schools and the very cohesive fabric of our society are one unique identity county and city, not two. Splitting our community in half will be a detriment to the needs of the residents. We shop, eat, and trade in Boulder, not Weld and Adams. If the proposed map is adopted, 1/2 our residents would be in a district separate from their library, community center, courts, schools, shops, parks and police and fire, transportation hubs, shopping areas! Sadly, your map would place all the elements that make Broomfield a city on one side of the district, and leave the other side in a mostly empty/commercial/industrial area. We think will divide our community. And also, placing the west side in CD7, connecting it to Jefferson County, will leave that vibrant area leapfrogged into Jefferson county where there is no historical or socio economic connection. Only a small handful of Broomfield residents have ever lived in Jeffco and there are no similarities with that county and Broomfield. Please leave Broomfield in tact and aligned with Boulder County.

Really like the legislative map!! I am from South Routt and I appreciate being aligned with other communities with similar interests. For the congressional map would like to see Boulder out of the district with Routt and especially south routt! Much of rural routt county have agricultural backgrounds, have worked in the coal mine or at one time was involved with the logging in our rural forests. I’m a ranch wife, and a 4th generation South Routt Native.

Broomfield is a very small county. It should be kept together. It does not make sense to divide the county, so that a very small portion of the population is in District 8. Broomfield residents have nothing in common with the other cities and counties drawn in District 8.