Public Comments

Please support Tafoya’s p.005 map, the Headwaters map. It meets the needs of those of us who live in southern Colorado. Water is life here, and this map will have one person representing us on this critical issue. The rivers of Colorado are stressed more than ever before. They are over appropriated. Blue Mesa is currently at 22% of normal. One representative from a district for which water is so important is essential to ensure that federal policy and federal aid will protect this critical resource. Coleman 4 does not address river basins and does not make this issue an important part of any one congressional district. Tafoya’s map is more competitive than what is proposed in Coleman 4. Coleman 4 defines the competitiveness of CD3 as +10. That is not competitive. If party A is +10, why campaign in areas of CD3 that lean party B? Coleman 4 is also not compact. The L is very long and very wide. It goes from border to border, north to south on the western slope, and east to west along the southern side. It was mentioned in a commission meeting that this district would need two offices, the representative would need to fly, and Zoom or something similar would need to be used for meetings. No other district in Coleman 4 needs to follow those recommendations, disadvantaging the citizens of Coleman’s CD3. Please be reminded that southern Colorado contains 13 of the 15 poorest counties in the state. It is economically disadvantaged and much of that comes from the lack of infrastructure. Southern Colorado lacks a four-lane highway running east to west, has limited broadband connectivity, and contains few municipal airports. Flying will be difficult because of lack of airports. They are either very few or no direct flights between cities. Private planes must be used along with private airports. Driving in CD 3 mandates driving through many other congressional districts to get quickly from one point to another. Craig to Durango to Lamar (driving corner to corner to corner) take 12+ hours, according to Google maps. That trip encompasses CD 3 only. If you need to go west to east or visa versa more quickly, those trips would include driving through an additional three to eight congressional districts to reach your destination. One of the three routes designed by Google maps would require driving through every single district. All routs include travel over many mountain passes and very difficult terrain. No other congressional district has this issue. Because of distances and a lack of infrastructure, a candidate or congressperson will have a difficult time meeting with constituents. What’s worse is that the constituents will have a more difficult time meeting with their congressperson. Time, costs, and lack of broadband make this extremely difficult for people living in southern Colorado. No other district in the Coleman 4 map deals with these inequities. Tafoya p.005 map, the Headwaters map, is the best option for southern Colorado. Please support it. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Our former contents of District 3, Eagle County, did an excellent job of bringing the West Slope together for common interests and decisions. Our interests could not be any different than Boulder if it was placed together on purpose. Our interests are based on water rights and usages for ranches, farms, vacations, and forest fire reduction. Our community is always working towards a combination of keeping open range areas while adding low to medium value houses for the new people moving here. We value all of the mountains and forests west of the Rockies. Rocky Mountain National Park itself has become an overused attempt at enjoying trails and wildlife which did not work. West of the Rockies is one geographical area which has been able to balance all of its usages. Please keep Eagle County as it was in District 3 and do not add us to Boulder,an area in which we have nothing in Common.

Eagle County belongs in the Western Slope Congressional District! The working men and women here have a lot more in common with the western part of Colorado than they do with the Boulder. So do we older people with limited retirement resources. And have you tried traveling from here over Vail Pass and through the tunnels and then around Denver just to get to Boulder?! Winter and now summer, it's ridiculous. Put the Front Range with the Front Range! Keep Eagle in the West! Don't play politics with us!

I am completely apposed to being redistricting as it is proposed. This is unfair representation for Fremont County.

Why does the Commission seem incapable of drawing a map that doesn’t include some part of the I-25 corridor in almost every CD? 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. 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. Residents of rural Colorado have unique interests and need representation in Congress whose constituency does not have divided priorities. Our voices deserve to be heard, undiluted by inclusion in a district with suburban and urban residents. Whether agriculture or energy production, public lands, water, natural resources, or cooperative businesses, most of our issues and needs in Congress differ from those of our Front Range urban and suburban friends and fellow Coloradans. We all care about education and transportation, but no rural county has (or will have) light rail, and no urban county will understand the needs of a small ranch operation. We deserve representation in Congress that isn’t forced to choose between our needs and the issues that matter to suburbia. The June preliminarily plan contains the best map for rural America and will ensure that our voice is heard through two distinct rural districts. Furthermore, if Teller, Park, Chaffee and Fremont counties are no longer going to be in the Fifth Congressional District, then then should be in the Third Congressional District with other communities of interest not lumped in with Jefferson County and other suburban counties with which they have nothing in common. Unfortunately, the first Staff Plan map released on September 3rd ignores the needs of rural America by removing rural counties in the current Third Congressional District that include Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt, Garfield, Jackson and Grand counties and lumping them in with Boulder and Larimer, two counties with which they have little to nothing in common. This drastic departure from the current Congressional Districts is a disservice to both the residents of the Second and Third Congressional Districts. CD3, as drawn in the preliminarily plan released in June, made great improvements that unified communities of interest and shared public policy concerns. Tourism, education, public health, education, transportation, water and other mutual issues of concern for our residents were well represented on that map. I was excited about the possibility of a district that ensured the people of the Third District were well represented and connected. Unfortunately, the first staff plan released September 3rd decimates the rural voice in northwest Colorado and disregards the critical communities of interest that make up the fabric of western Colorado. These recent changes to the map ensure that residents on the other side of the mountains and in Denver who share little in common with us are responsible for making decisions on behalf of rural Coloradans. Whether you are living in Craig, Durango, or Yuma - these changes to the map do not allow our voice to be heard or our interests to be fairly represented. The Rocky Mountains create a natural boundary between the eastern and western parts of the state. The Western Slope has unique infrastructure, outdoor recreation and tourism challenges that unify our counties and communities of interest. Our infrastructure is not mainly centered around growing populations as it is in the front range, but around the mountain passes, rivers, and lands that make up the Western Slope. The heavy snow and other similar weather patterns in the west also connect the similar kinds of needs for roads, which vary from the eastern and front range part of the state. The economy, with regard to tourism and outdoor recreation, of the western slope contains almost all of the ski areas and encompasses what people think of when they think of Colorado: hiking, mountain biking, hunting, camping, fishing, skiing and snowmobiling. It is because of these reasons that I support the preliminary plan for CD-03 released in June. Whether we are speaking regarding shared interests such as our energy grid on the Western Slope, or our values at home, rural Coloradans on the Western Slope cannot be fairly represented without the region being kept intact. Keep the West Slope whole. The preliminarily plan released on June 23rd is the fairest map that is consistent with the Congressional Constitutional language approved by voters. The Rocky Mountains provide the obvious divider between the western slope and front range communities. However, once Colorado’s water basins and federal lands are taken into consideration, the east-west configuration seems to be the only way to accurately represent Colorado’s population across the state. The Western Slope is responsible for the roughly 80% of water that leaves Colorado; this means that those of us who live in the Western Slope are responsible for maintaining the water basins. Water is often a major issue and it is important that we have one Congressman who is able to represent ALL of the water on the Western Slope. Additionally, federal lands comprise more than 55% of the land in western Colorado, which is in stark contrast to the front range. This necessitates the need for a single Congressman , and points to the reality that the daily responsibilities of upkeep for our federal lands are taken on by locals all across the Western Slope; we must be united to tackle these tasks. Please keep the Western Slope intact. As a long-term resident of western Colorado, I always wonder how redistricting will affect our part of the state. The map released with the June 23 preliminarily plan respected our way of life and the geographical areas connected to that. The Western Slope is united in many ways, the large amount of federal lands and tourism being some of the top ways. The front range communities steward different types of lands and engage in different kinds of economic activities than we do on the West Slope, both of which need accurate representation. The preliminary plan serves the West Slope best. I urge the Commission to adopt a map that mirrors than plan. The Western Slope is home to a majority of the state's forests and with the multitude of forest fires in the west slope over the last three decades, it is of utmost importance to keep the western portion of the state together so our representative can most effectively address this issue. Just over 55% of the western land in Colorado is federally-owned, so in order to get the management solutions we need for our forests on a federal level, we must keep the West Slope together. Two rural districts currently make up a large portion of the state, representing various issues, industries and communities that require specific representation. The eastern plains and San Luis Valley are the home to many people that work in agriculture. We need to make sure the agriculture industry maintains a strong voice for these communities of interest at the federal level. Meanwhile, the Western slope is home to significant energy, tourism and public land communities. Ensuring two rural districts that include all communities of interest, as drawn in the map for the June preliminarily plan, will ensure Colorado’s urban and rural communities are best served by all of our Representatives. The ski industry is one of the driving forces for tourism in Colorado and unites the western part of our state, as almost all ski resorts are west of the Continental Divide. It makes the most sense to keep all ski areas together in one district. Additionally, the mountainous area in the West that allows for such great skiing also creates unique challenges for infrastructure. While the front range can align infrastructure changes with growing populations, we in the West have to consider geography and weather in addition to population density. Keeping the Western Slope whole will put a Congressman in the best position to improve our infrastructure and best serve our ski communities. Colorado generates over 95-million-acre feet of water annually, and about 10-million-acre feet leave the state through its borders. Of the 10-million-acre feet that leave Colorado, 81%, or 8.1-million-acre feet, exit through the Western Slope. This means that the Western Slope is responsible for stewarding a large portion of Colorado’s water, which will be made far more difficult if the Western Slope is split up. Communities like Moffat, Rio Blanco and Garfield will be ignored by their Representative and not receive the attention they deserve, particularly when it comes to water, if they are lumped into the Second Congressional District and removed from the Third. Please keep the Western Slope whole so our water-related issues can best be addressed in Congress.

What is the purpose of redistricting Steamboat area into Grand County? Who benefits? This is strictly political and unnecessary. Steamboat Springs should remain in Routt County. I am against restructuring of any kind until we clean up the corruption and bias the state is experiencing. Steamboat is a community before a resort… don’t tell me redistricting isn’t about money, it is. I attended the community meeting. It was a set up by allowing liberal speaker who had held political positions speak. NO! NO to redistricting! Leave us alone!

Re: redistricting, The statutes of Colorado require fair representation and this map shows nothing of the sort. It's time to re-write the map and give us the fair and correct territories we are to have under law. Denver and other municipalities have no right to represent our views.

Regarding redistricting, our county is best served by being connected to communities to our west and south. Highway 24 is our main artery, we are south of Palmer Divide, much of our county is rural, we would not fit well with a big city. Our concerns would not be addressed. Please leave us where we are. Thank you.

I am a resident of teller county and writing to express my concerns with the P.004. Coleman redistricting map. Teller County is a Southern Colorado county that is also a mountainous rural county, we should not be grouped into the Denver Metro area, our priorities are much different. Our federal public land use, land use, mining and the extraction industries connects us more to the counties of the Western slope and Southern region. We share communities of interests with El Paso County for employment. Our county shares communities of interests with Fremont and El Paso Counties for commerce. Highway 24 connects us to multiple Western-slope counties with similar landscapes. Geographically, the Palmer Divide separates Teller County into the rural, mountainous Southern region. Our county's wildlife management shares communities of interests with the Western slopes and Southern mountainous regions. Overall, we need fair maps that preserve rural voices because we have different needs and challenges that the urban Denver communities do not share.

As a resident of Woodland Park I believe we would be better served staying connected to the southwest side of the state. Our interests in mining, fishing, mountain and rural communities plus our highway 24 connection to the Western slope, plus being south of the Palmer Divide are my reasons. We do not want to be connected to counties to the north. Thank you.