Public Comments

I appreciate the Congressional Redistricting Commission's careful assembly of maps that follow the law and appropriate guidelines. There seems to be a desire to produce a balanced result that gives representation to political and ethnic groups throughout the state. The results are transparent from the provided documents and maps. My interest in the resulting maps is fair representation for the people of Colorado in the US Congress, that properly reflects the views of rural voters. Toward that end, an important perspective is the geography of each district. It seems that each district touches the center of the state allowing those in the front range to override rural voters. My greatest concerns are with District 2 and District 6. District 2 goes from the western Colorado border all the way into Boulder. I expect the interests of someone living in Craig to be very different from those of someone living in Boulder, yet with more people in the front range they could override the votes of those in western Colorado. District 6 has an odd "arm" that extends into district 4. The effect is to meld a small number of rural voters into the more densely populated cities of Aurora and Littleton and thereby dilute the votes of those rural voters who could be voting with their neighbors. Thank you for your consideration. Best Regards, Michael Roy

I do not want Lauren Bobert as our representative for grand county. Her values are not consistent with what our county needs.

I would strongly encourage the commissioners to select a map that includes Grand County in a congressional district with Communities that are based on a tourism economy. . Grand County has more in common with communities that are tourism based as opposed to agriculture and resource-based communities. Our concerns about the environment, equity, public health and housing are much more similar to residents in tourism based mountain communities. These concerns have been routinely rejected by congressional representatives from the western part of Colorado. We don’t believe that someone elected from the western part of Colorado would represent our interests. The plan released in June, which would have made Grand County part of a western slope District 3 would leave the views of my community unrepresented. I support the proposed Staff Plan 1 and the plan proposed by Commissioner Coleman. I prefer the later because it consolidates the recreation-based counties (Grand, Routt, Eagle, Summit, Pitkin, Lake) so that those communities of interests have stronger representation.

Dear Redistricting Commission: I have lived in Colorado for 25 years, and have strong relationships and connections across the whole state, particularly in the Front Range and in the Roaring Fork Valley, where I have served as a minister in these communities for the last 15 years. I have a strong familiarity with the diverse interests and cultures across our whole state. Since 2012, I have served as the minister of a congregation serving about 1200 people in Northern Colorado, with most of our members in the city of Fort Collins. I have been active as a community leader in Fort Collins, and my children have attended the Fort Collins (Poudre) school district. Even in my decade here, Fort Collins has been changing. It has been growing rapidly, especially as CSU has grown. It is no longer a primarily agricultural community as it once was. Fort Collins is a community more like Boulder (where I have also lived) or Longmont than it is like any of the areas to the east. It will only become more so in the coming decade. CSU is a major driver of our community, and it feeds the high tech industries, solar power installers, and digital industry researchers - none of these industries are in the east, or to the south. They are more aligned with the industries of Boulder County. Fort Collins also has an extensive tourism industry, with micro and micro-micro-breweries, amazing year round music festivals and mountain and in-town biking. The eastern plains may have tourists, but not likely with the same sort of interests of those who come to Fort Collins! It seems impossible to imagine a representative who could represent our city effectively while also representing the Eastern Plains! In Larimer County we are focused on issues like wildfire mitigation, watershed restoration, multi-modal connections, climate action, equity and diversity, and dealing with urban issues like homelessness, high population growth, ozone nonattainment, and air quality issues, etc. We have much more in common with counties like Boulder County. We are deeply connected to Estes and Rocky Mountain National Park (especially in our mutual investment in tourism), and my congregants often work in Loveland and live in Fort Collins - or vice versa. We have a number of people who do the same with Longmont. Especially after the fires of last year that came so close to our town, we are concerned with the effects of climate change and the threats of wildfires and flooding. Anyone who really knows Fort Collins must recognize it is very different from the Eastern plains. Since one of the goals of the Commission is to preserve whole communities of interest and whole political subdivisions, such as counties, cities, and towns, the current re-districting our City must be reconsidered. Moving our County seat into a different Congressional District than the rest of the County makes no sense, and will cause unnecessary confusion and additional layers of beauracracy. Fort Collins needs to stay with Larimer County, and we need to stay connected with the communities who share our interests. Please reconsider your plan, and preserve our voice in the legislative process. Sincerely, Rev. Gretchen Haley Senior Minister Foothills Unitarian Church Fort Collins, Colorado

I live in western Weld county and I am very concerned with latest congressional map of 9/3. Instead of minor changes to prior maps, this latest map is a drastic departure from prior maps, that a lot of time and effort were put into. The current map, is in direct conflict of the goal of insuring all people of Colorado, have a representative in congress, that will give them a voice. Lumping urban Fort Collins into the 4th district and Boulder into the 2nd, with rural northwestern Colorado and parts of Weld county, makes little sense. It dilutes the voice of rural Colorado by bisecting the western slope and the voice of urban Fort Collins, by lumping it into eastern Colorado. My issue goes beyond politics. The concerns of rural Colorado are entirely different from those of urban/suburban Colorado. My relatives immigrated from Europe to Colorado in the 1890s, and were farmers and ranchers. I remember going to school with a family who were farmers that immigrated from Japan. They spoke Japanese at home and my relatives spoke German. I would say we had way more in common than our suburban classmates. When we would have a late spring snowstorm, I remember other classmates cheering for a snow day, while we were concerned about losing crops or livestock. The other classmates had an entirely different set of problems to overcome. The argument that this new map makes competitive congressional districts, is not a good enough reason for implementing congressional districts that weaken the voice of both rural and urban Colorado. Please reconsider the changes that were made from prior maps, or at a minimum, the Northern half of the state. Regards, Jim Mechalke

We are not in favor of the First Staff Plan Map that has been presented most recently. This map prioritizes the interests of the Denver Metro area (other than Republican Douglas County) and targets the voices of rural Coloradans. The commission also chose to split up the Western Slope, despite the voices of the people who live there. We believe this new map dilutes the voice of those of us in rural areas—we would appreciate our voice being represented as in the Preliminary Congressional maps. We believe our voices and votes are most accurately reflected in the Preliminary Congressional maps released in June, and urge you, the commission, to adopt the Preliminary Congressional maps.

As a citizen of Fort Collins member of Northern Colorado's growing multi-city community, the recent Staff plan that combined the city of Fort Collins with Baca county seems very strange and likely unworkable to say the least. Northern Colorado has a mix of urban and rural cities and politics that should be conduscive to a self-contained competitive district but that still shares a common bond in the growth and development of our region. Playing around with a redistricting map online, I was able to create the following 8 districts which would have a mix of urban/rural areas in most districts, while still honoring the regional ties that create common communities. The 8 districts broadly are defined as: 1) A Western Slope "L district" covering the NW, W, and SW sliding out towards Pueblo 2) An Eastern Plains district encompassing their interests, and sliding into the I-25 corridor in places enough to "fill" the district. 3) A core urban district in Denver 4) A Northern Colorado District stretching from Jackson County to the Western parts of Weld county (including Greeley), and down to just above Boulder/metro Denver. 5) A Western suburbs district stretching from Boulder down around the western part of Denver 6) An Eastern suburbs district that goes from DIA down to the SE burbs 7) A Northern suburbs district centered on Broomfield between the east and west districts 8) A Colorado Springs district The attached .csv file develops 8 equal districts + or - 4000votes, and could certainly be tweaked further to account for other specific communities of interest. It illustrates broadly the type of map that I think could both broadly reflect the regional priorities and interests in Colorado, create competitive districts, and set up Colorado's legislative delegation to lead through the next decade. Thank you for your consideration.

To all, The commissioners have put interests of the urban Front Range first by diluting the voice of rural Colorado and completely changed the map from the first preliminary Congressional maps release in June that were the subject of 36 hearings across the state. This map prioritizes the interests of the Denver Metro (other than Republican Douglas County) and minimizes the interest and voices of rural Coloradans. The commission also chose to split up the Western Slope, despite the voices of the people who live there. Again, this is the Dems up to their dirty tricks. This is not a fair redistricting option.

In reviewing the proposed redistricting map of Colorado it is disappointing to see it as nothing but a power grab by others who have no interest supporting rural communities. Rural communities need an opportunity to be represented at every level of government. This does not happen in the proposed districts. The proposal would put rural northwest Colorado with communities of the front range, such as Boulder. It is unacceptable to combine these communities, which have no common values, interests, or economic drivers. If anything, the western slope of Colorado deserves to be one district so we can be represented fairly. I hope the end result of the districting allows for a fair representation of common interests within Colorado’s communities. Thanks. Kim Colflesh

The current map eliminates rural Colorado’s needs and voice. We must continue to have districts that represent the east and west of the state where rural interests deserve representation. On behalf of the minority of Colorado’s population that feeds, fuels and fulfills our state, I would like to see current districts three and four remain.