Public Comments

I am opposed to the new redistricting proposal because: 1) A district such as the proposed District 2, which includes Northwest Colorado and Boulder, will silence the western slope's voice and that is unacceptable. 2) The western slope should be in one congressional district so that our communities have true representation.

The eastern plains counties and Larimer County including Fort Collins should not be in the same district. Fort Collins has a highly educated population due to Colorado State University and most of us have limited knowledge of rural life. We are liberal leaning and enjoy a shared vision of tolerance and exclusivity for our community and our politics. As a Front Range city Fort Collins needs are vastly different from our rural neighbors. In Fort Collins we are supporters of our government, masks, and worried about climate change. We earn a living based on jobs in the technology sector and do not think our future is in fossil fuels. Some of the counties on the proposal map are hundreds of miles away. We are located on the edge of the foothills and as a community we make the most of the mountains. We have much more in common with Loveland and Denver than our eastern neighbors. The new proposed boundaries will pit Fort Collins beliefs against our rural neighbors beliefs. Driving east from Fort Collins causes discomfort because of the strong beliefs that are evident from the signs they post to the flags they wave. We in Fort Collins pride ourselves on tolerance of others. This redistricting as it is drawn is not a good plan as it will pit Coloradoan against Coloradoan.

I have seen the latest map and support it 100%. The current map is way too expansive and seems to cover more than half of Colorado in one huge district. Breaking it in half and changing it the way this new map does will help with the changes and the growth Colorado is experiencing.

I live in Highlands Ranch. In the first staff plan my community is being split across two districts with the majority of the population being included in District 4 which stretches all the way to the Kansas border. I think it would be better if Highlands Ranch were represented in a single district. Douglas county is a diverse county with many different constituents and I agree that splitting it makes sense, however my community of Highlands Ranch has much more in common with our surrounding suburban neighbors than the rural communities on the plains. I think there are fundamentally different concerns around infrastructure, population growth, transportation, jobs and public spaces and ongoing development here than there are out to the east. I would ask the committee to consider including Highlands Ranch in District 6, and balancing the population by including eastern Adams county in District 4.

Thank you for your ongoing efforts to create a living map that meets so many basic as well as cultural variations, a massive task!! Answering the first three of the questions above, production agriculture is a primary interest to unite the eastern Plains counties where to survive producers need to be hard working, forward thinking, determined and conservative as often enough crops and/or grass production will test the will of the producer by not yielding enough to create a sufficient return on investment. This is often due to lack of moisture in a growing season or year yet the costs of production steadily increase. Your map of September 3 appears to meet the population requirement however when I view county assessed values from 2019 there are huge differences between rural/frontier counties and the urban population counties, some example: Larimer County-$6,848,143,417, El Paso County- $8,696,634,820, Elbert County- $420,241,820, Baca County- $98,928,946, Sedgwick County- $10,391,190, and Kiowa County- $40,033,550 this then translates into the dollars per mil that each county collects on property tax which is the largest tax income line for nearly all of the eastern Plains rural/frontier counties. A common issue across the state is the limited housing which is critically short in rural/frontier counties yet many front range urban counties are building houses steadily that will sell rapidly because the stick built house when completed has more value than the value of the materials used to construct the house, this is not the situation in most of the Plains rural/frontier counties. Thus few new stick build homes are constructed and the housing shortage continues to plague the Plains. Therefore, before finalizing your map for representation consider how frustrated the rural population is because we are rarely ever fully understood nor considered when plans of how to address and issue arise, the one size fits all approach is failing most of the State's voters. Problems in Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, Boulder, Grand Junction or Elizabeth seldom are issues the balance of the more rural/frontier counties struggle with and the issues of the rural/frontier are difficult for one not facing them to understand! An acceptable gravel county road in a far eastern county may suit those residents well while frustrating visitors because the visitor is not accustomed to the rural level of transportation needs which are often for wide, heavy, slow moving machinery more than for high speed automobile traffic.

I am not pleased at all with the proposed Colorado Congressional Redistricting map. I have lived on the western slope of Colorado for 25 years, and it is no secret that the western slope does not share the same values and political viewpoints of the I-25 corridor where the majority of the population of Colorado resides. This proposed map, specifically proposed District 2 will lump northwest Colorado in with Boulder, which will definitely silence the western slope’s voice. Boulder does not align politically with northwest Colorado, and their population greatly outnumbers us in northwest Colorado. How is that fair? It is not! This is unacceptable. We need representatives that actually represent the people of the district, the whole district, not just one concentrated densely populated area within the district. Additionally, I request that the western slope be in one (1) congressional district so that we have a voice and a fair shake on the west side of the state. The current proposed map appears to me to be nothing more than a political power grab to silence the conservative voices on the western slope. Thank you for your consideration, Christopher Colflesh

If this is to be a non-partisan commission, it is obvious that district 2 does not fit the mold. There could be no reason to throw Boulder in with northwest Colorado other than to gerrymander to benefit democrats. This the most egregious action one could imagine. What "community of interest" could you dream up that would connect these two?

How does carving out Fort Collins with eastern Colorado show sharing common interests? Maybe we should carve eastern Colorado into about 3 or 4 sections and pair them with front range congressional districts!! If Biden won Colorado by 13 percentage points, Colorado should have a small advantage to elect 5 to 6 congressmen! Not gerrymandering to carve out 4-4. This is outrageous!

I oppose the first staff drawn map due to a lack of rural representation. As presented, Moffat and Rio Blanco counties are included in the same district as Boulder and Larimer counties even though the latter counties are not representative of the needs of Moffat and Rio Blanco counties. I would prefer to keep the western slope third congressional district and eastern plains fourth congressional district as is because these districts are appropriately serving rural communities. Strong rural representation is of the utmost priority. Earlier this year, two former Colorado Commissioners of Agriculture and thirteen organizations, including CCA, sent a letter to the Colorado Congressional Redistricting Commission requesting fair representation of rural Colorado. The letter asked for the redistricting map drawing process to begin by drawing two rural districts from the 53 counties that are not part of the Front Range, from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins. By starting with a goal of two rural seats, congressional representatives would not be forced to choose between rural needs and the issues that matter to suburbia. Additional talking points included in the letter can be found here:

The maps I have seen on the news show why the once Conservative State of Colorado has become another California. Republicans though we are many are not represented fairly.