Public Comments

Stop all districting bias! Do not combine large cities with rural communities, rural communities will lose their voices! The 'new' district proposals are clearly based on liberal bias tactics and intended to bury differing voices of the people in those areas. Stop politicizing by moving district lines to benefit one party!

Draw fair redistricting maps to benefit all Coloradans. Denver isn't the only location in which people in Colorado live. We need you to respect those of us outside the City and County of Denver. Our voices are important too and with fair redistricting maps you can ensure they will be heard based on our needs, lifestyles, choices and more.

Government in Colorado has been overlooking or by-passing the rural parts of this state for some time. Your staff first draft just seems to further that policy. By incorporating rural counties with large population centers you lose the views of the rural element of the community completely. We who live and work in essentially rural counties often have quite different needs and views than those of our nearby urban neighbors. Those views definitely need to be heard.

Please update the proposed congressional maps to reflect a true rural voice for Colorado and keep the two rural districts rural. The rural voice deserves to have representation and not be diluted by urban votes that do not understand rural issues. Our rural issues include agriculture, public lands, water, natural resources and transportation and our representatives deserve to focus on rural and not have to split with urban issues. The two rural districts should clearly be a West Slope and Easter Plains district. Do not mix urban and rural.

I DO NOT AGREE with the new Redistricting Map proposal. I do not agree to have Boulder or Fort Collins control the activities and decisions of Weld County! These changes should not be made! These maps cover too wide a range of Colorado areas and the decisions made are not agreeable nor applicable to all members of the area. More public input is a must!

As a resident of the 4th Congressional District, I feel that the needs of this area are significantly different than our neighbors to the north. I live in the lower corner of Pueblo County and we are extremely rural. Ours and our neighbors concerns consistently include water, water rights, State lands, Blm and livestock. Person's in the urban areas of course, are not aware of our issues. Keeping the redistricting map with rural needs it n mind will be significant to all of Colorado. Although we live where most do not go, our industry is what keeps Colorado viable.

I believe Fort Collins should be with Larimer County, and not split from the county. By combining only the city of Fort Collins you have very different groups that have very little in common. Placing the two together doesn’t make sense: all counties should remain whole, and the County Seat should remain with the county. I don’t believe either group, either Fort Collins or the Eastern Plains will believe they get appropriate representation. It also won’t serve the urban or rural areas OR the congressman that serves those locations. Is Fort Collins being used to solve the numbers problem in redistricting, or are you trying to truly consider balancing populations that are similar to aid similar populations so that Colorado can have more of a balanced focus on solving our challenges? This most recent map doesn’t keep county seats with the rest of the county, and, it splits up school districts— that is NOT good or wise, and both points need to be examined. Splitting school districts spells a mess in both restricting and issues that affect the districts. This is true of Greeley & Weld County as well as Fort Collins & Larimer County. It doesn’t preserve whole communities, it removes Ft. Collins which is the county seat, and it removes Greeley from Weld County. It tears apart the district’s interests and doesn’t help to achieve our state’s economic goals. I agree with Kristin Stephens’ comment, the Congressional representative would get whiplash trying to serve the constituents. The proposal that combines Larimer County & Boulder is most appropriate. We both are concerned with high growth, homelessness, watershed protection, fire mitigation, repair of fire damaged areas, and high tech and research companies. Fort Collins does not have the interest in promoting or supporting oil and gas industries which are important to Eastern Colorado. I’m also concerned that such splits will not help our state address water and watershed issues, both in more urban and rural areas, and the water concerns are very different and need focus on different approaches. I’m concerned about protecting our water, ensuring we have enough in reservoirs, and also to protect our fragile aquifers, which are definitely getting lower: the lowering of which hurts all of us, both rural and urban. These are at risk and we should all be concerned to not damage them and to work to retain the levels. Water is a concern for all of Colorado. We want to keep Larimer County together with Fort Collins, and not split our county. There was a remark on Tuesday evening about the agricultural nature of CSU, however, only 1600 out of 35000 students at CSU are agricultural in nature. Fort Collins isn’t the enemy and, we want to have a voice and not have a fractured focus to slow down the ability to focus and address issues. Fort Collins and Boulder are collaborative locations… Our main employers are academic, engineering/manufacturing and high tech, research, medical, breweries among others. We are growing quickly and are more closely aligned with Boulder and the first map. Our concerns and issues are very similar, homelessness, economic health, university matters, biotech. It behooves all of Colorado to keep these areas of momentum and interest together to benefit all of Colorado. Collectively CSU & CU brings in research revenue to the state and economic benefits to many parts of Colorado, not just urban areas. Keeping Ft. Collins/Boulder together collectively helps us have a stronger voice to bring in research funding and grants, funding and industries which benefits ALL of Colorado; We are more aligned with interest such as Boulder. Putting Fort Collins with the Northeastern Colorado gives outsized focus to Ft. Collins, and Northeastern Colorado is important, in a dissimilar way. This happened before and didn’t work well. We saw there was not much to be gained to balance populations as much as to balance interests and issues, as our water issues, economic issues and other issues are vastly different…we’re more similar to Boulder. Our Colorado counties may be different in terms of key demographics, however, it is crucial & important to recognize that this is not a value judgement, and not a criticism. All areas of Colorado deserve to be valued and recognized but the commission should find ways to place similar population areas and concerns together, we don’t need to balance numbers, we need to look at a higher level and FIND A WAY to address concerns, build systems that enable us as a state to address problems, help communities with similar challenges and attributes. If you just balance the numbers, without realizing that each of the locations contains real people with challenges that need addressing, then the job has not been done. It’s important to figure out how combine areas that makes sense. Ask real people, read real comments, ask real congresspeople what makes good sense, and use those comments in the way you put things together. Don’t discard the feedback, use it please. Use redistricting in a SMART way: keep counties with their county seat. In case you wondered, I have lived in Fort Collins since 1960, and, I’m a 4th generation native Coloradoan, my background is from Eastern Colorado, were immigrants and started with a sod home built in the hills outside Sterling in the 1800s. Thank you for the opportunity to comment and your time to sincerely review my comments.

I want Grand County in District #2 We do not want to go to the way south #3

It simply makes no sense to bind Larimer County to the counties east of it. Please revise to keep us in the Front Range somehow.

It has long been my view that CO-3 was just too large and I'm in favor of the current proposed map because of the balance it provides. More importantly, Representatives should have to compete for their seats. Although I live in a rural area, I do not share the same ideology or political views as the majority of people here, and therefore, I am not represented whatsoever by by current Rep. We can't simply have "rural" districts and "city" districts. That looks like how the previous map was drawn. Our districts should embrace the totality of our population. A competitive district would make candidates work harder to meet constituents (IN PERSON) and to consider all voters and not simply assume that everyone thinks the same as they do. The only way forward is for us to expand and accept that people with differing views do deserve representation in your Districts.