Public Comments

As a Douglas county resident I do not agree with the proposed congressional redistricting of including Douglas County with district 4. The majority of Douglas county population resides in the suburbs of Denver - Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, Castle Rock, Roxborough, and Parker - these are suburban communities that align more closely with the other suburbs of Denver and the metro area than they do with rural Colorado. Our voices and congressional representatives need to be concerned with matters that affect Douglas County not with the counties along the eastern border of Colorado. These counties have completely different needs and requirements than Douglas County, and Douglas county voices need representation that serves this area, rather than Weld, Yuma, Kit Carson, and Baca counties. In fact Douglas County is probably more aligned with Park and Teller counties than it is with the far eastern counties. Thank you,

My name is Kendra Hood. I have lived in Rural America all my life and am a descendent of a Colorado Homesteader. I have worked in agriculture all my life and have a small farm/livestock operation in Otero County. I feel the voice of Rural Colorado is being silenced even more by the last redistricting map that was submitted September 3rd (rather underhandedly I might add). The communities of Southern Colorado should be united by their common goals which are a right to earn a decent living in agriculture and energy industries that represent a huge portion of the income in all the Southern Counties. We have little in common with issues concerning heavily populated Northern Counties that are included in this latest redistricting. We need representation for our issues including: Declining population and job generating industries; improving our roads, health care and internet infrastructure; water issues and representing our rural family values. Please reconsider a more friendlier version for Rural Colorado. I fear, without our voices being heard in Rural America, our communities will become ghost towns controlled by Urban cities, more farms will fail, food prices increase and common-sense values lost.

Douglas County is a vibrant part of metro Denver. While there is still a small amount of farming heritage, the vast majority of people living in Douglas County are city people. They work in metro Denver, they worship in metro Denver. The proposed redistricting puts one county of metro Denver in a district with rural and farming/ranching communities. The citizens concerns could not be adequately represented in this context. Or, maybe, all the rural folks of the district might be forgotten if the elected representative were from Douglas County. It is my understanding that Douglas County was, at one time, part of a rural Congressional District. Currently, it is divided between a rural district and an urban district which is unnecessarily confusing. "(I) "Community of interest" means any group in Colorado that shares one or more substantial interests that may be the subject of federal [state] legislative action, is composed of a reasonably proximate population, and thus should be considered for inclusion within a single district for purposes of ensuring its fair and effective representation." Most of Douglas County has no common interest with Elbert, Kiowa, etc. which are rural counties. Douglas County has become an urban county and needs to be included in an urban Congressional District.

I write to express my opposition to the proposed Re-Districting Plan released Spet 3, 2021. I live in Summit County and, as proposed, Summit County would be split between two different districts 0 2d and 7th. This proposal makes no sense and splits a rural, mountain community with common interests and combines it with dissimilar metropolitan regions. Summit County should remain as a whole and not be split. It is a singular community of interest and should be aligned with counties/areas of like policy, environmental and other concerns, counties such as Grand, Eagle and Routt. The re-districting guidelines speak to associating communities of interest into a single district to ensure that region's interests are heard effectively represented . Currently, part sof Summit would be lumped in with Boulder , Broomfield, Arvada and Lakewood, densely populated, metropolitan areas which are totally urban in character. They differ dramatically from the rural , ranch, agricultural and wilderness character of the areas west of the Continental Divide. All of Summit County shares common concerns related to water, transportation, employment, housing, wildfires, wildlife management and other policy issues unique to the character of this mountain region. We have little in common with the front range metro areas, a concern exacerbated by the fact that the dense metro areas can effectively ignore our regions' concerns because of the vase voting pool disparity. I urge you to disapprove this re-districting plan and to instead keep Summit County in a single, district, aligned with other Western slope areas of like interests. Thank you.

I live in Parker, in Douglas County and I understand that Republicans want to include Parker in a non-competitive Eastern Plains congressional district inhabited by people whose lives and interests are vastly different from my own, effectively nullifying my voting power. Parker is part of the Denver metro area, not the Eastern Plains. To lump Parker in with rural farming communities only makes sense if your goal is to ensure that Democratic voters' power is stripped away. Would be nice if Republicans felt that they could win elections based on issues instead of stripping voting rights and manipulating districts. Jordan Graham 10533 Holyoke Drive Parker, CO 80134 720.297.8002

Grand Junction (Mesa County) and Delta (Delta County) have been part of the same community for over 70 years. My Aunt (from Delta) while my Uncle was from Grand Junction. My mother's family, who came to this region the year after the Meeker Massacre did business in both communities. Mesa County and Rifle are in the same situation. Same businesses, same connections, same shared values. Splitting these areas up is just partisan political activity, unrelated to anything even vaguely "non-partisan".

I can't claim to have made an extensive study of Colorado congressional districts, but simply looking at the new proposed map released a few days ago, it seems inappropriate to vastly change the shape of the existing districts. Obviously, there have to be some changes to accommodate the addition of a new district, but one of the goals should be to keep most people in the district they previously voted in. What makes sense to me is locating where the largest growth in population took place, and building the new district around that. Breaking up the Western Slope voters who have been together for, well, ever, seems harder to justify, even though there has been growth in that area too. I appreciate your taking my comments.

I was born in Fort Collins and have resided there for more than 25 years. It would seem obvious that the city of Fort Collins has very little in common with rural Weld county. If numbers need to be balanced it would make more sense to swap the current draft positions of Fort Collins and Greeley, placing Greeley in District 4 and Fort Collins in District 8. Thank you for the opportunity to give input on the important work that you are doing.

Hello there, I’m writing to request that Douglas County be included with the front range district(s). Our interests are far more urban and suburban, and this makes much more sense than trying to force Douglas County into a district with communities on the plains. Not only is it a logical choice, but it removes any accusations of gerrymandering in doing so. Thank you.

Keep fort collins in larimer county!!!