Public Comments

I feel disenfranchised by the proposed redistricting maps. The City of Fort Collins is being carved out of Larimer County and attached to rural Weld County, and this makes no sense except for blatant gerrymandering. We are strongly attached to the rest of Larimer County - the County seat is indeed in Fort Collins - and we have been working towards a tighter integration with our partner Cities in Larimer and even Boulder County. To start with, we have long established the Platte River Power Authority, a partnership between Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont, and the town of Estes Park. We *must* remain in a common Congressional District and we *must* continue to have good working relationships with our State Senators and Representatives from these cities and towns. We further are part of the Poudre School District, which covers a region going up to Red Feathers lake and touches the Thompson School District to the South with whom we often share students as they move from one district to the other. We have little to do with the various Weld County school districts. Students attending the various Fort Collins high schools come from all over Larimer County, but not from Weld County. We are part of the Northern Front Range. Our concerns are shared much more to the West then to the East of I25. We have strong ties that go as far as Longmont and even further into Boulder County. We need to work on regional transportation and regional transit, and this extends to Boulder. And whereas there are some ties with the City of Greeley, in particular between CSU and UNC, our ties are not at all with rural Weld County. Our links with Estes Park go beyond our partnership in the Platte River Power Authority. Many residents of Fort Collins own properties in the mountains, but not to the East. Towards the North, Fort Collins and Larimer County natural areas extend up to the Wyoming border. We even have professional and commercial exchanges that run up to Larimie in Wyoming, but not to the East. In the Colorado Legislative State redistricting, there is at present a very good working relationship between the House District and the Senate District covering Fort Collins. That must not be broken. I cannot understand ANY motivation behind the proposed redistricting maps. They must not stand, otherwise we will have an obligation to contest this before the courts, a very sorry state of affairs.

This map was obviously drawn up by democrats. How about actually draw a fair one, that doesn't split the western slope and leave the state completely dominated by the Denver metro area?

The commission also chose to split up the Western Slope, despite the voices of the people who live there. What is the population for both democrats and republicans before and after redistricting? Are both parties equally represented? Based on the data I’ve seen it’s clearly biased.

Stop it now!! All you are doing is stealing my vote. Colorado is not outhouse that Denver has become YOUR FIRED IN 2022

The new redistricting map does not represent the voices of the west slope. As someone who does GIS and is greatly involved in redistricting for local government, this was very poorly done and does not follow industry best practices. The west slope is not the front range and should not have groupings with Boulder County. Our issues are not the same. The only overlap with the Front Range is the residents recreate here. The first round of mapping was well vetted and representative of the residents of Colorado.

Dear Members of the Commission, Thank you for committing your time and energy to creating 8 fair congressional districts for Colorado's diverse populations, cultural backgrounds and communities of interest, who share specific needs that can only be addressed by our Congressional representatives. Vast rural areas and more populated cities/counties make redistricting challenging, when communities of interest must be balanced with population. In the case of the September 3 First Staff Plan, it appears that balancing census numbers took precedence over supporting communities of interest. As a Colorado voter, I see several problems with the proposed map, but will only comment on the problems created for Larimer County, where voters have been split into 3 vastly different Congressional districts, namely Districts 2, 4 and 8. As a longtime Fort Collins resident, CSU graduate, Downtown property owner and former County Commissioner, I was disappointed to see Fort Collins, the county seat, stripped away from Larimer County and added to the very rural District 4, that runs east, north and south to the state lines. Larimer and Weld Counties, along with the Eastern Plains, have over a century of differing interests and disparate values that cannot be fairly addressed through a single Congressional representative. Please consider the following examples: ** Climate change is a serious issue for Larimer County, whose voters and municipalities encourage sustainability, green practices and the protection of our natural resources. In contrast. Weld County officials have boasted about being the Saudi Arabia of the US, refused to adopt the state's oil and gas regulations and--more than once--seriously considered succeeding from the State of Colorado to form a separate Weld Government where Colorado statutes and legislation don't apply. ** Decades ago Larimer County and Fort Collins residents voted to tax themselves to create a county and city Open Space Program, which is widely valued by residents who gladly support it through the Open Space tax. A common question from Weld County voters is, ""Why tax ourselves, when we can recreate in Larimer County?" ** In terms of public policy, it's a well known fact there is a wide philosophical gap between the values and concerns in Fort Collins and Larimer County and the public character of Weld County and the rural counties of the Eastern Plains. In fact, a public policy discussion between the two communities of character have seldom proven productive. At the meetings of the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization municipal interest in expanding transit is often overshadowed by rural demands for roads--transit will never be meaningful for most residents of the 4th Congressional District. ** You are, of course, aware that Fort Collins is the home to a world class research university and many high tech industries, which are not replicated in Weld or on the Eastern Plains. You may not be aware that, while other towns to the east have struggled, Fort Collins continues to build its thriving and historic Downtown. ** Larimer County and Fort Collins residents are active in attempting to improve air quality, conserve dwindling water resources and leave our environment better for future generations. Unfortunately, county and municipal governments to the east have an anything goes attitude toward urban planning. ** The City of Fort Collins is not an agricultural community and has insured that incoming businesses represent clean energy. The City does not belong in a district dominated by thousands of polluting oil and gas operations, unhealthy meat processing plants and unregulated industries. Obviously, I can't fathom the many challenges of redistricting. However, it seems that portions of Arapahoe and/or El Paso Counties would be a better fit for the values of District 4 than the City of Fort Collins, the seat of Larimer County Government. Based on the above differences, please allow Fort Collins and southern Larimer County voters to remain in the 2nd Congressional District, where our values, history and character will be best represented in Congress. Thank you for insuring that Fort Collins and Larimer County voters are as fairly represented as the rest of the state. Regards, Karen A Wagner Fort Collins

Please don't take Fort Collins out of our district. it doesn't make sense to take the county seat out of the county, especially by putting us with counties in southeast (!?) Colorado.

I would like to voice my support for CD-2 as currently drawn by the commission. Routt County has much in common with Boulder, Grand and Larimer. We share concerns about climate change, fire risks, affordable housing, tourism and winter sports, etc. We also share health care (UCHealth) and insurance concerns with Boulder and Larimer Counties as well as Grand County.

I ask the committee to keep all of City Park South in Denver, from 17th to Colfax and from Colorado Blvd to University Blvd, in a single house district. The preliminary legislative redistricting map splits City Park South in Denver into two separate house districts - HD5 and HD4. It appears that the committee followed the precinct lines in making this decision. The decision to split City Park South across multiple house districts does not reflect the reality that City Park South is a single, contiguous neighborhood with common interests. City Park south has its own neighborhood association - the South City Park Neighborhood Association. We trick or treat from Detroit St. on the west side to Harrison on the east side of City Park South. Families with kids set bike/walk/skate boundaries of 17th Ave. in the North to Colfax Ave on the south. This entire neighborhood is served by the same elementary school (Teller). Climate change will be a critical issue over the next decade. All of City Park South is vulnerable to flooding in intense storms. In July of 2015, for instance, a heavy thunderstorm led to flooded basements in many neighborhood homes, and Steele Street experienced flooding severe enough that storage units floated down the middle of the street. The grade of the streets in this area shifts at Colfax, but all of City Park South is slightly tilted towards City Park. As flooding events become more common and Colorado develops plans to adapt to climate change, our neighborhood needs a single state representative who knows and understands our specific concerns. Looking only at maps and data, it might seem that the portion of City Park South between Steele Street and York street is different from the eastern portion due to the number of high-rise apartment buildings. The reality, though, is that there are single family houses as far west as Detroit and most streets on the west side have a "single-family home" feel to them due to street-level entrances to a number of the townhouses and condos. We are all equally affected by events and developments at City Park or East High School, and by proposed changes to and construction on Colfax Ave. This neighborhood has more in common with the proposed HD4 than with the proposed HD5. City Park South experienced a long period of decline, and experienced significant increases in property values only relatively recently. As a result, our neighborhood has a much bigger mix of income levels than the areas south of Colfax – we have more in common with City Park West, Whittier, City Park North, and Curtis Park than we do with Congress Park or the neighborhoods further south and west in HD5. In addition, our proximity to Colfax and 17th avenue mean that urban development and traffic into downtown Denver affect us in ways that most of HD5 does not experience. City Park South residents have common interests – traffic, City Park, homelessness, drug-related issues, flooding risks, that deserve representation by a single state representative. Because this neighborhood is so small – just two blocks “deep”, running north-south, dividing us into two house districts will make it virtually impossible for our specific concerns to be heard in the state house. I ask that the committee keep City Park South as a whole, in a single house district, preferably one that includes the other neighborhoods that surround City Park, or at least in the proposed HD4.

The draft prepared by staff has the city of Fort Collins carved off from the rest of Larimer County and made a part of district 4, which is most of Weld County and the eastern plains, aside from Fort Collins. This violates district creation criteria that call for preserving whole communities of interest, and whole political subdivisions. Fort Collins is the county seat of Larimer County. How can it make sense for the county seat to be in a different district than the entire rest of the county?! In adding the population of Fort Collins to district 4, you then had to carve out part of the city of Greeley and place it in another district, thus splitting Greeley into 2 different congressional districts. Fort Collins has nothing in common economically with the eastern plains, and only marginally with Greeley. Our economy is based on the university, health care, high tech, tourism and outdoor recreation. The economy of Weld County and the eastern plains is based on extractive industries (oil, gas and agriculture). The problems of concern to Fort Collins -- wildfires, high population growth, homelessness, air quality, equity and diversity are irrelevant to the eastern plains and Weld County. The largest population center in a congressional district should be representative of the larger district, and Fort Collins has nothing in common with the rest of this proposed district.