Public Comments

I live in Phillips County, Colorado. I disagree strongly with the re-districting map. This new district would put Phillips County in a group with Ft Collins and other larger more urban areas and completely drown out our voice. People in Fort Collins cannot be making decisions that affect people living and working 4 miles from the Nebraska border. They do not know the area, or economics, or people well enough to make educated decision on their behalf. Fort Collins cannot decide who should represent rural Colorado. Every single new district is designed to have an urban area in the district. Boulder making decisions for Western Colorado? Ft Collins making decisions for Eastern Colorado? These urban areas DO NOT KNOW the issues that the rural areas face. The population discrepancy in Colorado has these rural areas being primarily conservative, and the urban areas primarily liberal. This map is designed to effectively silence the conservative voice in Colorado. I do not want the people of Ft Collins deciding who will represent my home in Washington DC. These people have never ventured to the Eastern Plains. Large numbers of the country do not realize the Easter Plains of Colorado exist. Do not silence the rural communities voice. Agriculture contributes 2.6 billion to Colorado's GDP. You cannot allow those in urban areas to have a voice for the agricultural producers in these rural towns. Doing so would send a strong message to the rural Coloradan that this state is not for the ag producer. The majority of those in rural communities are Colorado natives, many of those in urban areas are transplants that are unfamiliar with the towns their vote would impact. Please, vote no on this redistricting.

The map For district 2, 4 and 8 are troublesome. First, Ft Collins has nothing in common with district 4. Splitting up the city of Greeley is not in their best interest. As someone who has participated as an election judge (computer) for the past 10 years, I can attest that all these squiggly lines within a district will cause massive voter confusion as to what CD, Senate or state legislative they are in. Splitting counties need to be kept to a minimum. Can you imagine how many ballot styles some of these counties will have to have in the vote centers to accommodate this map. SIMPLIFY! This commission can do better.

I'm very pleased to see western Colorado broken into north and south districts. This is a very welcome change. However, I think both the 2nd and 3rd districts would be better served in terms of interests if Mesa County went to the 2nd district, while Summit county might be clustered with other ski resort, outdoor recreational and southern agricultural counties in the 3rd district. Summit shares so much in common with the 3rd as it is drawn on the Sept. 3 map. Breaking up the Western slope is a very welcome change. Thank you

I want to thank you for the hard work you have done on the Congressional redistricting map. I feel you have responded to the requests for appropriate representation and I like how the map has worked out.

Fort Collins is very different from the Eastern plains and should be included in Larimer County. 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 proposed map does not do this and in fact moves the county seat into a different Congressional District than the rest of the county. Weld County relies on extractive industries (oil and gas), and agriculture. Fort Collins suffers the consequences of the extractive industries with non-compliance of EPA limits on ozone. We do not have an interest in promoting such industries. In Larimer County, there is a focus on issues like wildfire mitigation, watershed restoration, multi-modal connections, climate actions, equity, and diversity. There is also action being taken to deal with urban issues like homelessness, high population growth, ozone nonattainment, and air quality issues, etc.

I writing to urge the commission to draw more competitive districts. One of the constitutional criteria for this commission is to "maximize the number of competitive districts." The maps produced so far have not been very competitive but it is possible to draw districts that keep together communities of interest while also making them more competitive. For instance, district 3 would be more competitive if it included the western slope and either suburban Larimer county or the foothills in Jeffco. District 7 can also be made more competitive if it extends down from Jeffco to Teller and Fremont counties. I think district 8 in the second proposal is decent and should be kept roughly as is since it is both competitive and does a good job consolidating Latino population.

CD6 is the CD for Arapahoe County and should include Glendale, Holly Hills and the other Arapahoe County islands that have not been annexed by Denver County. These communities have decided not to be included in Denver and should not have the same representation in the US House as the rest of Denver County. Historically these area were part of Arapahoe County. Shifting CD1 to include more precincts in Jefferson County would allow more participation from a county have has only had a handful of precincts historically.

Placing Fort Collins in district 4 would be idiotic.

You have included Boulder with northwest Colorado in this redistributing. We have nothing in common with anything related Boulder. We are total opposites and should not be included in the same district. If this is allowed to stand, Craig and Moffat County as well as Rio Blanco Co, Garfield and many other areas will have our voices silenced. This must not stand. Our conservative values must be protected. That will not happen if you include the most liberal county in the state to be grouped with us. You must reconsider this terrible injustice.

I do not want metro communities watering down and making decisions for my rural district!