Public Comments

We do not want to be connected to the Boulder district because we are a different people, more like the western slope. Please keep us separate from the the front range area. Thank you.

I would first like to say that that it appears that the redistricting commission did a good job on the initial Congressional District maps. My primary point of concern is the goal of competitive districts, as I believe that the more competitive the district, the better quality of leaders that will be elected, as they will have to make a stronger case to get our votes. When a district is so tilted in one direction, it is too easy for radicals to run and win Congressional seats just because they have the desired party affiliation. Looking at the voter registration breakdown, there are only 3 districts that have a Republican to Democrat differential under 10%. While I realize that this is simply inherent in several districts to preserve communities of interest, closing this gap as much is as reasonable should be the goal. Myself and others in the Brighton area felt that Broomfield, or at least parts of it, would be better suited in CD 2 rather than CD 8. CD 8 has a lot more rural area, whereas CD 2 would be more high-tech and much more aligned with Boulder interests. For this reason I created my own map proposal titled "Broomfield out of CD 8", which puts Broomfield in CD 2, more of Weld County in CD 8 and adjusts the other districts accordingly. Since the online tool does not produce a report of political affiliations, I am unsure of how my changes affected that, but I hope that it at least makes CD 8 more competitive. It would be quite helpful to have this information in the "Redistricting Online" reports instead of the reports being hyper-focused on race. Additionally, with what looks to be fairly minor tweaks, it appears the CD 3, 6 and 7 could also be more competitive. Lastly, since it looks like the commission did a good job on the initial map, I would encourage them to stick to something with the same level of fairness and not be persuaded to make partisan changes.

Agree with the Redistricting Commission. Summit County shares an economic, geographic and cultural community of interest with the Western Slope, and that’s where our representation in the U.S. Congress and the Colorado Legislature should be. Colorado's Front Range is a densely populated urban area of our state. We are not an urban center and our voices expressing our local concerns get drowned out by the high populations of Denver and Boulder. We have more in common on a wide range of policy issues with our surrounding counties and the Western Slope such as tourism, transportation, water, forest management, education and health care. For these reasons, I support including Summit County in the 3rd Congressional District separating us from Boulder and Jefferson counties. I support the proposed Colorado House District for Summit County. The proposed Colorado Senate District shares some of the characteristics of the House District but could be improved by including Park County with Summit County. I thank the commission for its hard work on this issue.

Agree with the Redistricting Commission. Summit County shares an economic, geographic and cultural community of interest with the Western Slope, and that’s where our representation in the U.S. Congress and the Colorado Legislature should be. Colorado's Front Range is a densely populated urban area of our state. We are not an urban center and our voices expressing our local concerns get drowned out by the high populations of Denver and Boulder. We have more in common on a wide range of policy issues with our surrounding counties and the Western Slope such as tourism, transportation, water, forest management, education and health care. For these reasons, I support including Summit County in the 3rd Congressional District separating us from Boulder and Jefferson counties. I support the proposed Colorado House District for Summit County. The proposed Colorado Senate District shares some of the characteristics of the House District but could be improved by including Park County with Summit County. I thank the commission for its hard work on this issue.

I would first like to say that that it appears that the redistricting commission did a good job on the initial Congressional District maps. My primary point of concern is the goal of competitive districts, as I believe that the more competitive the district, the better quality of leaders that will be elected, as they will have to make a stronger case to get our votes. When a district is so tilted in one direction, it is too easy for radicals to run and win Congressional seats just because they have the desired party affiliation. Looking at the voter registration breakdown, there are only 3 districts that have a Republican to Democrat differential under 10%. While I realize that this is simply inherent in several districts to preserve communities of interest, closing this gap as much is as reasonable should be the goal. Myself and others in the Brighton area felt that Broomfield, or at least parts of it, would be better suited in CD 2 rather than CD 8. CD 8 has a lot more rural area, whereas CD 2 would be more high-tech and much more aligned with Boulder interests. For this reason I created my own map proposal titled "Broomfield out of CD 8", which puts Broomfield in CD 2, more of Weld County in CD 8 and adjusts the other districts accordingly. Since the online tool does not produce a report of political affiliations, I am unsure of how my changes affected that, but I hope that it at least makes CD 8 more competitive. Additionally, with what looks to be fairly minor tweaks, it appears the CD 3, 6 and 7 could also be more competitive. Lastly, since it looks like the commission did a good job on the initial map, I would encourage them to stick to something with the same level of fairness and not be persuaded to make partisan changes.

Agree with the Redistricting Commission. Summit County shares an economic, geographic and cultural community of interest with the Western Slope, and that’s where our representation in the U.S. Congress and the Colorado Legislature should be. Colorado's Front Range is a densely populated urban area of our state. We are not an urban center and our voices expressing our local concerns get drowned out by the high populations of Denver and Boulder. We have more in common on a wide range of policy issues with our surrounding counties and the Western Slope such as tourism, transportation, water, forest management, education and health care. For these reasons, I support including Summit County in the 3rd Congressional District and separating us from Boulder and Jefferson counties. I support the proposed Colorado House District for Summit County. The proposed Colorado Senate District shares some of the characteristics of the House District but could be improved by including Park County with Summit County.

Thank you for taking public comments. I would ask that the commission take into account communities of interest comprising Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and other people of color, especially in the Denver and Aurora metro areas. It is important not to dilute the impact of those racial and language minority groups so that they will receive fair and effective representation. Although there are a variety of communities of interest in the state of Colorado, at this point in our history it is especially important to make sure that people of color are fairly represented.

At a hearing in Highlands Ranch, a Commissioner asked about the shared public transportation interests of Highlands Ranch. This is another area where Highlands Ranch is unique as compared to the rest of Douglas County in being a suburban rather than a rural area. Our public transportation needs go both north and south daily with large numbers of service workers and shoppers coming south into Highlands Ranch, and large numbers of Highlands Ranch residents heading north on Light Rail to the Metro Denver corridor. This does not occur in the rest of the County. Not only does it not occur, but places like Parker have actively tried to leave RTD while HR has tried to increase and expand service. So it would be detrimental to not only fail to keep Highlands Ranch whole and fail to place HR within its community of interest in the south Denver Metro suburbs, but also combine HR with areas of the County like Parker that have shown distinct and opposite community interests as those which impact Highlands Ranch. Thank you. See, e.g., https://www.cpr.org/2021/02/02/on-the-suburban-fringes-of-denver-the-town-of-parker-looks-to-leave-rtd/

Dear Commission, Agriculture is the second largest economic driver of our state and our business is unlike any other business, so we need representatives that understand our complex concerns. We must at lease keep the 2 Rural Districts as seen in the preliminary map. As holders of the majority of the land mass, we have much responsivity. We need at least 2 representatives as the first map showed. Thank you, Lynda Wyer

There is not much relationship between Douglas County/Arapahoe County and not much like factors between Douglas and Jefferson County. It seems to what I have been hearing is that Douglas would like to be kept together and so honor that request--I suggest they all be in CD4...the counties in the proposed CD4 have the closest relationship to Douglas County.