Public Comments

I am of the opinion that splitting up Montezuma county is not in the best interest of our community. It will decrease funding, and add a greater financial segregation , adding higher taxes and false representation of community values. Also forcing mid and lower class into a poverty level that is unprecedented for our area. Vote NO ON THIS PROPOSAL!!!

Jeffco is a diverse county that does not belong in a district with Douglas County. The two counties have many differences, from political to demographic. A key difference has been highlighted in the last week around schools and masking. We are in Jeffco and we’re beyond relieved to have universal masking mandated. My children did remote learning all of last year and we had been holding our breaths waiting to see what our county and district would decide. Then to see that Douglas County opted out of masking, further demonstrated to me how far apart the two counties are. Douglas County seems to be a better fit with the eastern Colorado counties and is certainly not a good fit with Jeffco. Thank you.

Splitting county’s is a bad idea! It didn’t work the last time so why try it again. This is where history is important! They can trade San Juan County for Montezuma.

This is not a good idea. Especially for our already schools that are now struggling to find teaching staff, this would guarantee more school closures. No, no, no and one more time for those on the back NO!

When Jeffco public health passed the school mask mandate I was relieved beyond belief because I have a child too young to be vaccinated. Other districts in CO do not share the values of Jefferson County residents and I do not want them voting with us or making public health decisions. Douglas County has masks as optional!!! Going against guidance from pretty much every public health organization. Please don’t group us with them!

Douglas County and Jefferson County are ideologically incredibly different - as illustrated by our school systems. JeffCo values collaboration, trust, and transparency between teachers and district leaders. DougCo is more authoritarian - spending their time and energy on top-down evaluation systems. When JeffCo had a school board with views similar to those of Douglas County representatives, JeffCo families organized a recall effort. Most recently, JeffCo familes adopted universal masking in our schools - a measure mandated by our department of public health to protect vulnerable community members. DougCo is still doing nothing to slow the spread of the Delta variant. DougCo and JeffCo are culturally and politically very different places - and districting should reflect that diversity.

Please do not combine Jeffco with Douglas County. They are not even close regarding many issues. Dougco alligns more closely with the eastern plains counties. I would rather see Arvada, Wheat Ridge, and Lakewood all combined with Jeffco in the same district, as all of their schools are currently in the Jeffco School District I also would encourage you to keep the City of Arvada in one district. It is divisive to good local government to split the cit in half.

Re: Montezuma County: The proposed map I have seen shows Montezuma County being split in half. This will be detrimental to our unity as a county. We've been down this road before, and it isn't good. We live and act as a county, and to put us in with another nearby county that does not contain the same likeminded people is wrong (La Plata is blue, we're red). We want to vote and decide on issues that affect our unified county, not the other county/counties that may be included in a new district. This also means in a rural county such as ours we are now going to have to pay for two ballots, instead of one, and all of the other headaches that go along with this decision. When we were in two separate districts before, the 58th and 59th, no one could ever remember exactly where the boundaries were, etc. Leave our county as a whole!! Sadly, being the furthest area from the Metro areas, we are often forgotten and tossed aside, so that alone brings another reason to leave us in one District, we're used to advocating for our county as a whole.

Dear CIRC, As a resident of Longmont, CO, I felt rather un-represented, by being in Congressional District 4 during the past 10 years. Longmont is the only city west of I-25 N of Denver that was included in the huge district 4, that includes all of the agricultural areas of the eastern plains and southern CO. While Longmont -was once an agricultural community, that was long ago and Longmont has changed a great deal in the past 10 years. Hi-tech, pharmaceutical, and software companies now offer employment to Longmonters here. Moreover, one only has to sit is a traffic jam on Rt. 119 on weekday mornings to see that many Longmont residents are commuting to Boulder (in District 2) to work at IBM, Google, NCAR, NOAA and CUBoulder, among others. It doesn't make sense to live in one district and work in another. At least before 2011, we were in the same district with Loveland and Ft. Collins, cities of comparable size, which had similar economic bases as Longmont, but in this 2011-2021 period, I just felt out of step with the rest of my Congressional District and that my Representative, Mr. Buck, did not represent me. I urge you to carefully consider Longmont's present economic and social basis when placing it in a district. Thank you.

Keep Jefferson County whole. I have nothing in common with Douglas County. I live in the far north east part of the county and the socio-economic divide between my community and anywhere in Douglas county is HUGE! Southwest metro area might as well be a different country as far as I am concerned. The differences in attitude toward my schools, my working class roots and my modest lifestyle is too great to be voting with Douglas county.