Public Comments

I strongly support keeping Boulder County together in one congressional district instead of taking a slice out of western Boulder County, including Ned, Jamestown and Allenspark, and sacrificing us to a congressional district in the western half of the state. Nobody wants that to happen.

Please do not allow redistricting my residence from district 2 to district 3. Being a front range resident I have no knowledge of the issues for district 3 and feel the representation from district 3 would have little concern for district 2 issues. Please maintain current district boundaries so my neighbors and I can continue to work on improving the Peak to Peak and front range community.

Eagle County should not be separated from the other resorts communities on the western slope. Please keep Eagle County in CD3.

I do not want Ms. Boebert as my representative. Please do not redistrict Jamestown, Colorado.

I support the preliminary redistricting maps as regards to Summit County. I have read that some of our elected officials think we should be aligned with the metro Denver area however despite the tourism, we are still a rural county and our concerns more closely align with other rural areas rather than the more urban areas.

As a resident of Paonia in eastern Delta County, I am heavily involved with several non-profit organizations that support clean, sustainable agriculture. The producers in the county's North Fork Valley (which has the highest concentration of organic farmers in the state) rely on the watersheds that emanate from Gunnison County. Aligning the eastern part of Delta County with Mesa County in House District 55 and Senate District 6 is unreasonable. Mesa County is known for its oil and gas development, which is not compatible with sustainable agriculture. Also, North Fork Valley events (e.g., West Elks Wine Trail, annual winery events, Mountain Harvest Festival, agricultural workshops) bring attendees form Gunnison and Pitkin Counties. Gunnison County Commissioners recognize the economic significance of the North Fork Valley producers; therefore, including eastern part of Delta County, i.e. towns of Hotchkiss, Crawford and Paonia, in House District 54 and Senate District 34 makes more sense. And finally, as a simple and quaint observation, Paonia Reservoir and Paonia State Park are in Gunnison County. So, why would eastern Delta County be included in the Mesa County districts? That would seem very odd.

I am a longtime Clear Creek County resident. I don't believe we should be put into the Western Slope district. Our economy , and lives, has always been intertwined with the front range. Many people who live in Clear Creek work in the front range cities, myself included. We have emergency and other mutual aid agreements with Jefferson County. And one of out biggest problems, traffic on I-70, is due to residents of the front range driving through our county to get to the mountains. Please reconsider putting Clear Creek County into another district as it really makes no sense. Katherine Drapeau DO

Dear Redistricting Commissioners, I have been a resident of Summit County for over 30 years. I attended your meeting in Frisco two weeks ago and want to congratulate you on the proposed Colorado Congressional Districts Preliminary Map which was distributed that evening. You are very astute in moving Summit County so we’ll be joining our neighboring towns and counties with whom we share common interests: tourism, water, transportation and outdoor recreation.We are not an urban county and need to be separated from Boulder and Jefferson Counties!!! The only thing we have in common with Boulder is both Summit County and Boulder have McDonald Restaurants! Please let us join our neighbors on the Western Slope. Thank you. Marie Sautter Breckenridge, CO. 80424 (submitted by email 8/12/21)

This is directed to the work of the Colorado House legislative commission. I attended the meeting last night at CU in Boulder and would like to share my feedback with you. My name is Donna Werner and I live at 80304 zip code in north-west Boulder. (My comments are directed towards the state legislature.) I have lived here since 1986, taught public school for many years and own a family business also since 1989. I am deeply connected to my neighborhood and to greater Boulder through my work, my volunteering with local philanthropic organizations, my synagogue and my leadership of an Indivisible group. I greatly appreciate your efforts to make sure Colorado maps are drawn and redrawn to best represent its citizens and our needs in a non-partisan manner. I have two main areas of concern to share. One is the criteria for preserving communities of interest. This certainly seems to apply to the importance to include the area west of Broadway in Boulder with our mountain neighbors of Nederland, Eldorado Springs, Gold Hill, Sugarloaf, etc. This week’s health concerns due to fires thousands of miles away point to our communities’ commonality regarding fire danger, flooding, pollution, and climate concerns. In the past ten years West Boulder and our western foothill & mountain towns faced the same evacuation concerns due to fire. Our water supply from Barker Dam and Nederland Reservoir also highlight the importance of our shared interests. Our mountain residing children also attend our schools in West Boulder, another critical community of interest, especially as we see how COVID has affected their educational experience in the past 2 years. On the “flip” side, if you will, the eastern portion of Boulder has its community of interest with the area of current House district 10 including Gunbarrel and the areas that have a more affordable housing, business and industrial park commonality. (east of Broadway) Modifying the preliminary maps would mean dividing Boulder (map#36) north to south and splitting the City of Boulder (map#37) west of Broadway to include mountain communities mentioned above. My other comment is one that I am not a resident of or an expert in, but I do want to highlight the importance making sure in communities such as Denver, Pueblo, and Montezuma that citizens in the African American and Latino and rural communities have fair representation and are not diluted in their majority voices with Senate and House representation . I would like to see this issue also addressed as Boulder County is remapped, especially with the large Latino population in Longmont , Lafayette and eastern Boulder. A recent article from the Colorado Sun highlights this issue: Latinos want Colorado’s new congressional and legislative maps to give them influence reflecting their growing numbers https://coloradosun.com/2021/08/12/latinos-colorado-new-redistricting-influence/ Latino leaders are worried that Colorado’s once-in-a-decade redistricting process will continue to give them the short shrift at the state Capitol and in Congress, even as their community’s share of the population grows to nearly a quarter. The current class of elected state lawmakers includes the largest number of Latino lawmakers in the General Assembly’s history, 14 of 100 lawmakers, while the state’s Congressional delegation doesn’t include a Latino representative. “There should be 22 to 25 of us (in the state legislature) depending on what the percentage of Latinos in the state that will be coming out with this new census,” state Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a Thornton Democrat, said earlier this month. Thank you. (submitted by email 8/12/21)

I encourage you to keep the SW Co.in one Senate District. They have the same interest and economical base. IT is essential to each district to keep the voting equal. As for the House District please include the San Juan/ Silverton in District 52. I've seen San Miguel county being ruled by Telluride. It outways the smaller rural areas and the small towns around them. The people that have lived and farmed there for generations get outvoted by the tourism driven ski area. It is not right for unlike economical based areas to be represented by unlike areas. Please keep LaPlata and Archuleta county together in the Senate District. I was at the meeting in Durango and was suppose to talk but got called away because of fire danger near my home. There was a lot of talk about tourism in Colorado being the main driving factor for the economy but as we all know a pandemic brings that down fast. I don't think there was much of attention given to the fact the ranchers and farmers will keep us eating. We need to give them highest priority. Most of them have been here for generations. The water is a main concern. Please serve all the people to your best ability. Thank you (submitted by email 8/11/21)