Public Comments

I am Independent (unaffiliated) as are the majority of registered Colorado voters. Our ranks grow larger each year in both raw numbers and as percentage of the total. Many anticipate that the rise of the Independent voter will further increase over the next ten years – the time period when new redistricting will be in effect. While Democrat and Republican lawmakers claim credit for the pursuit of nonpartisan redistricting, Independent voters were the critical constituency that promoted and passed Amendments Y and Z in 2018. Yet virtually all the literature, commentary, and media reports about redistricting Colorado for statewide and national offices focuses on the need to balance interests between the Democrat and Republican parties. I believe that redistricting Colorado for national and state office must also consider fairness and competitiveness for Independent voters and candidates, not just the two major parties. Redrawing districts with the primary goal of keeping Democrats and Republicans within a 10-point competitive margin has the potential to disadvantage Independent voters and candidates. Fairness and competitiveness for voting districts must be the goal for all political groups, including Independents. Creating districts that are winnable by Democrats, Republicans, AND/OR Independent candidates MUST be a priority. Independents must not be an afterthought or second-tier priority. No independent candidate has (yet) been elected to the legislature despite their majority. The election system is heavily tilted to favor the major parties as evidenced by the high number of “safe” party seats on both sides of the aisle (courtesy of their elected officials). Grassroots efforts are underway to level the playing field. Many institutional changes are needed to fairly reflect the interests of ALL citizens, and part of the solution is to create competitive districts that are equally fair to Independents as well as Democrats and Republicans.

Dear Commissioners, Thank you for your service on the redistricting committee. I know it has taken a great deal of your time and energy. I have held public office. First as state Senator, representing the rural parts of Pueblo County (the district made a donut around the city) and then all 6 of the San Luis Valley counties, Custer, Huerfano, and Las Animas counties. I am a Republican and won in a Democrat favored district. And then appointed Secretary of State and managed the first electronic voting machine election in 2006. Your created HD 51 is, frankly, undesirable. It keeps the SLV whole, and then fingers out all over Pueblo County. You cross district 50 and go back into 51 and then back into 50. How will anyone in Pueblo feel like they have a sense of community within this district? HD 51 should entail Las Animas County and less of Pueblo. We are a rural agricultural community and SLV fits closer with our friends to the south than we do with the congested urban neighborhoods that you have sporadically hit and missed throughout Pueblo County. We need more rural counties. The commonalities of water and agriculture and growing or raising the food we all want does not happen in the quantities needed in city of Pueblo. The district needs more of the area of Blende and Boone and the county of Las Animas and let the neighborhoods stay with the city itself. I believe this district is heavily gerrymandered and that truly does not benefit what your mission is to accomplish. I am sorry to not be at the meeting in person, as I would like to visit with you on how you created HD 51 in this fashion. I hope you will take my comments into serious consideration. Sincerely, Gigi Dennis

ear Commissioners: My name is Cindy Baroway and I want to thank you for taking the time to hear from citizens regarding redistricting. As a former Lakewood City Councilor I appreciate the value of citizen input and I appreciate your work. I am writing though, as an involved citizen. I have lived in Lakewood, I have lived in Jefferson County for almost 30 years. I served in the first Judicial Performance Review Commission, as well as the Johnson County Community Corrections Board, and two local community association boards. I'm also the last chair of the Action Center, one of Jefferson County's largest nonprofit serving the homeless and others in need. And that's what I will focus on. The community of interest that is our local nonprofits. When you're considering the new districts, please consider this story about what happened here in Jefferson County thanks to our partnerships. When the pandemic hit last March, the Action Center immediately reached out to other Jeffco nonprofits - there are over 50 in Jefferson County. They also reached out to municipal and county elected officials, the Jeffco Public School District, State Senators, Legislators, and our Congressman. The Action Center organized a weekly Friday call to orchestrate communication outreach and delivery of basic needs for those less fortunate in our community. Food, as you might imagine, was the number one priority. Due to our partnerships with all these entities and elected officials from school board to Congress, we were able to help thousands of people in our community. From South Jeffco, out to the western edge of Jeffco, Gilpin County and Clear Creek County, as well as up north to Arvada and Westminster.We work very well together. We also saw the need for rental assistance. To give you an example, in 2019 the Action Center distributed $109,000 in rental assistance and in 2020, they distributed over a million dollars. This was possible because the Action Center was already set up to determine how people needed rental assistance and to get it through the gateways. Jefferson County and the city sent the dollars that they were getting from Congress to us to administer it because we could get it out more efficiently and quickly. We moved over a million dollars in 2020, and we're probably on record to do that as well in 2021. Again, we work very well together in Jefferson County. Please recognize these existing partnerships that help provide for the greater good. Separating Jefferson County would be detrimental to the progress we've made, to initiatives that have started, and to future endeavors, such as two new homeless navigation centers. Having our communities within the same congressional district is beneficial. We have one voice to reach out to our Congressperson. We work together on solving problems which many times involve asking the federal government for assistance. I have chosen to focus on my area of expertise and the community of interest I am most familiar with. As you heard from others in the public hearings we have partnerships that require working together on federal issues far beyond this. From the 13 affiliated law enforcement and first responder agencies, to our County homeless initiative, to our Judicial District (which includes Jefferson and Gilpin Counties). I hope others will continue to submit comments that directly address those issues. Thank you very much for your consideration in this matter. Cindy Baroway

I live in Arvada. I've lived here for over 30 years. I am especially concerned with the new map right now. Our Jefferson County cities (Arvada, Lakewood, Wheat Ridge, Golden, etc.) comprise a tightknit community with significant economic, transportation, governance, and educational ties that should be represented in Congress as a whole, not segmented. Keeping Arvada and much of Westminster in the same district as the other Jefferson County cities is essential to keep our community of interest together, while ensuring Castle Rock, a community with very little in common, is placed in a district with similar needs. The new eighth Congressional District remains largely the same, a corridor stretching North from Denver. Building on the map to create the needed largely Hispanic/Latinx District, we are further bolstering this fundamental idea to include Hispanic/Latinx communities in Greeley on the northern corridor and the Commerce City neighborhood to the east. Adding these communities will ensure there is a strong voice in Congress that represents the diverse Hispanic/Latinx Colorado community in that region of the state. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much for the incredibly important and complicated work that you are doing, and for taking the time to hear our voices. I've lived in Jefferson County since 1969, the vast majority of my life. I grew up in Arvada, raised my children in Lakewood, and taught at Columbine High School for 30 years. Jeffco is a special place with a great sense of community. Jefferson County has been my home during the best times in my life and some of the hardest, like April 20, 1999. That day I went to work expecting a school day like any other. Instead, I discovered that even the places that feel the safest are vulnerable to tragedy. The road that followed was rough. The world is less having lost the kids and colleagues we lost that day at Columbine. Jefferson County Schools made the decision not to allow their deaths to be in vain. Our district has become a national leader in school safety. We have helped develop protocols used across the country to keep kids safe during threats. For example, Jeffco repurposed a former elementary school into the Frank DeAngelis Community Safety Center for the express purpose of training first responders on how to handle mass casualty events at schools. I wish we were utterly unique in this experience, that no other school district knew the pain we've known. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I've met with educators from Sandy Hook, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; Marshall County, Kentucky; and sadly, Platte Canyon High School, Arapahoe High School, and STEM. I have learned that every community handles issues of school safety, as well as the fallout from tragedy, differently. No two communities, no two school districts are the same. Drawing district lines that divide school districts can create conflicts in developing safety policies. It also makes it very difficult to truly represent the citizens from both school districts in Congress. Some of the decisions that get made within the congressional district affect education across the board. Those communities look for leaders that support their decisions, even at the national level. Decisions like gun safety within schools. If the school districts are divided when choosing their representatives, their voices will be diluted. In particular, a large percentage of Douglas County is combined with Jefferson County in the proposed congressional district maps. I think Douglas County’s school districts have very different perspectives than we do about ways to keep kids safe and protected at school. They have the right to representation for their ideas, and we have the right to representation for ours without diluting those very different points of view. I am asking that you try to draw these boundaries so that Jefferson County is not divided and our voices remain unified. I am hoping to see Jefferson County united in the Congressional maps

Thank you for keeping congressional district 4 as agriculturally related as possible. Our congressperson should be able to represent their constituents without being bogged down by non-ag concerns. They would not be able to well represent the interests of cities or front range bedroom communities as they often do not coincide and often run contrary with ag related issues. It seems to me that Washington county should be included in House District 65. Their legislative interests converge with their surrounding counties as does their commerce. The northern portion of the eastern plains should not be divided.

1. Fremont, Teller, and Park don’t belong in the 3rd CD. 2. All mountain resort communities, sharing water, agriculture, economic, and public lands interests should be included 3. The map should be more competitive, not less as proposed in their initial map

See attached letter.

Thank you for letting us communicate to you during this process. This is a very important process in our democracy and vital to equal representation of all citizens. In eastern Colorado, it is of upmost importance to our community to be districted with like minded communities of interest. Agriculture is the heartbeat of our communities. Weld county is the #1 agriculture county in the state and links cities like Greeley to small communities like ours. Douglas county is basically a suburb of Denver and has virtually nothing in common with Eastern Colorado. Cities like Highland Ranch and Castle Rock have no business representing the folks of eastern Colorado. Communities in eastern Colorado are all very similar in life, beliefs, interests and business. Pueblo and Pueblo county are home to the state fair which promote and align with our roots in agriculture. I ask that you take into account the points made above and keep our communities of interest intact. Again, thank you for serving and I look forward to seeing your efforts for equal representation. Kelly Michael, Haxtun, CO

I want to thank the commission for all the time and effort that you have put into this process. I feel your current preliminary maps both Federal and State are good. They seem to do a good job in maintaining geographic continuity. This allows the western slope to maintain common interest in our water rights, oil and gas and general trade issues. I would be against any change to these maps. Thank you