Public Comments

It is a huge mistake to include part of Boulder County in with the Western Slope district. We here in Jamestown work in Boulder and are connected to Boulder County. We have no connection to the Western Slope. The needs of people on the Western Slope are different from our needs here in Boulder County. To have a Congressperson from the Western Slope represent us is not fair to us. I extremely disagree with part of Boulder County included in withe the Western Slope and this is doing a big disservice to us. Please change this and put is back with the rest of Boulder County!

This is a transcript of the comments I gave in person at the Steamboat meeting on July 23: "I am Lindsay Wert and live in a rural part of Routt County south of Steamboat Springs. I appreciate your attention to this important task and thank you for all the work. I agree with the sentiment of many of the others here that we have few interests in common with the distant counties of the Front Range. I believe the populace of the Front Range, for the most part, do not understand the needs of Western Colorado. Water policy and wolf re-introduction are notable recent and ongoing examples of this. CD3 as planned does group us together with a number of key commonalities, including water, wildlife, living in a natural environment, and outdoor recreation to name a few. While CD3 is large, its diversity is part of its strength. There are a number of resort communities throughout CD3, including Telluride, Cortez, Durango in the South, Fruita, Crested Butte, Paonia, Glenwood, Vail, Salida, and Aspen in the middle, Steamboat, Granby, and Winter Park in the North, along with smaller resort areas throughout. These are all surrounded by rural, mountain, energy, and agricultural areas, which are certainly a part of what makes the resorts attractive. Consider if the populace of an urban area surrounded a town like Steamboat – say a million residents – would it continue to be attractive? Our interests are both for the rural and recreational lifestyles. To believe the aspects of any community can be so limited that we can choose a patchwork district is fallacy – for example, while gravel pits are not always pretty, we all need one that is not too distant. Steamboat is a desirable place to live, which drives many of the challenges. A good example would be affordable housing – supply and demand. We are distant from communities to the south and east – an hour over the pass to Kremmling and 1 ½ hours minimum to everywhere else. Our challenges can be more effectively solved by our common interests with closer counties to the West and improved transportation – how about rail transportation on existing infrastructure from Craig to Oak Creek and beyond? After all, a large volume of people commute from Craig to Steamboat every day, and many of those are effectively disenfranchised because they work in one district and live in another. Speaking of disenfranchisement, our entire county chooses all three of our commissioners, and with the bulk of the population in Steamboat, many in other parts of the county are already disenfranchised. With the impending reduction of mining activity and repurposing of power plants, Moffat is also looking more to tourism and recreation to fill the gap, making a common interest with Routt. Meeker is also an emerging recreation center with those common interests. I strongly advocate for the preliminary plan you have put forward as sensible, geographically compact, and cohesive in interests. Thank you for hearing my comments."

Please reconsider Senate Dist. 8 proposal: Upon review of the proposed House and Senate redistricting maps concerning Archuleta County, ("AC")pairing AC with La Plata County in Dist. No. 52 is the most appropriate plan as set in the House proposed map. However, the Senate map places Archuleta County in Senate District 8 which primarily encompasses the expansive San Luis Valley, (SLV"). Archuleta County and the San Luis Valley do not share many of the same interests that would need to be addressed by our elected representatives. First, AC is on the western side of the continental divide. To get over to the San Luis Valley, one must travel on US Hwy 160 over Wolf Creek Pass (which regularly receives the most snowfall of anywhere in CO). During approx. 7 months of the year, this means heavy snow potential, dangerous conditions, etc. Being on separate sides of the Continental Divide also means that the watersheds are completely separate. AC's watershed is the San Luis Mountain Range, with its rivers flowing into the Colorado River, and off to the west. SLV's watershed is the Rio Grande Range, with waters flowing east into the Rio Grande, and continuing down to Texas, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. Whoever represents these varying water interests for the State of CO will, I suspect, be called upon more and more as time goes on, and water increasingly becomes one of the most important issues by competing interests of individuals, ranchers, towns, and states. Water rights issues may well become a significant issue residents must call upon their representatives to address. Second, as a former mediator who practiced in both the San Luis Valley and AC, I found that the economies of each area are significantly different. AC is a mountain town with its primary economic activity based on tourism. SLV is a large valley which has significantly greater economic reliance on agriculture. The large city of Alamosa, also has very little in common with the economic/political interests of the mountain town of Pagosa Springs and AC. AC is much more aligned with the mountain town of Durango than the larger town of Alamosa in the SLV. Also, as a mediator, I had to restrict the times in the year that I would practice in the SLV due to weather. I would not schedule any mediations between the months of late November until April. The geographic barrier between AC and SLV is real and precludes in many ways the two communities sharing similar economic and political issues. Third, as a resident of CO since 2007, and having first lived in La Plata County, I know first-hand that people living in Pagosa Springs travel and visit Durango often. We "run errands" in Durango; Durango is where many, many residents of AC have their doctor appointments; Durango is where people can go shopping for items not found in Pagosa Springs. I've never heard of anyone saying they're going over to Alamosa to see if they can get something they cannot find in AC. However, it is commonplace throughout any time of the year for people in AC to say they're going to Durango for the day. Durango is 60 miles away, while Alamosa is 90 miles away, and as stated, is not accessible for much of the year. Fourth, there are many social and non-profit activities where both residents of AC and La Plata County are involved. Some examples include Music in the Mountains, Community Fund of Southwest CO, skiers using both Wolf Creek ski area and Purgatory, Daughters of the American Revolution (whose chapter encompasses both AC and LaPlata County). There are many, many others. Finally, a review of the current proposed Senate districting map shows that a population goal of around 165,000 is the desired approach. However, I see that #34 is proposed to have a population of 221,892, which seems extremely out of balance compared to the remaining districts. If Chaffee County is moved from #34 to #8, this would reduce #34 to 201,310 (still out of balance, but less so). If AC is moved to #7 from #8, this would increase #7 to 179,543 (greater than 165,000, but still not as high as #34). And, if the partial Delta County currently in #7 is moved to be with the remaining Delta County in #6, this would decrease #7 to 157,433 (less than 165,000, but balance out the imbalance of #34 somewhat). Also, in #8, Hinsdale and Mineral County both have more affinity interests, including political and geographical with AC, and I believe both of these counties should remain in the same district with AC. (E.g., San Juan Public Health District, with hospital and clinic in AC; sheriff MOU's for service, etc.). If #8 is reduced by removing AC and Mineral Counties, and increased by adding Chaffee County, the final population total for #8 would be 172,347. The population totals for #7, with removal of partial Delta County, and adding AC and Mineral County would be 158,210. At any rate, it is not doubt a difficult task to align the geographic interests of the counties in CO; but I think it is more important to keep our communities with shared interests aligned together than keeping focused on an "equal" number based on populations. Thank you for the hard work that you all are doing!

My "home" is part of a very large, active bunch of senior voters here at Wind Crest Senior Living. We are watching the current work done to redistrict and see that we would be split between District 22 and District 33. This would be very difficult for us as we meet together regularly and are kept up to date with all political activities. Thank you for keeping us in one district.

I am writing as a resident of the Wind Crest retirement community in Highlands Ranch in Douglas County. Our community is of seniors who live, eat and do activities together throughout our gated community. The most recent community map splits our community into two districts, viz. District 22 and District 33, by using the Highline Canal Trail. Our community is one of the most active voting communities in Colorado. Having our community divided in two districts would create confusion among a group of voters who are and want to continue to be engaged in political activities. Also, you may not be aware that while our community currently has a population of between 1500 and 1600, it expects to grow to over 2,000, within the next year. I request that you keep Wind Crest within one district. Thank you! Charles Nadler

Simply Hogwash

I live at Wind Crest Retirement Center in Highlands Ranch. Our community straddles the HighLine Canal. The preliminary district map would split our community between Districts 22 and 33. That makes no sense. We should as a community all be in one district. Being split would cause confusion among our residents and make a mess of having representives visiting our campus and duplicate the efforts of our very active Democrat and Republican committees. Please keep Wind Crest in one district. Thank you.

My name is Shannon Lukens and I am the News Director for seven radio stations across Routt County and Moffat County. Five newscasts focus on Steamboat and Routt County. Two newscasts focus on the Craig community, and also Moffat and Rio Blanco Counties. My newscasts air 49 times a day on these seven stations. Both newscasts focus on these communities, which are very wonderful, but very different. Moffat County is primarily a ranching and agriculture community, which I see each summer at the Moffat County Fair. From the 2017 Census of Agriculture, Moffat County has 462 farms for 953,100 acres. The Livestock inventory for the end of 2017 was 93,557 head of livestock for 13,283 residents. The livestock includes a lot of cattle, sheep, lamb, goats, horses, and a few turkeys. Routt County’s people population is 25,638. The number of livestock in Routt County is 43,562. That’s less than half of Moffat County’s. What Routt County has is two ski areas. Howelsen Hill was founded in 1914 and is the longest continuously operating ski area in North America. Steamboat Resort fired up its lifts in January of 1963. The ranching community of Steamboat was soon going to turn into a world-class ski resort. The Arnold’s Dairy Farm is now the Meadows Parking Lot where everyone parks for skiing, and the Arnold barn is on Mt. Werner Road. Steamboat Springs has a huge tourism base. I’m also on the Steamboat Springs Chamber Marketing Committee, and it is very easy to market Steamboat to people all over the world, for our ski mountain, our bike trails, our hiking trails, and hot springs pools. Steamboat has 98 Olympic athletes who have called Routt County home. Another huge difference in the communities is housing. There isn’t enough employee housing or affordable housing in Steamboat Springs for the work force, just like Eagle County. Through May 31 per Land title: • Average cost of a single-family home in Routt County $1,616,102 • In Moffat County, (from the Craig Assoc. of Realtors) the average cost of a single-family home is $257,656. • The difference in home price for the two communities is $1,358,446 for a single-family home. • Average cost of a condo or townhome in Routt County is $739,758 • The average cost of condo or townhome in Moffat County is $94,938. The communities are hugely different. Just because we are neighbors doesn’t make us the same. Routt County needs to be with like-minded communities that have heavy tourism, like Vail, which would be Eagle County. Issues for a ski area community is also climate change, in addition to affordable housing. Communities of interest need to be together. This way, the right representative can accurately represent their constituents in the state legislature. Please, continue to incorporate Routt County into a district with Eagle County, like it is now, since these two counties are communities of interest. Thank you.

As a resident of Arvada, I am dismayed to learn of the redistricting plan to sever my city from its close neighbors in Jefferson County: Golden, Wheat Ridge, Lakewood, Edgewater and Westminster. These cities are not just linked by geographic proximity; we share our school district, library system, transportation services, water resources, legal system, recreation and open space, and much more. Our city leaders also work cooperatively together on regional issues. All of this makes us a community of shared interests - a relationship that Arvada does not at all share with cities to the east like Brighton, Ft. Lupton, Firestone, or Platteville. Please keep Arvada and Jefferson County intact as a voting district, so that we may vote with a unified voice on our shared interests. This will keep our communities stronger and more connected.

Routt county is more than an elite ski area. Please keep the western slope whole. thank you