Public Comments

Whenever you misidentify a problem, the solution(s) generated will be ineffective or sometimes make the problem worse. You've misidentified the biggest issue with redrawing maps in Colorado. There is no practical manner not to pick winners and losers when you redraw Single Member District maps. The only way to complete abolish the possibility of Gerrymandering and districts that favor one branch of the Cartel over the other, is to do away with Single Member Districts, and adopt Multi Member Districts. Single Member Districts (SMD’s) concentrate power in one individual who supposedly represents all points of view in his/her district. SMD’s lead to “One Party Dominant” government, often for decades. 82% of Colorado counties are One Party Dominant" counties. Only the two Cartel ideologies allegedly represent everyone in every state. SMD’s frequently block all minorities (ethnic, ideology, race, religion, social class) from representation and participation in individual districts. SMD’s lead to Gerrymandering. SMD’s lead to targeted dark money campaigns in swing districts. SMD’s create barriers to entry for candidates, limiting voter choice. SMD’s used in combination with First Past the Post, create possible “Spoiler Effect” elections. Please write a report about public comments at the end of your design process. In it, please note that at least some of the comments called for updating our archaic 18th C. form of democracy, to the 19th or 20th C., to Proportional Representation in Multi Member Districts.

Dear Independent Redistricting Commission. I have created my own map for your consideration: https://davesredistricting.org/join/e4c6eba5-5b2b-4c1c-a24f-14f7ff921b0c Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are all pretty similar to your draft proposal though I have made a few modifications to each. However, I have greatly reconfigured 6, 7, and 8 to better reflect communities of interest in the Denver metro area because I believe the preliminary map does a poor job of this. In my map, District 6 consists of most of the suburbs in Adams County, northeast Denver, most of Aurora, and a few towns in southern Weld. This district would have a substantial Hispanic/Latino population. District 7 would include most of the inner suburbs in Jeffco plus Westminster, Broomfield, Todd Creek, and northern Thornton. This would be fairly similar to the existing District 7. District 8 would then include most inner suburbs in Araphoe county, Columbine, southern Aurora, all of Douglas county, and northern Teller county. This district would be competitive. In 2020, Biden would have won the district by 3 points in the presidential race while Gardner would have won it by 3 points in the Senate race, showing that candidates of both parties can be competitive here.

Routt County is currently grouped with Moffat, Garfield, and Rio Blanco Counties in the preliminary district mapping. I have lived in both Routt County and Rio Blanco County. The concerns and issues important to residents really couldn't be any different. Routt County is a resort county with a ranching / agricultural basis. Its biggest issues relate to housing for local employees, careful growth, and environmental preservation. Rio Blanco (and Moffat and Garfield) are energy producing / ranching / agricultural counties with no resort component. These counties have long term residents. Energy development is of high interest to these residents. High quality health care, although important to everyone, is especially an issue for some of the rural communities. Agriculture and ranching, although present in Routt County, is much more dominant in the other three counties. I encourage the commission to move Routt County into a district with a more resort focus, such as the one that includes Eagle County.

Eagle County, which includes Vail and Beaver Creek, is a tourism county - with I-70 running through the Eagle Valley portion. Basalt and El Jebel are also part of the county on the Roaring Fork Valley side. Our county is magnificent, with many outdoor activities available; skiing, fishing, hiking, camping, biking and golf. These opportunities along with the incredible beauty make it a much desired location for second home owners and this creates huge issues for available affordable housing inventory - the demand pushes prices up, isolates dwelling units from renters and limits locals potential to afford homes of their own. Climate change is having an impact on the duration of and strength of our winters - and snow is essential to our economic viability. Attracting young professionals is very difficult due to the cost of housing (if any is to be found), availability and affordability of day care and quality of our schools. Managing and protecting public lands; trails, back country, rivers and more is important as they are highly popular and used to death. Many of our neighboring counties have similar concerns and issues. Eagle, Summit, Pitkin, Routt, Ouray, San Miguel and La Plata counties are all primarily tourism economies, with huge demand for second homes for visitors - creating the problems I highlighted above. There are vast differences between the needs and issues that face these counties versus those for rural counties like Mesa for instance. Why not keep the voting base comfortable by creating like community districts - rural, ranching, farming, lower cost of living, more service jobs, less public land etc. vs. resort, seasonal business, high cost of living and housing, high demand from outside of area home purchasers, employee resource challenges, seasonality of jobs etc? The eventual representatives then for these districts would not have to adopt a split personality in Washington - advocating for issues on one side of the benefit column that are contrary to the needs and desires of a large portion of their geography and constituents. I'm trying to come up with a good example - the priorities for action are so different - Resort communities would prioritize action on protecting public lands (our bread and butter), transportation solutions, climate change priorities (so it keeps snowing!) and Mesa County doesn't have these same issues, so would be opposed to funding for them. With rural county's lower cost of living, child care and housing will be much more affordable and available (as the employees at the facilities can afford to live in their own communities too!). It seems as though the primary objectives with any new state or federal district divisions should be to combine areas that DO have shared interests and policy concerns, geographic challenges and benefits and even economic demographics. The average price of a home in resort communities is more than double (or more) the price of a home in the rural communities. Political demographics may change over time - although this is usually a slow process if it happens at all, but the economic drivers and public policy issues for areas stay the same. The best approach in my opinion is to keep, to the greatest degree possible, like communities with like communities - the eventual representatives will therefore more closely align with their constituents priorities and needs, and many more people will be happy with the outcome.

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As a politically active person in Adams County, it is very important for many reasons for our county to remain in one Congressional District. The county should be kept whole or as close to whole as possible.

The importance of county and racial representation that is fair to the population of the different areas of the state/clubry & cities.

"Mr. Chairman/Madam Chair, commission members." My name is Tom Kelley and I thank you for the opportunity to speak to the redistricting commissions. I have lived in Colorado for more than 25 years, in Golden, in Lakewood and, at present, in Arvada. During these years my wife and I worked and raised our family. Our children now have families of their own and we are retired. Our experiences living in Colorado never left a doubt in our mind that this is where we wanted to retire. The redistricting is important to our future as well as our children & grandchildren’s future. So, it is important that I share some observations with you concerning the redistricting results so far. The preliminary redistricting results seem to have focused on making the districts competitive and not so much on them being, compact, contiguous, and preserving communities of shared interests. I would like to focus on the ‘communities of shared interest’ aspect. For the proposed congressional district, Arvada has been divided from rest of Jeffco and combined with NW Adams County, Broomfield, and SW Weld. We have lost our shared interests of transportation corridors, judicial district, medical facilities, library and school districts. Arvada has interests in common with Jefferson County, much more so than with Adams or Weld This is also the case for the new senate districts containing Arvada. Arvada is divided into N-S pieces and north is combined with Westminster, Shaw Heights, and Northglenn, which means a small piece of Jeffco would join a district almost entirely within Adams County. Arvada and Jeffco are important Communities of Interest. North Arvada shares far more with South Arvada and with the Westminster part of Jeffco, than we will ever share with other parts of Adams County. As noted before: Jeffco Schools, JeffComm emergency communications network, Intergovernmental Agreements, Library System, Arvada Fire Protection District., Public Health (JCPH and Tri-County serve quite different communities), Judicial Districts. With all this in mind, please keep Arvada within districts that make sense for the shared community. Our children & grandchildren will thank you for your insight and wisdom.

Thank you, Commissioners, for serving on the Redistricting Commissions. My name is Karen Tonso. Over the last 53 years, I have lived in Golden, in central Lakewood, in north Lakewood almost in Wheat Ridge, and now live in the north Arvada part of Jeffco. These communities straddle I-70 and US285 and are the Gateway to the Mountains. Our shared transportation infrastructure and myriad of service interests lobby to keep them together. Looking at the State Senate and Congressional District maps: they do not make sense to a long-time resident of this area… primarily because they do not preserve important Communities of Interest. I came to testify to help you get the boundaries right in my area, in the hope that the Commission could better address the Community of Interest redistricting criterion which requires recognizing “a reasonably proximate population” sharing major public policy interests. In particular, Arvada and the Jeffco portion of Westminster should NOT be separated from the rest of Arvada in the case of the Senate district, or from Wheat Ridge, Golden, Morrison, and Lakewood and the mountain communities in the Congressional District. We share far too much and North Jeffco’s voice will be diminished in policy matters if this small part of Jeffco were lopped off and combined with a mostly Adams County state Senate District and with suburbs on either side of I-25 in the Congressional District. In answering a question from Commissioner Leone, I stated that Arvada and the Jeffco part of Westminster are western suburbs. We look west. We do not qualify as a northern suburb, because we are too far from I-25, which is what provides access to Adams County northern suburbs. In fact, our routes to I-25 overwhelmingly send us driving to the southeast, not toward the northeast where CD8 is envisioned on the preliminary maps. In Jeffco we share a large school district, a Judicial District, our Mental Health Center services, our County Public Health Agency, our Library special district, St Anthony’s and Lutheran Hospitals, and our many intergovernmental agreements across the municipalities. All speak to the myriad of shared interests in this community. In the last year Jeffco districts and interests conflicted dramatically with those of Adams County particularly with regard to schooling, law enforcement, judicial practices, and public health. We have different perspectives, and each county deserves representation for its needs. And in the proposed CD7 redistricting, Jeffco communities of interest have far more in common with western Arapaho County, than with Douglas County. In answering a question from Commissioner Moore: My only collaboration with Douglas County came when I supported their Sheriff and a few residents on a legislative issue related to reducing gun violence in schools and domestic violence, an issue where I have expertise and experiences. Furthermore, dividing Arvada overlooks that we have one Fire Protection District. Our police force is second to none in the state, and our support of them depends on our not being divided from the rest of the city in State Senate and Congressional districts. Thus, in the State Senate map, I strongly urge you to unify Arvada and to keep the part of Westminster that is also in Jeffco in the same district. I recommend beginning the SD19 redistricting by starting with the current district map and making minor adjustments to account for census numbers. In the Congressional map, I urge you to keep Arvada and the Jeffco portion of Westminster together with Golden, Wheat Ridge, Morrison, and Lakewood, as well as with western Jeffco mountain regions along US285 and I-70. These are the communities where Arvadans affiliate and where we collectively lobby for transportation infrastructure and outdoor activities . Such an approach honors the geographic realities (such as the creeks, rivers, and canyons that run from west to east/southeast which historically defined our transportation corridors), and the service interests that flow via Jeffco. Drawing the dividing lines to maintain compact, competitive, contiguous districts need not overshadow the similarly important Community of Interest criterion.

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