Public Comments

Hello Commissioners I am a resident of Garfield County and a Garfield County Commissioner. I would like to see Garfield County kept in a Congressional District that includes the other Counties of the Western Slope. We are united by an economy that is primarily; tourism, agriculture and natural resources. The one commonality of the Western slope is, water, this is an extremely important issue which includes keeping water on this side of the Continental Divide. In addition all Counties on the Western slope have large percentages of public land holdings in their Counties which affect the health, vitality and economies of these Counties. We need a Congress person who can represent our region and our concerns to the Federal Government. I am strongly opposed to any redistricting that would link Garfield County to front range Counties in particular Larimer and Boulder Counties. We do not have commonalities in geography, industry and culture with the Front Range urban Counties. Thank you, Tom Jankovsky

I am writing to indicate my support of including the city of Longmont in the new CD8. As a 22-year resident of this city, I can attest that it has much more in common with the northern Colorado metropolitan areas than it does with the eastern agricultural areas and the extraction industries that dominate those parts of our state. Longmont has become a new hub of the tech and medical industries and it's representation should reflect that. Please consider my opinion in your decision making. Thank you,

Letter attached for your consideration

My name is Lirva Bean and I am a resident of Routt County near Steamboat Springs. Routt County is for the most part a rural county whose economic drivers are agriculture, tourism and energy. Our activities and lifestyle in a large part revolve around the outdoors all year round. The issues that we are concerned with are in our relationship with the outdoors environment, which includes water rights, the preservation of our mountains and forests, the appropriate use of our lands, and the viability of our wildlife. There are significant differences between our lifestyle and the issues faced by Routt County as compared to the issues faced by the Front Range. The wildlands and forests of Routt County are a significant part of our economic viability which includes agriculture and the ski industry. It is necessary that we maintain access to local water resources which is important for the viability of our communities, our businesses, our agriculture industry and our environment. The wildlife in Routt County attracts outside visitors and tourists which help to maintain the overall viability or our wildlands. The Front Range of Colorado, with several urban communities share very different and distinct concerns from those of our rural communities. We share our values and interests with those of several of our surrounding counties, Moffat, Jackson, Rio Blanco, Garfield and many others on the Western Slope. Our shared values form a community of interest with these surrounding counties and therefore our legislative and congressional representation should strongly reflect this. My husband and I strongly recommend that the redistricting commission maintain the continuity of community of interest with our Western Colorado neighboring counties.

My name is Lirva Bean and I am a resident of Routt County near Steamboat Springs. Routt County is for the most part a rural county whose economic drivers are agriculture, tourism and energy. Our activities and lifestyle in a large part revolve around the outdoors all year round. The issues that we are concerned with are in our relationship with the outdoors environment, which includes water rights, the preservation of our mountains and forests, the appropriate use of our lands, and the viability of our wildlife. There are significant differences between our lifestyle and the issues faced by Routt County as compared to the issues faced by the Front Range. The wildlands and forests of Routt County are a significant part of our economic viability which includes agriculture and the ski industry. It is necessary that we maintain access to local water resources which is important for the viability of our communities, our businesses, our agriculture industry and our environment. The wildlife in Routt County attracts outside visitors and tourists which help to maintain the overall viability or our wildlands. The Front Range of Colorado, with several urban communities share very different and distinct concerns from those of our rural communities. We share our values and interests with those of several of our surrounding counties, Moffat, Jackson, Rio Blanco, Garfield and many others on the Western Slope. Our shared values form a community of interest with these surrounding counties and therefore our legislative and congressional representation should strongly reflect this. My husband and I strongly recommend that the redistricting commission maintain the continuity of community of interest with our Western Colorado neighboring counties.

Thank you Commissioners for allowing me to comment. I am a resident of Longmont, and wish to speak of the community of interest of those of us in the towns of the north Front Range such as Longmont and Greeley. We have rapidly growing suburban developments that are unique in their distance from city-provided services. We are the area most impacted by oil and gas development. We have a major and increasing Latinx, Native American, and other communities which make our area one of the most diverse in the state. North I-25 gives this area a cohesion and a shared focus point, as do the best views of Long's Peak.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to comment on Congressional redistricting. I am Diane Mitsch Bush. I first moved to Routt County, and thus to CD3, in 1976. From 2007 through 2012, I served as a Routt County Commissioner and Chaired the CDOT NW Regional Transportation Planning Commission (NWTPR). From 2007-2012 I was a Board member of Club20. I served as a Colorado State House Representative from 2013-2017, and was Chair of the House Transportation and Energy Committee and Vice-Chair of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. My comments focus on how communities of interest shared by Western Slope rural mountain resort counties are different from communities of interest in Western Slope extraction based counties. The currently configured CD3 includes counties with such different, in some cases opposed, interests that our rural mountain resort communities are not adequately represented in the US House. Rural mountain resort counties have a unique set of economic drivers, public policy concerns and values that are significantly different from those of extraction based Western Slope counties. In some cases, on policy issues like public lands, water conservation, wildlife habitat, and climate change, solutions are diametrically opposed in the two sets of counties. I ask that you group mountain resort counties together as much as possible. Please let me elaborate. Economic drivers and top job sectors are quite different In general all the mountain rural resort counties top 3 job sectors are accommodation and food services, retail, and healthcare and social assistance. For some of the counties, arts, entertainment and recreation are in the top 3, and for others real estate and construction make the top 3 job sectors. In contrast key jobs sectors for Western Slope counties like Moffat, Rio Blanco and Mesa are extraction, construction, health services, sales and retail. This basic difference in the job market and economy leads to differences on policy and values. Policy and Issues differ considerably between the rural mountain resort counties and the more extraction based counties making representation of these two sets of counties difficult if they are in the same Congressional District Policy and Issues Water conservation. Routt, Eagle, Pitkin, Lake, Summit and Gunnison all highly value keeping our rivers free flowing and pristine and in their basin of origin. There are many community organizations in these counties dedicated to preserving our watersheds. Municipal and county governments have polices to conserve water. Wildfire and Drought The current drought started for mountain resort counties, many of which are headwaters counties for major tributaries of the Colorado River, in 2002. With levels in Lake Mead at record lows as of last week, we have a crisis. Wildfires in the mountain counties have become more frequent and more deadly since 2002 as the drought has worsened. At the same time, we now have many more homes in the wildland urban interface- the WUI. There appears to be a major policy difference been the mountain resort counties and the extraction-based counties on the Western Slope on how best to deal with drought and wildfire on both public and private lands. Tackling climate change and targeting interventions for fuel reduction are favored by the mountain counties, while the extraction counties have not seen climate change as a central issue here and have favored more clear-cutting and less targeting of the WUI. Both the BLM and other bureaus within the Department of Interior and the USFS are key players in potential solutions. Public Lands Having whole, intact public lands is a key for outdoor manufacturing (a growing, dynamic industry that creates good paying jobs), outdoor retail, guiding and outfitting, tourism in general and ski area tourism in particular, all of which are big economic drivers in the rural mountain resort counties. In contrast, mineral extraction is seen as the key value of public lands in Western slope counties that rely primarily on extraction such as Moffat, Rio Blanco, and Mesa Methane and oil/ gas development on public lands Surveys, public forums, and letters to Editors of local newspapers show that the majority of people in rural mountain resort communities oppose more oil and gas development on public lands and want strict methane rules. The opposite policy preferences hold in extraction-based counties. Climate change action Overwhelming majorities of people in rural mountain resort counties believe that climate change exists and that we must deal with it now. Towns and counties in rural mountain resort areas have taken bold steps to lower GHG emissions. Ski companies have been particularly active, since their industry is so affected by lack of snow, which leads to drought. Family ranchers in mountain resort counties have worked hard on climate solutions, for agriculture, water and for wildlife habitat preservation. Climate action is not such a key priority in other Western Slope, extraction-based counties. Affordable Housing The gap between locally prevailing wages and available housing has plagued rural mountain resort communities since at least the 1990’s. Lack of housing that is affordable at the prevailing wage levels has made it difficult for small businesses to attract and keep employees. Additionally, teachers, nurses, firefighters, and law enforcement officers are hard to recruit and especially difficult to retain due to lack of affordable housing. This has not been a longstanding key policy issue in extraction-based economies in other western slope areas like Moffat, Rio Blanco, and Mesa. All the mountain rural resort counties face serious problems due more generally to the gap between locally prevailing wages and the cost of living from housing, to childcare, to food, to health insurance/care and more. Federal help is essential. Health insurance and health care The mountain resort counties have the dubious distinction of having the highest health insurance premiums in the country. While they also have high quality clinics and hospitals, many employed people do not have coverage through the workplace, and small businesses struggle with providing health insurance to employees. Transportation needs and funding Mountain resort counties are extremely reliant on I-70 and on help with local transit and trails, in addition to roads and bridges. Many mountain resort communities strongly support and need multi-modal transportation funding. There is less support in extraction-based counties for transit and trails and more emphasis on roads and bridges Family Agriculture is a critical part of our heritage in mountain resort counties. Helping family ranches and farms stay on the land and preserving productive agriculture has been a major policy emphasis in all the mountain resort counties since the 1990’s. More recently, farm to table and farm to school programs have grown, helping family farms with new markets and educating young people about nutrition and where their food comes from. Likewise agritourism has emerged as an important element of tourism in the mountain resort counties. Arts and historical preservation have likewise become an important element in our tourism economies. These have a synergy with Ag tourism As you can see, the needs and interests of rural mountain resort counties are not just different from extraction-based counties, but opposed on key federal policies and issues. Please do try to draw a map that puts mountain resort counties together as communities of interest as much as possible given the other Constitutional requirements and that does not group extraction based counties with mountain resort counties. Thank you for all your dedication and hard work.

I live in Lafayette and I hope that Lafayette will remain in CD2 which includes most of Boulder County now. As you know, the cost of living is so high in Boulder that most young families cannot afford to live there. So we head east to Lafayette, one of several bedroom communities to Boulder, and our hearts remain in Boulder county where we support and enjoy the many educational, cultural, recreational, and business opportunities. As you know, current CD2 Representative Joe Neguse lives in Lafayette. We are a diverse, growing community. I hope we may remain in CD2 with most of the rest of BoCo.

June 12, 2021 Dear Colorado Independent Congressional and Legislative Redistricting Commissioners: United for a New Economy (UNE) is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization that envisions vibrant, strong communities where all community members have a voice in the decisions that impact them, access to security; which includes affordable housing and good jobs, and the ability to live free of racism and fear. Specifically, our work is centered on the issues of housing, economic security, immigration, and racial justice across our chapters in Aurora, Commerce City, Westminster, and Unincorporated Adams County. As you go about the process of developing and considering preliminary congressional and state legislative maps, we wanted to provide you information about the community UNE works with in Adams County. Our work is centered on advocacy geared toward how members of our community are impacted by federal and state legislative action regarding issues such as access to safe and affordable housing. For context, the community we work with most is the Latino community which makes up over 40% of the population in Adams County, according to estimates from the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. In addition, UNE also engages voters from the Black, Asian and Native American Community in Adams county. Records from the Census Bureau show that African Americans make up 3.7% of the population in Adams County and that Asians make up 3.2% of the population. Due to the housing boom in the Denver-Metro area, many families have been moving to the suburbs to find more affordable places to live, but unfortunately the suburbs are now reaching the point of unaffordability. Across Adams County, we are working with individuals and families who are displaced due to rising housing costs. Our members are focused on advocating for local renter’s rights policies to include: translated leases, mandatory receipts as well as a free legal clinic to ensure members of our community have access to the resources necessary to access affordable housing. In addition to the lack of renter’s rights in the state, there are also very few options for families searching for dignified and affordable places to live. Our members are also fighting for an affordable housing trust fund which would include a community advisory board to allow for thoughtful community engagement and that prioritizes low income and extremely low income residents and projects aimed at serving residents within that income range. These issues rose up from community members speaking out about what mattered most to them, what issues were impacting them the most, and what they believed could be done to truly make changes in their community. Our membership is composed of a diverse set of homeowners and renters alike as well as parents and students across Adams County who see a need for justice in their communities. We urge you to consider this community as you go about developing preliminary maps. Adams County - specifically West Adams county - is composed of significant communities of interest that are not only subject to federal legislative action, but also live with the outcome of that federal legislative action. As this community continues to grow, it requires opportunities for representation that reflects the community and its needs. Thanks for your time and consideration. Carmen Medrano, Executive Director, United for a New Economy

I am simply requesting that the lines encompassing CD4 be fairly drawn. That would be fair and democratic.