Public Comments

I feel that the districting lines should basically run vertical which their being a western slope, a front range and and eastern plains. I have lived in the western slope for 28 years and our western heritage and rural way of life is quickly eroding. Most of us have chosen to live in these areas for a certain way of life. I chose to live In The mountains to be away from the big city, it’s way of life and it’s values. I like the smaller town and western heritage and do not think people that live in Denver or Ft Collins should be making decisions on what affect me. They have no idea what goes on in the western slope and over voices would be silenced as we don’t have the population amount like the front range, thank goodness. Thank you.

I formerly served as the City Attorney for the City & County of Denver. In that role, I was aware of and involved in Denver’s intergovernmental dealings with both the State of Colorado and the federal government. I’m fairly certain that, since my time as City Attorney, the intergovernmental issues have changed in degree, not in substance. However, my experience tells me Denver is its own community of interest. Besides meeting the Colorado Constitution’s new standard for a “community of interest” as it pertains to legislative issues that relate to a district, the Colorado Supreme Court’s practical assessment reminds us why this is so important for a Member of Congress. First, “if a discrete and unique issue is placed in one district, that representative may familiarize herself with the complexities of the issue and the stakeholders it affects.” Hall v. Moreno, 270 P.3d 961, 971 (Colo. 2012). That seems self-evident, but Members need to be able to focus on localized issues. Second, “if the issue is of especially unique importance to her district, she may use a portion of her limited resources to designate a member of her staff to focus exclusively on the issue.” Id. As is often the case in state and local government, staff makes the Congressional world go round. A Member’s staff is able to study and follow up for his or her boss in ways that can pay great dividends for constituents. And third, “the importance of this unique issue to this one district will enable the representative to become the face of the issue for Colorado, which should automatically provide her with a seat at the table to represent the needs and desires of the people of Colorado within any greater national debate.” Id. at 971-72. In other words, identifying localized issues allows a Member to develop just the kind of substantive clout that can make the difference in Congress. I’d like to give a couple of examples so you can see that the Supreme Court’s assessment wasn’t just an academic observation. When federally funded programs or projects are implemented at the local level, the partnership between local officials and the district’s congressperson allows for progress. A mayor or county commissioner will provide notice of local needs to the district’s representative at the federal level, and a responsive congressperson will go all out to provide a meaningful response. For instance, Denver’s homelessness problem is acute, affecting more than 4,000 people in the City today. Denver’s Mayor, Michael Hancock, worked with Denver’s Congresswoman, Diana DeGette, to look for solutions. As a result, they announced just last month that they were pursuing federal funding of $2 million to purchase a downtown hotel and convert it to permanent housing for more than 150 homeless Denverites. https://www.denvergov.org/Government/Departments/Department-of-Housing-Stability/News/DeGette-Hancock-push-for-federal-funds-to-help-Denver%E2%80%99s-homeless Without the federal funds, this project is likely to go nowhere. With that money, this project can start to change lives. One might think that Denver’s problems, such as homelessness, are necessarily the region’s problems. That’s not the case. In fact, last summer, when there was civil unrest in downtown Denver around the State Capitol, the 16th Street Mall, and surrounding areas including those that contain offices such as our federal courts and offices such as the Social Security Administration, one prominent suburban politician (elected from Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert, and Lincoln Counties) jumped onto social media and said: “If you live outside of #Denver, how happy are you tonight to live outside of Denver?” This message drives home that, as to some of our most pressing problems, Denver really must be its own advocate. Another example that makes this same point is the funding that congresspeople secure for airports. Congressman Lamborn helped get $10 million for the Colorado Springs Airport, noting that “The Colorado Springs Airport is a vital asset for the Fifth Congressional District.” https://gazette.com/news/u-s-rep-doug-lamborn-says-colorado-springs-airport-getting-10-million-from-trump-administration/article_42e384c1-c9d5-5744-b185-58eb27132863.html Congressman Buck secured $5 million for the Wray Airport as well, saying “Air travel is essential to our way of life on the eastern plains of Colorado.” https://buck.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/us-department-transportation-grant-awarded-wray-municipal-airport When Denver International Airport competes for federal funding, it obviously doesn’t depend on the congresspeople who are seeking the same federal funds for projects inside of their districts. It turns to Denver’s representative in Congress who is the most effective advocate for federal monies that affect DIA’s safety as well as the transportation improvements that are made necessary only because DIA is in the City & County of Denver. I understand that commissioners are considering the notion that Denver is just part of a big urban, Front Range community of interest. The northern Front Range counties have been evidently been referred to as one “megalopolis.” While one would like to think that the metro area’s issues – both opportunities and problems – are an “all for one, one for all” scenario, that’s just not the way things actually work . Don’t undermine Denver’s ability to pursue solutions to what become its singular federal interests. Keep Denver whole (or as much of it as is possible to meet your one person/one vote mandate) as its own community of interest. Not only does that meet the Constitution’s mandate for keeping certain jurisdictions together within one district, it also meets the new constitutional standard for a community of interest, namely a group that has common legislative aims. Thank you for considering these comments.

Thank you Colorado Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission staff and commissioners for your consideration of my public comment on communities of interest. My name is Bianka Enriquez Estrada and I am a resident of Brighton. My comments are intended to provide you information as you develop a preliminary Congressional map. Amendments Y & Z define a community of interest as “any group in Colorado that shares one or more substantial interests that may be subject to federal legislative action” and that “groups that may comprise a community of interest include racial, ethnic and language minority groups.” I want to share with you more about my community of interest in Brighton, Colorado and Adams County. Adams County has been home for my family and I for over 15 years, from first living in Northglenn to now living in Brighton. I have witnessed the growth of the Latino community over the years and how my family has been able to establish our roots in this part of the metro area. Adams county is where I attended high school, which led to my ability to attend college and receive a Bachelor's degree in Psychology. Growing up here, my family used many community resources like food banks, low cost clinics, english classes at the local community center, among many other resources that created the foundation for my family to succeed. Even now, access to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine in our neighborhood was critical to ensuring we could safely return to normal. All of these resources have been geared toward ensuring latinos in our community can thrive. The latino community in Adams County is over 40% of the county’s population, and projected to continue to grow in the coming years. Ultimately, my hope is that your takeaway from my public comment is that the Latino community in Adams County isn’t just growing, but this is where we are planting our roots in part because this is where we can afford to live, this is where are jobs are located, and this is where many of the most important resources we access are located. As Denver continues to be less and less affordable, the Latino community is growing here in Brighton and in other places across the county including Commerce City, Thornton, and even in areas outside of the county such as southwest Weld County. Please ensure that our Latino community is considered as a community of interest and is adequately reflected and represented in your preliminary and final plan. Thank you for your time and consideration. Bianka Enriquez Estrada

Hello members of the Colorado Legislative and Congress Redistricting committees. Thank you for reading my concerns regarding the making of new district maps. My name is Janice Brown and I have been a resident of Arapahoe County for 68 years. Over this time I have seen the area shift and change drastically, but especially within the last ten years due to rapid population growth in the Denver Metro area. With news of a new Congressional district in Colorado, I believe it is incredibly important to start drawing lines in the metro areas of the state. Primarily to ensure that the rapidly shifting neighborhoods and constantly expanding populations are equally represented.

I am very concerned that Colorado's urban populations be fairly represented in this redistricting. While rural Colorado is the historic favorite to determine redistricting, the urban areas of Colorado, particularly those in the Denver metro region, have experienced enormous growth and should be treated with responsible accuracy as to how districts are drawn. In addition, you should consider the partisan competitiveness of the new districts so that one party is not favored over another.

Please do NOT use county divisions nor preserve the old (some VERY old) districting/legislative lines. These divisions are literally that - breaking up communities completely (often in literal pieces with our neighbors) - especially here in SW Weld County where I live. I have lived in and out of Weld County for over 37 years (I am currently in Dacono for the last seven). The current districting breaks up towns and cities (Erie and Longmont being two examples) and it also strips away the voices of communities of interest by burying them within VAST geographical areas with a plethora of issues that are often not the same for every community. The needs of people living within my town of Dacono are often not exactly aligned with Sterling, for example, even though we are both small towns. Nor are they the same as Greeley - which is far enough away that it is not often utilized by community members nor faces the same issues due to location and size. We have more in common with the cities and towns of Longmont, Frederick, Erie, and Firestone where our communities are actually located (and where we shop, socialize, have neighbors, family and friends, etc.). Also, there is the matter of protecting the rights and giving voice to communities of color and diversity which have been purposefully buried by districting practices in Colorado since before we were even a state. Some current districting follows territorial lines which is ridiculous for our modern age and current size and diversity. This is of particular interest here in Dacono where old Dacono was basically a "company town" where mining workers lived and descendants are still here to this day. We still have rural needs with farming operations. Plus we have a large and rapidly growing community of workers that commute to Longmont, Boulder, and Denver. The needs of all our people are vastly different from the needs of Weld as a whole and yet our voices are lost within current districting. To the truth of so many who don't even bother to vote on important ballot issues with direct effects on our communities. They know from experience living here that their votes will be irrelevant within often huge and weirdly broken up geographical spaces. We are also buried by special interest groups lobbying for the wants of corporations within these vast geographical areas that often have very little bearing on the majority of our local community and day-to-day needs. Burying our voices within a much larger "company town". Please, please helps us celebrate our diversity and continue to grow our community with representation that can truly speak for us: by redistricting based on community NOT county - representatives that live and work and face the same issues within our ACTUAL community instead of miles and miles away.

As a member of Chaffee County I the desire to be grouped with more similar counties with more similar interests, and request we are included in the Third Congressional District (CD3) and within House District 61 (HD61) and remain in Senate District (SD5) boundaries. We have much more in common with proximate mountain counties including Lake, Pitkin, Eagle, and Gunnison that share our core economic drivers like tourism, outdoor recreation, and production ag and also share our priority needs like affordable housing, greater healthcare and childcare options and equity of access, land conservation and stewardship-driven policy addressing forest and watershed issues, and infrastructure improvements like broadband and roads. CD3 & HD61 seem better aligned for us with communities of shared interests

-I have lived in Johnstown since 1999. Since that time the population growth along the Northern I-25 corridor has intermingled areas of Weld, Boulder, and Larimer counties on a community level that has strengthened cross-county community collaborations of vital infrastructure such as school districts, healthcare systems, disability and aging services, fire and safety services, retail and entertainment services, regional recreation as some examples. -These communities are facing challenges, mainly related to rampant population growth, that a single representative would be in a better position to tackle: infrastructure (particularly water, broadband, and energy), public transportation (particularly regional rail, highways, and airport access), school access and equality, environmental and land management, healthcare access and equality, rapidly changing demographics, just to name a few. - The boundaries of this district would need to include, at the least: to the south, the border between Weld and Adams County and Highway 7; to the east, up to and including all of Weld County Road 49; to the West, in Boulder County, Highway 287 and the entirety of the City of Longmont, in Larimer County, the western borders of the cities of Loveland and Ft Collins; and to north Highway 14 and the entirety of the City of Wellington. - This district acknowledges the shared policy concerns of the mountain communities of both Boulder and Larimer counties. It includes those with other mountain communities to magnify and support their needs. - This district acknowledges the shared policy concerns of the rural communities of Eastern Weld County and includes those with other rural communities to magnify and support their needs. - This district would be *highly* competitive.

It is urgent that we preserve representation of the 30% minorities who live in Colorado in order to ensure fair and effective representation. That means we should preserve communities of interest over counties. Focusing on the latter would decimate minority representation. Remember that most of the county lines were drawn over 100 years ago and are no longer representative of how our modern communities view matters of education, the economy, public health, transportation, and water needs.

To Whom it May Concern: The University of Colorado-Boulder and Colorado State University in Fort Collins aren’t just the state’s most prominent public universities - they are significant drivers of economic activity and research in Colorado’s nearby mountain communities, thanks in no small measure to federal investment in research and development. For context, consider that the University of Colorado-Boulder ranked 30th nationally and Colorado State University 52nd for federally funded R&D expenditures in 2019, according to a Johns Hopkins database that tracks the spending. Together, the institutions received nearly $700 million in federal R&D funding that year. CU’s federal partnerships and grants focus on areas including our changing climate and environment, mitigating the effects of natural hazards, and seeking cleaner, more sustainable energy solutions. CSU also does significant work in researching climate, conservation, forestry, and clean energy alternatives. Many of those issues directly impact and are researched in the nearby alpine areas to the west of these college towns, which is a critical link for these areas as far as congressional representation is concerned. Those issues range from impacts of shorter winters on the ski economy to impacts of hot-dry summers present as far as wildfires and water supply, to name but a few. As such, I urge you to keep this flourishing and critical community of interest connected in Colorado’s Second Congressional District. Sincerely and with respect, Maren Soreide