Public Comments

Commission members, Please consider making Eagle, Jackson, and Routt counties part of CD 2. The community of interest of these counties are much more similar to the interest of the second congressional district counties. Thank you for your consideration. Jay Fetcher

I am Lindsay Wert, and I live in a rural area of Routt County near Steamboat Springs. Routt County is a largely rural county where tourism, agriculture, and energy are economic drivers. Our lifestyle and activities mostly revolve around the outdoor environment. The issues we face concern our relationship with the outdoor environment, including water rights, mountain and forest preservation, appropriate land use, and wildlife viability. There is a significant contrast between our lifestyle and the issues we face when compared with the Front Range of Colorado. Our wild lands and forests are significant to our economic viability, including agriculture and our ski industry. We need to maintain our access to local water sources for viability of communities, businesses, agriculture, and the environment. Our wildlife helps attract outside visitors and tourists, and helps to maintain the overall viability of our wild lands. Front Range Colorado, with their several urban centers, shares many different concerns. Our values and interests are similar to and are shared with several of our surrounding counties - Jackson, Moffat, Rio Blanco, Garfield, and many others in Western Colorado. These shared values form a community of interest with these surrounding counties, and our legislative and congressional representation should strongly reflect that community. I strongly advocate that the redistricting commission maintain the continuity of our community of interest with our Western Colorado neighboring counties.

Jefferson County has significant transportation challenges. Movement between Golden, Lakewood, Wheat Ridge, Arvada, Westminster and unincorporated Jeffco is limited by few transportation options and an inadequate road network. However, the need for service continues to increase with more growth and development. We need to manage the impacts of this continued growth as thoughtfully as possible. Whether the solution is the Jefferson Parkway, or other alternatives, I believe these communities need representative districts that provide a unified voice to advocate for transportation on the west side of the Denver metro area.

I am writing based on what I have read about the criteria for creating districts. I live in Boulder. I understand this is a complex process and you have to weigh competing criteria. The two I am concerned about are COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST and COUNTY BOUNDARIES. I think it is more important to prioritize the former. For example I have friends that live in Erie and yet some are in Weld County and others are in Boulder County. Their primary COMMUNITY OF INTEREST is their city, not county. There are a number of such towns/cities that have grown across county boundaries since they were created well over a hundred years ago. Other examples of COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST are the eastern plains and western slope. These are now pretty well kept together. However the mountain towns (including Nederland in Boulder County) are split between CD2, CD3, and CD5. Perhaps they would be better represented by being included in one Congressional District. Although what I wrote above describes boundaries for Congressional Districts, the same principals apply for Colorado House and Senate Districts. In summary, I hope that you will consider COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST as being MORE IMPORTANT than maintaining current COUNTY BOUNDARIES. Sincerely, Jon Etra, Boulder

I am Linda Cullen a 45 year Colorado resident I live in the City of Steamboat Springs within a short distance of the the Steamboat Ski Resort. My kids and their families live here also , one is a working ranch/recreation owner and the other is ian owner in the construction business. Down a small retail business and also a Realtor. I am familiar with and involved with the entire Routt County area. We are a rural county and would like to be considered rural going forward. We do not want to be lumped into counties that include any cities on the Front Range. Our agriculture, mining and recreation businesses make us very unique to the state and though our front range friends visit often they do not need to make decisions that may not reflect our culture here. I believe we should retain our heritage with the western slope counties as our voting partners. The reintroduction of the wolves to Northwestern Colorado is a prime example of the different set of values and ideas in the culture here. Voted in by the front range voters, who will never experience the hardship or even see a wolf but controlled that vote.

I feel people in rural Colorado have no voice at all because the Metro areas of Boulder and Denver vote one way, always Democratic and those of us most affected have to struggle with the results. The wolf issue is the most recent!! The Spring bear hunt is another. Please help us up here...we are losing hope.. Thank you

First and foremost, thank you for taking our comments. I am looking forward to having fair districts that each represent Colorado’s diverse interests. My name is Savannah Wolfson, and I live in Oak Creek. It is a small, mountainous town in Routt County. I have dairy goats, beehives, turkeys, and chickens. Being in an agricultural district is very important to me. In addition, it is important to Routt County’s tourist industry. Many tourists cite the surrounding beauty of ranchlands as a reason they prefer skiing here, as opposed to the surrounding “condolands” in other ski towns. I have heard that there are some who would divide Colorado horizontally or vertically. I fear the horizontal option-- I feel absolutely no kinship with the Front Range. When I drive East out of the mountains, a rare event, I feel like I am going to a different country. People from the Front Range come here for vacation and to get away from the hustle. Ranchers and miners have very different interests and needs and voices than people living in the big cities and suburbs. The vertical option makes much more sense to me. We have a Western Slope, a Front Range, and an Eastern Plain. We Coloradans know these terms and use them naturally, because they are clear representations of our regions. We do not have any terms for a horizontal divide, because there is none. In South Routt, we are Western Slope. The primary jobs people hold are in agriculture, mining, remote work from home, some marijuana, and tourist/resort industry work. Many who live here are big second amendment advocates and have a cowboy vibe. South Routt still holds rodeos in the middle of the road, with real cowboys and cowgirls. We also hold the Flattop Mountains, over 235,000 acres of public land. People come from all over the world to hunt and recreate here, and the snow in the Flattops is critical to the Colorado River. Thank you for considering the unique identity of each Colorado region. I look forward to seeing your finished work.

I am a mother of 3 teenagers in Steamboat Springs, CO. I live in a suburban area of Town. We are skiers, our children attend the local high school, and we are very active in all aspects of local community life (businesses, school matters, town planning, etc.). Maintaining our identity and representation is critical to preserving the charm and allure of Steamboat, a place that citizens from all over the state and all over the world love. It's got "that something" special for which they yearn - a small town with a western/cowboy type of feel, and all the outdoor recreation and beauty one can dream of. This means that we need a voice when it comes to how we run our businesses, how we tax tourists vs. our hardworking local tourism industry workers, we need a say in legislation that impacts the industries that are critical to our livelihoods (such as agriculture, ranching, tourism, small businesses) and we need a voice when it comes to the environment, and what is necessary to protect it (and how - others in the state would not be aware of our local nuances), without destroying industries that are critical to our character and livelihoods. Thank you for your time. If we redistrict in such a way that "what's good for Denver is good for Steamboat" (this is an exaggeration, but you get the idea), would ruin one of our State's crown jewels.

I believe Routt County should stay in CD3. As I moved here 5 years ago, I see a definite connection with other Western Slope counties. I don’t see any connection with the front range. I have got to know more people in Routt County and the surrounding counties. I believe there are a lot of shared values and issues that bind us as a district. We certainly don’t need to be put with a much bigger county like Boulder which does not understand our Western Slope issues.

Routt County must remain in Congressional and Legislative districts that are common with rural Colorado on the Western Slope. Our common community interests include agriculture, energy, and outdoor recreation industries. Public policy includes keeping good paying energy jobs, sensible environmental conservation, affordable and dependable energy to keep our cost of living low and standard of living high. We also want high quality education with a focus on academic excellence not divisive, distracting identity politics. Routt County consists of high mountains, wide valleys, and beautiful vistas with rivers, lakes, and streams. Our communities are diverse with affluent retirees and hard working, young families who depend on tourism, energy, and agriculture industries. Our concerns are a balanced policy approach that considers the environment, cost of living, and future sustainable growth. We are a conservative district (CD3, SD8, LD26) that loves Colorado and America, and we want to preserve the conservative traditions of rural Colorado that define what this state is all about.