Public Comments

My biggest concern is that communities with people of color have the opportunity to have an equitable voice in Congress regarding their unique concerns. It should be clear by this point, after 2020, that the majority culture has a hugely disproportionate amount of access and influence in our country politically. Likewise, people of color receive disproportionate impact negatively from government policies and gaps, as the pandemic exposed. This imbalance must be addressed in order for significant positive change to occur in our society.

To the Colorado Redistricting Commission My thanks to the Commission and staff for accepting public comments. My name is Patricia Farmer and I live in the town of Grand Lake, Colorado. We are in the second Congressional district. I am happy with our current district. It is a good balance between urban and rural voters, and since Grand County is all rural, we need that balance. Please leave the 2nd Congressional District as it is now. Thank you for your time and attention

As a member of Fort Collins City Council I believe it is important for Fort Collins to remain part of CD2. Fort Collins identifies and is part of a regional system including housing, economic development, natural resource management. Redistricting Fort Collins to another CD would diminish the relationships and regional collaboration we have built over the past decades. Our regional approach with other cities such as Boulder has led to CSU/CU collaboration resulting in world class research. Our collaborative approach with Estes and Loveland contributes to the management of Rocky Mountain National Park. And lastly it is imperative that we can work with nearby jurisdictions and our CD to mitigate the impacts of wild fires and other natural disasters.

I was disappointed to hear that public would not be able to hear from the lawyers being interviewed. I believe that the public has a right to see the interviews and read their applications. If they are applying for something public, then they should understand that their answers should be public also.

Gentlefolk, I have a suggestion that may help get around the plight the Census Bureau's data release schedule has put our Redistricting Commissions into. If the Legislature can be persuaded to do an emergency repeal of the one-district-per-seat rule, or the Colorado courts to overturn that rule, we will be able to use data from Census Bureau releases much earlier that the final September 30th release date for the block-by-block census figures needed to do the redistricting as originally envisioned: 1.Worst case - National and State population figures only. A single district, with all candidates running at-large, cannot be challenged under any of the detailed requirements for districts, especially that such a district must have within 5% of the same population, and the same racial, interest, etc. profile as any district in Colorado, since there would be only the one district on the list. (The mathematical principle to prove it, as taught in High School, is called the Reflexive Property of Equality!) 2.Middle case - County and Municipality population figures available, This would take considerably more work to meet the population, racial, interest, etc. requirements. 3.Nearest case - Zipcode population figures available. This would add more flexibility and could make meeting the population, racial, interest, etc. requirements do-able if case 2 did not. According to Schedule (census.gov)the figures needed for case 1 will be available May 4, 2021 and for case 2 on June 17, 2021. These will be the July 1, 2020 components, where April 1, 2020 was the Census Day. My personal feeling is that even putting up with case 1, until we can do the redistricting as specified in Y and Z, would be preferable to abandoning all the work we have put into having Independent Redistricting Commissions. Thank you for being willing to get in the middle of this.

Dear Colorado Congressional and Legislative Redistricting Commissions, Hello, my name is Ann Marie Damian and my zip code is 80498. Below you will find my public comment submission to Colorado’s Congressional and Legislative Redistricting Commissions. I live in Heeney, a very small town that is frequently ignored by local govt. I understand my public comment will inform the creation of preliminary congressional and state legislative maps. Therefore, I wanted to share a bit about my community and the shared interests that unite it, my community’s public policy concerns, the geographic area of my community, and features that are important to my community. First, while there are many interests that unite my community, the single greatest shared interest among my community is being listened to by our elected officials nd not being dictated to by unelected and biased staff members who do not have Heeney's best interests in mind. Secondly, a major public policy concern of my community is public safety because we are 40 minutes away from emergency services. No plowing pouts us at risk for both fires nd medical emergencies, especially in the winter. Lastly, the geographic boundaries of my community of interest are north of Silverthorne by one-half hour, south of Grand County but still a part of Summit County, although many staff in the county ignore us because we are too few votes to care about. This needs to change immediately!! I believe the next district lines should be drawn in a manner that adequately reflects and fairly represents my community’s interests. Thank you for taking the time to read my public comment.

State Commissioners: I just learned of this news today: the "canceling" if you will, of Mr. Moore. Are you commissioners really going to go down the destructive & childish road of removing someone from their job based on Facebook posts? You don't believe someone has the right to voice their opinions when it's an opinion you just don't like? That makes me sick. I resent everyone of you on the commission who've decided to make this kind of decision. You care nothing for Mr. Moore's constitutional rights nor mine. I demand you to take back those offensive words and apologize to Mr. Moore. AND give him back his place on the commission. That would show Coloradans that you have changed your minds and recognized your huge error in dissolving someone's opinion. You're insulting people in this state with this kind of behavior. To Mr. Moore: Thank you very much for your answer to this criticism by your colleagues. And thank you for NOT apologizing. That is what those need to do who think their opinion is higher than yours. If we all don't start standing against what the cancel culture is doing, we will find ourselves lost like other Americans who feel no pride in being American, but instead follow like blind sheep. Are we not all tired of this hatred building? Are we not all on the same planet? Are we not in the greatest country ever? We will lose together if we do not stand together for each other. Sincerely, Kathy Banks, Robert Banks, Brian Banks, Kelly Banks

Colorado Springs and Pueblo should be in the same district. These are two of the larger cities in the southern half of the state and they are not very far apart (in fact, they are slightly closer than Boulder and Fort Collins are to each other). Additionally, these cities have more in common with each other than with the surrounding rural areas currently included in their respective districts. There are also many recreation areas and amenities that are used by residents of both cities such as Beaver Creek state park. I have drawn up a district map that shows what this would look like. I tried to create as many competitive districts as possible as I know that is a goal of this commission: https://davesredistricting.org/join/424bce0e-51ce-457f-b124-8ab1120cac74

Denver should make up one congressional district so that a representative can focus on Denver's and its residents' interests.

I think it's important for Colorado to have a district with a higher proportion of minorities. It is possible to draw one that is majority minority and over 40% Latino (a plurality) by combining East Denver near the airport with Aurora and some of the Northern, inner suburbs. I also think Grand, Gilpin, Clear Creek, Summit, Eagle, Aspen, Lake, and Gunnison counties should all be grouped together because they all have a lot of ski resorts and thus have a shared interest around the ski tourism economy. Right now these counties are split between districts 2 and 3. The commission might also include some of west Jefferson county in the same district because I know I lot of avid skiers who work in Denver are moving there in order to have access to both the mountains and the city (now that that the Boulder area is so expensive). Overall, I think it's really important to maximize the number of competitive districts. It seems like drawing three highly competitive districts is very doable while also maintaining reasonable shapes and generally keeping similar areas together. I have attached an example of such a map. Under this map, 3 districts are highly competitive, 2 would probably vote Republican most of the time, and 3 would vote Democrat most of the time, which seems appropriate given the slight Democrat-tilt of the state overall in recent elections. In 2016, under this map, Trump would have narrowly won 2 of the 3 competitive districts while Clinton narrowly carried 1. Bennett in 2016 would have narrowly won 2 of these 3 districts while Glenn would have narrowly carried the other. In 2018, Weiser would have narrowly carried 2 of these 3 districts while Brauchler carried the other. Polis would have narrowly carried all three competitive districts in 2018. In most of these races, the margins would be <5 points and in all cases they would have been <10 in these districts. The uploading function of this form is not working (I tried several times and several of the formats listed). Here is a link to the map: https://davesredistricting.org/join/0cc1f96d-1054-4377-aa85-de1b37223662