Public Comments

As a businessman with a current business of 26 years in Larimer County, I am very concerned that Larimer/Weld Counties Will not be represented properly. House Reps and Senators that truly have a pulse on exactly what is going on in our communities need to be from our geographic areas. Borders that I’ve been drawn on this stickler redistricting year are not a fair balanced plan at all. I am a board member of the NCLA, please hear our concern and reconsider the way these districts have been wrong. We would like two districts instead of three up here on the north end of our county and I personally do not understand why some of these areas are so I chopped up. Again I do not believe this is a fair playing field nor is it going to be an accurate real pulse on the citizens in this area.

I cannot understand why Arvada and Wheatridge are being split as they are into House districts 27 and 24. Each city should be kept whole, as a community of interest, similar to how the current House Districts (for the most part) keep the cities whole.

Northern Colorado is unique from Denver metro area. Please define new boundaries that include northern Colorado communities, not tied to Denver metro. The Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance has two re-districting maps proposed. I am in favor of Map 1.

I have just glanced over the 3rd staff plan for legislative redistricting and I am scratching my head over the proposed Senate map and the way it is drawn in Adams County- this looks odd, and gerrymandered and is not a good map. It puts Brighton into a Weld county district, and makes the oddest meander between Brighton and Thornton to get in the Commerce City district. This is a bad map and it looks as though it is forcing Northglenn into SD 24 while dividing Thornton along unnatural lines. This 3rd staff map is worse than the second and would respectfully ask that this not be in consideration for the final maps. I heartily endorse the Second Staff plan for the State Senate. As for the House map, I still maintain that Northglenn does NOT belong with the northern portion of Thornton, but that the First staff plan had Adams County House districts drawn best, provided that the northern line be all the way across 144th and the retention ponds in southern Thornton not be included. I am dismayed at how much influence that outside groups have had in this process including CLLARO, the Farm Bureau, etc. as they don't have Colorado's interests at heart and have divided my hometown in ways that a native of this area finds odd and offensive. I beg you to once again look at what I submitted at least for Adams county because I know this area well and want it to be represented properly at the state level by people who matter, not a bunch of lobbyists.

Senate district 5 splits up too many counties. There has to be a better way than to split Montrose, Delta, Garfield and Eagle counties.

I would like to voice my strong support for proposed Senate redistricting maps proposed by the Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance. These maps serve the unique needs of Northern Colorado communities and appropriately link our communities of interests and provide needed representation for our region. As a business owner and 30 year resident of Fort Collins and Loveland, we need adequate representation of our region which will drive a large share of the population and economic growth in Colorado for years to come. The NCLA MAPs links I'm supporting are provided here for your consideration: NCLA Map 1: https://davesredistricting.org/join/5f373f95-6458-42b7-ad65-3a1343761f10 NCLA Map 2: https://davesredistricting.org/join/1119581e-8de9-4b7b-a8f7-71894005e534 Thank you for the opportunity to voice my concerns. Respectfully, David Burks

As former Mayor of Greeley, I wish to offer my support for the memo submitted to the Commission by the Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance this morning about Greeley and Weld County Senate Districts. It is imperative that Greeley is kept as a political unit within a singular Senate District. SP.007 destroys the unity of Greeley with a north-south dividing line that eliminates the possibility of having representation in the Senate from Northern Colorado. I join my colleagues at the NCLA in strongly urging a different approach to Greeley and Weld County. In addition to the memo, the maps offered by the NCLA, particularly NCLA Map 1, offer an alternative approach to the Senate Districts in Weld that could be pursued. I've shared with the NCLA, and provide below, a complementary and yet another way to achieve the shared goal of keeping Greeley whole while also keeping the growth areas of Greeley and the surrounding areas together for long range planning of services, meets the needs of keeping the University of Northern Colorado tied to Greeley and recognizes the strong hispanic population within all parts of Greeley. Norton Map: https://davesredistricting.org/join/2da13799-b9f1-4162-8380-2e63bb6b9f80 Lastly, I wish to mention that the direction of the House Legislative maps is satisfactory so long as Weld has four house members and Greeley has two of the four members.

Do not add Teller County in District 7!

Members of the Colorado Independent Legislative Redistricting Commission, As members of the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, we feel it is necessary to express our continued concern and anxiety at the sometimes serious and sometimes cavalier approach with which minority voting rights are treated by certain members of the Commission. First, a bit of history. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution provided Black Americans with the right to vote. Ratified in 1870, the amendment had little effect in changing the behavior of local election officials, and Black Americans were still intimidated, challenged, and treated as an afterthought on Election Day. In 1965, Congress passed and the President signed the Voting Rights Act (“VRA”), and for the first time in this country’s history, Black Americans had a guarantee – not a vague promise – that their voices and their votes would count. When Colorado’s redistricting decisions were addressed by the legislature or by the courts, minority voting rights and the VRA were always issues of primary concern. The state’s new redistricting commissions have veered disappointingly off-course. Here are a few examples. ● The Congressional Redistricting Commission never hired a VRA expert to help it navigate the VRA itself, the Colorado Constitution’s new provision that mimics Section 2 of the VRA, or the expanded protections of minority electoral influence that set Colorado apart in terms of minority voting protection. ● The Congressional Commission also refused to instruct its staff to use pre-incarceration residential addresses for incarcerated persons, a requirement of Colorado statute and a mandated result based on the Colorado Constitution (Section 4 of Article VII). ● The Legislative Redistricting Commission had the fairness and equanimity to adopt such a reallocation plan. But during the debate over that provision, one of your commissioners (Commissioner Gary Horvath) ignored the statutes and Constitution actually argued against adopting such a policy for the reason that prisoners cannot vote and do not vote. In other words, in his view, they do not count at all. His attempts to marginalize those who are serving their sentences in Colorado correctional institutions did not go unnoticed in our community. His statements reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the law, of the rights of affected persons, and of the disproportionate impact of his position on communities of color. His comments are deeply disturbing to us, a reminder to those of us who fought during the Civil Rights Era of discriminatory voting laws that made people of color spectators to the decisions of others, rather than active participants in our democracy. ● Commissioner Horvath did not stop there. During the Commission meeting on August 12th, Commissioner Heather Barry brought up an extremely valid question of how to best balance the requirements of the Voting Rights Act and the commission’s discussion on competitiveness. Commissioner Horvath was dismissive and refused to even address the concern. Of course, anyone with a basic understanding of voting rights knows that phantom considerations (and competitiveness is one of them) are used to engage packing and cracking of communities of color in order to minimize their electoral influence – a protected constitutional interest under both the U.S. and Colorado Constitutions. Which brings us back to our original point. America has progressed since the days of Jim Crow laws and deep-seated bias that is acted out in our elections process, sometimes directly and more often indirectly. Most of the Legislative Commissioners have acted with clear concern for minority rights through your decisions to hire a VRA expert and to give effect to the rights of incarcerated persons in redistricting. But you should know that the racially tinged messaging of even one commissioner is what spreads in our community like a wildfire. And right now, that single commissioner’s open hostility to minority voting rights and his use of veiled techniques (like elevating competitiveness, despite the clear language of the Constitution) puts the credibility of your map at risk. We are not fooled; we have heard this before. America fought a civil war because of this issue. Do not endorse a minimization of minority voting rights or a misguided focus on competitiveness in ways that will sideline the communities that deserve representation in our state. We are asking all Commissioners to obey the law and constitution. Respectfully, Bishop Jerry L. Demmer President, Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance

Please see attached Memo to the Commission outlining our concerns with SP007 and suggestions per the memo for modifications to maps for Weld county. NCLA Map 1: https://davesredistricting.org/join/5f373f95-6458-42b7-ad65-3a1343761f10 NCLA Map 2: https://davesredistricting.org/join/1119581e-8de9-4b7b-a8f7-71894005e534 Memo to the Commission: https://1drv.ms/w/s!ApqlLqPviCLprDzD285XOP86-GOk