Dear Neighbors,
The Urban County Council will be giving final consideration to proposed redistricting of Council Districts in the next several weeks. A Council-selected citizen committee studied a number of possible redistricting maps and submitted a final map to the Council for consideration. Some neighborhoods are unhappy about precincts moving from one district to another particularly if a proposed district does not share common interests. The difficulty in changing the proposed redistricting map is that moving one precinct back to a current council district could result in having to move another precinct out. The citizens committee considered maps that would move fewer precincts but decided to look at what districts might look like in 10 years and tried to draw district lines leading to relative population equality both now and in the future. Council districts change every 10 years. Citizens who do not like the proposed redistricting map can make their case for changes to make the map better and to their liking only by convincing Council Members that changes are necessary.
Council will discuss the redistricting in a meeting of the Committee of the Whole this Thursday November 18 at 4 p.m., and Council may make motions to amend the proposed map. (There is also a Work Session at 1 p.m. and a another meeting at 6 p.m., both on Thursday.) There is a scheduled Workshop for Public Comment on Redistricting Wednesday December 1 at 5 p.m. Docketing and first reading could follow at the Thursday Council Meeting at 6 p.m. on December 2. This year’s final (2021) Council Work Session is at 3 p.m. and Council Meeting follows at 5 p.m. (!) on Tuesday December 7. The redistricting proposal could get final reading then.
The final map sent by the redistricting committee to Council is HERE. Use plus and minus (+ and -) to zoom in/out for precinct names and streets. Click on the tabs at left to see precincts; or to see (red) precincts moved to a new district; or to see (double-line filled in) existing District boundaries. Click again to take that detail away. If you click on any precinct on the map, a box pops up with population by race and its projected 2030 population.
Find the whole series of maps the committee considered HERE, in the Meeting Packets link. Look, for example, at the 10-6 packet on digital page 11 (You may need to point your mouse cursor to the file name on the bottom of each rectangle to see the entire file name; click on the desired rectangle; the selected packet will display in an area to the right side of the screen; click on the right side of the screen to display the entire file for that packet; scroll down to see subsequent pages.). This earlier map (10-6) never made it out of committee and is called ITERATIVE 2. This map moves just half as many precincts — 24 shifted, compared to the final draft for Council which moves nearly 48 precincts. The page following each map gives the population of each precinct. This gives you a sense of what the citizen committee considered before submitting a recommended map to Council. Within the committee packets are breakdowns by various factors.
The FCNC hopes that the information above will assist you in engaging in the redistricting effort and to better understand it. We apologize that we are sending another message so soon after yesterday’s which asked you to SAVE THE DATE for the FCNC General Meeting on Monday December 13 at 6:30 p.m. Please note, however, that this crucial redistricting decision will start being made by the Council two days from now — on Thursday November 18.
Thanks!
Walt Gaffield, President
Fayette County Neighborhood Council, Inc.
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by Janet Cabaniss, FCNC secretary
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