York Supes Narrow Redistricting Options to Two

Friday, March 18, 2011

York County Supervisors decided Tuesday to go with two different redistricting options that will be open for a public hearing and vote April 19.

Redistricting happens after each census is complete if voting districts have unequal numbers. Since 2011 is an election year for supervisors, they need to be quick about redrawing the districts. Early in the month, staff gave the board six options on redrawing districts. They added two additional options based on suggestions from District 1 Supervisor Walt Zaremba, and then also added two more options with only small variations to tweak Zaremba’s options. See the maps of all the options except the final two (which weren’t posted as of Wednesday evening) on the county’s website.

Supervisors chose an option that kept districts looking compact and contiguous and didn’t move too many people, and they also chose the final option staff created based on Zaremba’s suggestions.

The county held three informational sessions recently to share the options with the public and to answer questions. All the meetings were very lightly attended, according to staff, with a combined total of 17 citizens attending.

Based on citizen comments submitted to staff and two comments offered Tuesday evening, the public seemed to like the B2 option the most, as it kept the districts looking compact and contiguous and only shifted a minimal number of residents.

This option would shift about 5,000 people. The area bordered by Yorktown Road, Moorehouse Road and the Coast Guard Station would shift from District 1 to District 3, and another small piece of 3 would transfer to 1. This area is described by staff as a “ponytail” of District 1, as it looks like a peninsula jutting into District 3. By moving it, the “ponytail” effect would be removed. Several supervisors seemed to agree with citizens that they liked this alternative.

Zaremba disagreed. He argued that during the last redistricting, supervisors purposely created the “ponytail” area in order to give people in District 1 better representation and to keep them from feeling isolated.

His alternatives (labeled D1 and D2, which are very similar) would add another long, thin area that reaches into District 3 (there are small differences between the other districts, which can be viewed on the online map). This would mean there are two supervisors on the board who will be thinking about the needs and desires of his constituents, Zaremba argues, which would have been helpful with contentious issues such as use of the Williamsburg library, which primarily concerned the needs of upper county residents.

Zaremba also pointed out that much land in the county, especially in District 1 and District 2, are federal lands – either military bases, park service land or part of Camp Peary. Many people on military bases vote by absentee ballot during elections and aren’t registered to vote in York County, Zaremba noted, and the large federal lands tend to split the county already.

A large portion of the population he recommends moving live on these federal lands, meaning fewer locally-registered voters are actually being moved, he said. The county registrar said in the area in question in the D1 and D2 alternatives, there are 1,812 residents. Of those, 648 are registered voters (which is about half of the voting-age population in that segment).

Zaremba also said that some residents had suggested his alternative was an instance of gerrymandering, which is changing boundaries to suit one particular political party. Gerrymandering wasn’t part of his recommendation, he said, nor would the change be likely to help him during the upcoming election.

After the D1 and D2 alternative and maps had been created, staff “tweaked” them by moving the area bounded by Old Wormley Creek Road and the East Branch of the creek from District 1 to District 3, an area with a population of 248 people (labeled E1 and E2, each with slight differences in other districts).

Generally, the rest of the board seemed in favor of the B2 option, but felt that the public should have a chance to examine and discuss the E2 option, which wasn’t available online as of Wednesday (no supervisors seemed to like the slightly-different “B1” or D1” options).

Supervisor Sheila Noll said while she understood Zaremba’s point, she always made time to go speak with District 1 residents and others on the board did, too. The district’s feeling of being isolated from the rest of the county “has been encouraged,” she said, though didn’t say by whom, and she said this isolation is “not based in fact.”

The board will hold a public hearing on options B2 and E2 on April 19, after which they’ll take a vote in order to keep to the tight schedule.