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Redistricting Committee Chooses Map, Makes Unexpected Suggestions To BoardFriday, April 08, 2011 In a marathon four-hour meeting Thursday, James City County’s citizen redistricting committee chose the first map option submitted, which draws two Democratic Supervisors out of their districts. The 10-person committee appointed by the Board of Supervisors was created to recommend a redistricting option. Aside from chosing committee Chairman Jeff Ryer's map, the group also passed two resolutions suggesting supervisors consider the idea of seven county districts sometime in the future and think about changing the Board’s current staggered terms. It's up to Supervisors if they choose to consider these suggestions.At their first meeting last week, committee Chairman Jeff Ryer shared an option he had created. Since then, others have submitted their ideas, which didn't gain traction with the committee's Republican majority. Debbie Kratter submitted one five-district map. She also submitted a second option that outlined seven districts, rather than five. A fourth map option was submitted by committee member David Jarman. The committee tentatively voted to select Ryer’s map, but they will wait to see if other citizens submit new maps by next Tuesday. All the maps discussed at the meeting will be available on the county’s website by Friday (today) for the public to view. Aside from selecting Ryer’s option, the group agreed 8-2 to adopt a resolution that would suggest the Board evaluate going to a seven-district format, versus the current five districts. They also agreed 6-3 (with one member abstaining) to recommend that the Board examine the use of the current staggered terms for both the Board of Supervisors and the School Board due to “possible adverse impacts” of redistricting, though several committee members were taken by surprise by this suggestion, which came at the end of the meeting. Before voting on which map they preferred, committee members who had submitted maps got a chance to discuss the logic behind their choices and the group spent a long time discussing each option. Kratter’s five-district option kept all the county’s neighborhoods together, something she considered important. It reformed the current Roberts District in an oddly shaped way in order to cut out Kingsmill and connect the Grove community with other relatively low-income and minority areas, groups which she argued have very little voice. Ryer pointed out that Grove now makes up 30 percent of the Roberts District. "Where is the difficulty in being heard?" he asked. Kratter’s map also restored Democratic Supervisors to their districts, which Ryer’s map had removed, and proceeded to draw out two Republicans. Jarman’s map was based on Ryer’s submission, but Jarman didn’t like how drastically the Jamestown District had been changed and that Jamestown had been taken out of it. He wanted to preserve historic locations as much as possible. Jarman also wanted to affect fewer School Board members in his option compared to Ryer's. He split several neighborhoods and managed to put one School Board member back in their current district. Only one School Board member was moved out of their district in Jarman’s map (versus three in Ryer's) but there was still one district that pitted two members against one another. Ryer argued that this still had the same end result as his map, but Jarman said there were other issues to consider such as who runs against who, who doesn’t run and who is frozen out. Avoiding pitting incumbents against one another was not one of the criteria Supervisors chose to use during the redistricting process, committee members pointed out to Jarman. Ryer presented his map again, and pointed out that its districts were contiguous and compact, kept all neighborhoods together except Ford’s Colony, had the lowest deviation in population differences and kept to existing roads and waterways as boundaries. (Read more details about Ryer’s map in a previous story). His map, which was ultimately chosen by the committee, removes the county's two Democratic Supervisors from their districts. It also puts School Board members Joe Fuentes and Jim Kelly in the same district and moves School Board member Ruth Larson out of her district. Though the committee chose Ryer’s map, member Anthony Conyers proposed suggesting to the Board they think about switching to seven districts instead of five sometime in the future, which the committee agreed to reccommend. The Board has previously heard this suggestion from others in the community, but the idea has never made it onto an agenda. At the tail end of the four-hour meeting, member Jay Everson presented the committee with a page-long typed resolution that suggested Supervisors get rid of the current staggered Board member terms. As it stands, board seats both with the Supervisors and the School Board are staggered so not all members are up for election at the same time. When the county redraws districts every 10 years, a “significant percentage” of county residents are sometimes not able to vote for their Board member for a period of six years, according to Everson and Ryer. For example: If one neighborhood had been in a district for four years under the same Supervisor and then, during redistricting, it were moved to another district with a Supervisor who still had two years left in his term (because the terms are staggered), residents of that neighborhood would go six years without voting for their representative on the Board. This staggering process also sometimes results in elected officials becoming unable to seek reelection. Several committee members were upset that they had not seen or heard about the suggestion before the end of the meeting. Member Jennifer Tierney and others said they wanted to wait to consider the implications of the resolution and vote on it next week. Ryer argued that the committee hadn’t heard about the earlier resolution before the meeting, but had no problem voting on that suggestion. He was adamantly against the notion that every year up to 5,000 people (based on his data) could be kept from voting for six years after redistricting. Conyers said he didn’t like the idea originally because two Supervisors in the committee’s adopted map would have to change districts and altering staggered terms right away could adversely affect them. These Supervisors are “of the same party,” he said, “and in the face of that, this resolution says let’s not allow them the flexibility the current code provides them. That’s just wrong.” Should the Board choose to shift all the terms so that they began at the same time, the first election for all five districts would not be until 2015, County Attorney Leo Rogers said at the meeting. The committee had a heated debate about the resolution and significantly changed Everson’s original language, but finally agreed 6-3 to pass it. The two resolutions are only suggestions to the Board of Supervisors, and it's up to the Board whether to consider them. When asked after the meeting if he would have supported the resolution had two Republican Supervisors been drawn out of their districts, Ryer said yes, he would have supported it in that case, too. The issue is one of fairness, he said, and something he has supported for many years. Citizens have until noon on Tuesday to submit any additional plans to the committee for review. If any plans are submitted, they’ll reconvene Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in building F of the county government complex on Mounts Bay Road. If not, the next chance for public input is at the Board of Supervisors public hearing on the issue on the same day. All the redistricting information as well as links to videos of past meetings can be found on the county’s website. |
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Comments
Also, if you look through the archives of the W-Y Daily site, you'll find that Ms. Parker has written numerous stories about the Redistricting Commission, as well as posting several of the maps online. If you'd like to know more, you'd have had to be present at the meetings.
That is taken to mean that the newly formed bounderies will ensure that districts favor the concept of a whole district voting candidates, measures, etc. according to its residents' proclivity as voting the way that party would benefit.
Instead of the voters' party affiliation being kept secret, the revisions of boundaries are not revealed, until it's too late to change the favored one.
Having curtained areas to ensure privacy at polls, is a joke in view of this!!!!
When I learned of this ritual of election fixing, I was horrified to find it out. Now I wonder why that practise hasn't been changed (keeping secret the affiliation of voters, and discussion of proposed plans to "redistrict" open to all. (I notice that no copy of the accepted plan is included with this article.)