RL Committee Meeting Summary: Meeting 3
The Redistricting Committee met on September 15, 2021, in the Phoenix Building on Vine Street. The meeting was broken into two major parts:
A full committee discussion about potential scenarios for district shapes
Work groups focused on these scenarios
Here's what the full Committee talked about:
The Committee heard a presentation from the city's GIS Department on specific changes in certain districts in Lexington.
A central goal of the redistricting process is to have a relatively similar number of people in each District. We learned that as it stands, two Districts - Districts 6 & 7 - are over that threshold, while District 11 is under - this is a complication!
One of the guidelines for the Redistricting process is that the maps have to be drawn using existing Voting Precincts. We learned that this is presenting some complications to the process.
One complication occurs when making minor district adjustments on the edge of the Urban Services Boundary. Why? Some precincts on the USB's edge extend all the way to the county line and can't be further divided, adding too much (or too little) population to the potential new District.
Another complication is that some of the voting precincts cross major roads and corridors. Drawing Districts that extend over these roads and corridors is against the redistricting guidelines. Complex stuff.
The Committee discussed the Compact Plan, which we referenced in the last Redistricting Newsletter. They learned that this plan would need to be vetted for council before formal consideration because of the significant changes.
The Committee also saw a new version of the Iterative Plan. This one makes more minor adjustments/changes to the council districts than the original Iterative Plan. Only 21 precinct changes city-wide!
Lastly, there was much conversation about the "shoulds" vs. the "shalls" in the redistricting guidelines. Basically, which of the rules were required (shall) vs. recommended (should) would significantly impact the process and final outcome.
Here is what the Work Groups worked on:
We're going to call the first Work Group the Galloping Giraffes, just for fun and ease of distinguishing them. They mostly worked with Iterative Scenario No. 2 (the new one).
The Galloping Giraffes interpreted the guideline that preserves the current Council Member in their District as a shall (required). They also indicated that Population Growth projections should also be treated as a shall.
The Galloping Giraffes worked on District 12 for a while because it is projected to grow in population significantly by 2030.
The growth was mainly around the future development of Overbook Farm, which could add up to 6,000 people to the District.
They reduced the projected future population in District 12 by moving 5 precincts in Iterative 1. Huzzah!
The second Work Group - we're calling them the Candid Cats for the same reason - focused on Districts 1, 2, 3, 8, and 12.
The Candid Cats were also concerned about the 12th District's growth in population. They wanted to hear more details about the Overbrook Farm development.
The Candid Cats didn't move many Voting Precincts because they focused on the current District population instead of the projected population.
Next Steps:
As the Committee meeting wrapped up, they discussed the next meeting and what resources they needed from LFUCG staff for their September 29 meeting.
At the next meeting, they'll keep working in smaller groups and exchange maps and potentially people in the work groups.
The Committee requested a map of future sewer placement to try and help with growth predictions.
The "shoulds" and "shalls" came up again, with Committee members discussing weighing different guidelines against each other.
The Committee also asked for maps that showed population density and counts at the voting precinct level.