Dear Neighbors,

The Urban County Council will be giving final consideration to proposed redistricting of Council Districts in the next several weeks. The 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 ten years and tried to draw district lines leading to relative population equality both now and in the future. Council districts change every ten years. Citizens not liking the current map can only make their case to make changes to the map better to their liking and convince members that changes are necessary.

Council will discuss the redistricting in Committee of the Whole this Thursday Nov 18th at 4 pm, and may make motions to amend. (There is also a Work Session at 1 and a Meeting at 6 on Thursday.) They have scheduled a Workshop for public comment on redistricting Wed Dec 1 at 5 pm. Docketing and first reading could follow at the Thursday Council Meeting 6pm Dec 2. The year’s final Work Session at 3 and Meeting at 5 (!) follow on Tuesday Dec 7: the redistricting could get final reading then.

The final map sent to Council is HERE. Use plus & minus to zoom in/out for precinct names and streets. Click on the tabs at left to see precincts; or (red) precincts moved to a new district; or (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 broken down by race, and 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 p. 11. This earlier map 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. 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 better understand it.

Thanks!

Walt Gaffield, President
Fayette County Neighborhood Council, Inc.