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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-18-2001 Meeting REDISTRICTING COMMITTEE Meeting December 18, 2001 The Redistricting Committee met on December 18, 2001. Present from the Augusta Richmond County Commission were Bill Kuhlke, Ulmer Bridges, Lee Beard, William Mays, Marion Williams, Jerry Brigham, Tommy Boyles, Bobby Hankerson, Andy Cheek, and Mayor Bob Young. Present from the Richmond County Board of Education were Y. N. Myers, Jr. Barbara Padgett, Jeff Padgett, Helen Minchew, J.R. Hatney, Kenneth Echols, Eloise Curtis, Marion Barnes, and Andrew Jefferson. Present from the Legislative Delegation were Ben Allen, Don Cheeks, and Henry Howard. Also present were Jim Wall, Commission Attorney; Lena Bonner, Clerk of Commission; Pete Fletcher, School Board Attorney; and Lynn Bailey. Media present were H. Williams, S. Eidson, and R. Jones. Mr. Kuhlke: You have your agenda before you. And one correction on that agenda, and that is item number 3. It’s not Revision I, it’s Revision II. Change that. We welcome our guests. The purpose of the meeting today is to again just revisit the plan that has been revised and for anybody to make any additional comments since you’ve had a little time to look over the map, and the criteria, and also the statistics, the Population Summary Report. Anyone have any comments? I notice that we have some guests with us today, and I think that someone might want to ask a question in regard to District 8. If you don’t mind coming to the mike and just give your name and address, please. Ms. Crews: I’m Ernestine Crews, and I live at 2042 McDade Road, and my only concern with this is that I understand my street is being divided. And since it is a community and neighborhood, I would appreciate it if there were way -- and I’ve been told that there really is no way -- but if there were some way that we could keep that street intact, maybe streets that are north, move them. But if we could keep those families that are common to that street in the same district, it would enhance that community. And also I hope that you’re redistricting -- I know this has been a hard job and 1 y’all have had a lot to deal with -- but I hope this is going to improve our management of our city and county government so that we make some progress. But I do wish that you could keep our street together and not have people on one side of the street in one district and another on the other side because it is a neighborhood. It’s not like we are a major thoroughfare like Old Waynesboro Road or Highway 25, even though we’ve grown a lot. I would appreciate that consideration. Thank you. Mr. Kuhlke: Thank you. Ms. Bailey, wonder if we would just pull that up and if you would give the reason for why we had to do that. I think I mentioned to them last -- I spoke with them last night. As we work with this thing, and I’ve used this analogy before, it’s like walking on a waterbed. When you push one thing out of the way, it jumps up somewhere else. Ms. Bailey: Okay. What you see that, obviously there is McDade Farm Road, to the north of that is spirit creek, which is where the precinct dividing line was formerly for that area. Now any of you that have looked at the numbers will remember that District 8 according to the new census figures, was over populated by 25% or so, maybe a little bit higher. Knowing that District 8 is at the southern end of the county, the population shift out of District 8 therefore has to go north. In trying to adjust the population between District 8 and District 6, this was one of the areas that was shifted. There are 460 people in that area, and that area where the 460 people are is the entire bloc that you see there, excluding the little squiggle there to the right, excluding that area there, which looks like to be some type of water, maybe a pond or something over there. And so that’s why that was done. Now I know 460 people doesn’t seem like a lot of people, and you know, possibly that’s an area that this committee could look at if they wanted to do so, but when you do redistrict, it’s like Mr. Kuhlke said, every change you make affects another area. But the reason, as I stated before, in trying to adjust the shifts between 6 and 8, that’s why that particular change was made. Mr. Kuhlke: Yes, ma’am. Ms. Speaker: [inaudible] and I was figuring up last night, you know, and 400, that’s about right. On McDade Farm Road itself, though, not counting [inaudible] Subdivision, which is about [inaudible], and the roads that turn off to the north [inaudible], and on McDade itself, I would estimate that you’ve probably got about -- I don’t know about the people -- but probably no more than 35 or 40 households that actually front on McDade 2 Road on the north side. Again, I just wish you could consider leaving those houses that front on McDade Road, not the ones back of them in the subdivisions or the streets that turn off, but just those houses that front. If you could look at that population and see if you could leave those people together. Ms. Bailey: I might comment, Mr. Kuhlke, if any of that area that’s included in the bloc is moved, it’s all or nothing because you do have to go along a natural boundary. Of course, as we talked about earlier, you do have to go along a natural boundary. It’s not possible, therefore, to go say behind the property lines on McDade Farm Road and just get those houses and bring them in. It would be everything. You would be moving everything from McDade Farm Road to the north up to Spirit Creek. Mr. Kuhlke: Okay. We have some additional guests out there. Anybody else in the audience have any comments? Mr. Speaker: In regards to what the young lady is talking about, how much of a ripple would it be to try to adjust what she’s talking about? I realize it’s going to affect the other district, but at least let’s try to give it consideration. If the ripple effect is not enough to cause any real problem with the representatives of those districts, then let us try to do it at least. Ms. Bailey: One easy way to look at that, ladies and gentlemen, would be to look at your Population Summary Report there for Revision II. It should be under your Tab F or either it’s in your new notebook. Mr. Speaker: I [inaudible] appropriate time [inaudible]. Mr. Kuhlke: Mr. Cheeks? [inaudible] Go ahead, Ms. Bailey. Ms. Bailey: If you’ll look at your Population Summary Report for th Reapportionment Test Plan Revision II, you can see that in the 4 column your percent deviation, District 6 is .36% over the ideal population size, and District 8 is 1.56% over the ideal population size. Therefore, moving those 460 people from District 6 to District 8 would certainly keep both of those districts within the +5% range, which would be the accepted range there. Mr. Kuhlke: Right. Commissioner Cheek? Mr. Cheek: Yes, sir? 3 Mr. Kuhlke: Did you want to go ahead and speak? Mr. Cheek: Yes, sir, if you don’t mind. Mr. Kuhlke: Yes. Mr. Cheek: Mr. Chairman, I really don’t have any major with this particular area, except for the fact that this recreates some similar problems I’ve been facing in Fairington. We have a neighborhood here that is split down the middle by the street, and I would prefer to see this district line remain at the Spirit Creek boundary. That would allow us to have a fixed delineation of the two districts without splitting a neighborhood, and I don’t think the population impact of removing the area south of Spirit Creek th would be that great to shift the 6 District one way of the other. Now we may be forced to pick up some real estate somewhere else, but this is definitely splitting a neighborhood and it’s a major problem in Fairington and I believe it would be a problem in the future. Mr. Kuhlke: Commissioner Bridges? Mr. Bridges: Mr. Kuhlke, if Mr. Cheek is willing to give those people up, I’d sure be glad to have them back. They’ve been good constituents for th the past six years, and I’d like to hear from Ms. Padgett with the 6 District over there, see what she has to say about it. Ms. Padgett: Well, I would be happy to have them in my district, but you know, they’re perfectly welcome and I would glad to represent them, but, you know, if they don’t want to be, so be it. Mr. Kuhlke: Commissioner Beard? Mr. Beard: Mr. Chairman, you know, I think we’re getting into something here, because it look like every time we move at this time, as you’ve said so many times, that this is a waterbed, and although I’m sure we want to give everybody consideration, but if we go back, it looks like we developed a pretty good plan here, and if we start tinkering too much with it, we are going to be inclusive of every district, because every time -- we have to keep in mind that every time you move something, it’s going to affect something else. And if it affect District 6, that’s going to touch another District. So I just want to -- as we going through this and enumerate on this, let’s understand that this is what we are going to get into and pretty soon we’ll be starting all over again. 4 Mr. Kuhlke: Ms. Bailey, I think in answer to Mr. Beard’s comments, that what you are saying is that if we realign that at the Spirit Creek line, that we are still going to be staying within the deviation range that we wanted to; am I correct? Ms. Bailey: Yes, sir. Mr. Kuhlke: Okay. Mr. Cheek? Mr. Cheek: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The point of this is not to add or lose people. Let me make that very clear. If you want the streets in Fairington and you see trash on one side of the street and not on the other, and the other problems that have been posed by splitting neighborhoods, that is the crux of this particular issue. Areas of interest, which a neighborhood is, need to be kept intact. I would be happy to represent all of south Augusta. I have no problem with that. Those are my people out there. But in this situation, the best interest of the future of this neighborhood and its good support by an elected official, it makes sense to keep it intact, because the people across the street from the people that are located now in the proposed th 6 District may or may not be equally as represented, and they may have similar interests that need to be met. I just think this is a very good think if it won’t impact that. We’d be happy to turn it over to District 8 and allow that neighborhood to stay as a unit. Mr. Kuhlke: Okay. Why don’t you go ahead? Can we go ahead and just see what it looks like? You may have to read that, Ms. Bailey. I can’t see it. Ms. Bailey: Yes, sir, I’ll be glad to. Mr. Kuhlke: Give us a comparison of what we’ve got in our book and up there. Can you see it? Ms. Bailey: Yes, sir, I can see it. Let’s see. Just going to recalculate those statistics real quick. Okay. What you can see, what this report shows you is that it’s added the 460 people into District 8 there, changing them from -389 people to over 71 people, +71 people, and changing District 6 from a -89 and removing those people changes District 6 to a -549 people. The way that affects the deviation percentages there, it changes District 6 from a -2.2 to a + -- excuse me, it changes it from a +.36 to a -2.2, which is certainly within the range. And it changes District 8 from a +1.56 to a +2.8. 5 Mr. Bridges: What about the black/white ratio, Lynn? Ms. Bailey: Okay, let me look at the numbers here. Okay, it changes the -- and I’m looking at black voting age population -- it changes District 6 from 35.87% black voting age population to 36.39% black voting age population. It changes District 8 from 24.22% black voting age population to 23.98% black voting age population. Mr. Kuhlke: Any questions? If not, I’d entertain a motion, since this meets all the criteria that we have, I’d entertain a motion that we realign District 6 line to end at Spirit Creek. Mr. Speaker: So moved. Mr. Speaker: Second. Mr. Kuhlke: Any further discussion in regard to that? If not, all in favor, please indicate by saying aye. The Group: Aye. Mr. Kuhlke: Any opposed? Unanimous. Any further discussion in regard to the map? Mr. Williams: Yes, sir. Mr. Kuhlke: Commissioner Williams? Mr. Williams: Thank you, sir. I just wanted to [inaudible] get Lynn, if she would, just to identify those [inaudible] that -- I mean I’ve got no problems in representing wherever but would like to [inaudible] what was added, where it is. Mr. Kuhlke: Can you go ahead and blow District 2 up on the board, Lynn? Marion, are you interested in knowing where the existing lines are and what it is in comparison to the new lines? Mr. Williams: Right. Ms. Bailey: Okay. Starting down at the bottom of District 2, let’s start there and work our way up. That one bloc there between the creek and Marvin Griffin Road used to be in District 2, and it’s been moved to District 6. That keeps, of course, the Apple Valley subdivision remains in District 2, 6 taking just the area there, that one bloc there south of Marvin Griffin. Moving on up past Bobby Jones, it basically keeps all the rest of the Fleming Precinct, the people that vote at Bernie Ward, it keeps them in District 2, with the exception of that one bloc. Moving into District 2 is part of the precinct -- excuse me, moving out of District 2 is part of the precinct that voted at the Burns Methodist Church, and it would be that neighborhood from Ruby Drive there, moving on down to Lumpkin Road. That neighborhood there was moved out of District 2 and put into District 6. Moving up there is Precinct 47. That’s the precinct currently voting at Mize Memorial Church. That’s the Tubman Home Road area. That precinct was in District 2, and remains in District 2. Moving up from there is Precinct 37, which is the precinct currently voting at Mount Vernon Church. There was no change there. Moving up further still, Precinct 7, that’s the precinct voting at New Hope -- the New Hope/Bethlehem area. There was no change that was in District 2, and remains in District 2. Moving up from there, Precinct 36. That is the Mount Calvary Precinct, and there is no change there, either. One area of change is the Second Mt. Moriah Precinct was moved out of 2 and into 1. One of the precincts at Gilbert Manor was moved out of -- actually that had no effect on District 2, excuse me. Excuse me, it did. It was moved out of District 2 and into 1. The small precinct at Gilbert. Mr. Speaker: [inaudible] 18A. Ms. Bailey: 18A, the top triangle there, that’s the Gilbert Manor Apartments, were moved into District 1. Also Precinct 44, which is the Paine College Precinct, was moved out of 2 and into 1. Moving down the map, Precinct 24A, that’s the precinct voting at Cherry Tree Crossing there at Johnson Recreation Center. That was moved into District 2. Precinct 19, the Glendale Bible Chapel, was moved into District 2. Precinct 3, which is the precinct that votes at Augusta Deliverance Evangelistic Church there on Roosevelt Drive was moved into District 2. Precinct 9A, which is one of the precincts voting at the Asbury Church there on Troupe Street was moved into District 2. And that’s going to be part of the -- well, you can see Kissingbower Road there, that’s kind of the Pendleton Park/Kissingbower Road area. Also moving into District 2 is Precinct 21A, which is part of the voters voting at the Aquatic Center on Damascus Road. And moving south from there, this is -- the top part of the precinct, that’s actually -- it used to be the voters that voted at the Lyndon Grove Presbyterian Church. They currently vote at Minnick Park. That area was moved into District 2. There 7 are substantial changes in District 2. Some things remain the same but obviously with District 2 having a nearly 20% shortage in population, we had to put people in there. We also had a serious population shortage in District 1. So some of the voters out of the old District 2 were shifted up in District 1, and then other voters from the surrounding areas were shifted into District 2. Mr. Williams: Did you reconsider the situation in District 2 also with the population [inaudible] as well as the population [inaudible]? Ms. Bailey: I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Mr. Williams: [inaudible] situation. I understand. I got no problem. You know, I mean, we going to have to represent the people in this city. I just wanted to know the changes that was added and the effect it was. And [inaudible] out of District 5 in [inaudible] no other district; is that right? Ms. Bailey: It looks like -- yes, I would say that, off the top of my head, I can’t be 100% sure, but it looks like the vast majority of the people put into District 2 came out of District 5; yes, sir. Mr. Kuhlke: Anything else, Mr. Williams? Mr. Williams: No. Mr. Kuhlke: Okay. Any other comments? Well, if we have no other comments, the purpose of this meeting was to go ahead and thrash out any problems that we had. So at this time, I will entertain a motion, and I’m wondering -- my question -- the motion would be to vote on the map which would be designated as Revision III. Mr. Bridges? Mr. Bridges: Mr. Kuhlke, given that there are no comments, I do have a motion, and I believe this right here -- this paper here is already part of the record. We each have a copy of it. Jim, do I need to read that for the record or just designate where it’s from? Mr. Wall: I don’t think it’s necessary. I mean if you want to read anything, just the motion would be the only requirement, and you could ask the Clerk to incorporate that in the record. Mr. Bridges: All right. I’ll just read this first part here because it is Revision III. I make the motion that Augusta, Georgia and the County 8 Board of Education of Richmond County formally approve and adopt by resolution the map entitled Richmond County Commission and School Board Districts Richmond Revision III and Reapportionment Test Plan Revision III for use in revising local election districts of Augusta, Georgia and the County Board of Education. And I ask that -- Mr. Chairman, probably I think it would appropriate to vote by roll call by representative as well. And I’d incorporate the last two paragraphs of this document we have in front of us as part of the motion. Mr. Kuhlke: Do I have a second? Ms. Speaker: Second. Mr. Kuhlke: Any discussion? If not, Madame Clerk, would you go ahead and have a roll call vote, and go ahead and take it by each delegation. It would be easier to do it that way. Roll Call Vote School Board Delegation: Mr. Myers: Yes. Ms. Minchew: Yes. Ms. Padgett: Yes. Dr. Hatney: Yes. The Augusta Commission: Mr. Kuhlke: No. Mr. Bridges: Yes. Mr. Beard: Yes. Mr. Mays: Yes. Legislative Delegation: Mr. Howard: Yes. Mr. Cheeks: Yes. Mr. Allen: Yes. The Clerk: [inaudible] Mr. Kuhlke: Yes, that would be appropriate. The rest of the School Board members, the Delegation members that might be here. How about a voice vote on that? 9 ??: Aye. Mr. Kuhlke: Anybody opposed to it? Thank you. Let me make this statement. I have been on the Commission six years. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of working with a more professional group of people on a committee in those six years. I want to compliment you. You’ve worked hard. You’ve participated. This is the first time, I think, that all three bodies have gotten together and come up with something that we can send to our Delegation. And I want to thank you for your hard work. I want to thank Lynn Bailey. She’s done a stellar job, a really good job. And the Information Technology people, and Ms. Bonner for getting up early in the morning and getting refreshments and doing all the work she’s done. So with that said, we’ll adjourn this meeting. Thank you. Lena J. Bonner Clerk of Commission 10