And the Appleton redistricting saga continues. On 10/11/2021, the Redistricting Committee voted to recommend the Option D ward and district map for approval; however, they were not entirely satisfied with that choice. There was a sense that they were pushed into that option because it was the only map presented to them that met the benchmark of having no more than 10% deviation between district populations. Going over that benchmark would have opened the city up to potential lawsuits.
This redistricting process has been difficult because the timeframe has been so truncated. The population information in each of the census tracts was not fully updated until after the committee had initially expressed their desire to move forward with the Option A map. The lateness of that information being made available is why the team working on drawing the maps had not been able to catch this issue earlier on in the process. The Common Council in aiming to approve a new map on October 20th if possible but could potentially push approval out to no later than the November 3rd meeting in order to meet their statutory requirements for publication of the new district lines. Pushing it to November 3rd would be cutting it very close and it’s possible if they wait that long that the city won’t be able to meet their legal requirements, so approving a map on October 20th would be much preferred.
Given those time considerations, the committee didn’t feel they had any choice other than to approve the map before them, but they would have preferred to have more than one option to consider and vote on.
It now appears that city staff have come up with two more options, so the committee will be meeting 10/18/2021 to review Options D, E, and F, and hopefully make a final recommendation for the Common Council to vote on October 20th.
Although Option D had come in under that 10% population deviation benchmark, it had done so just barely at 9.5%. City staff had indicated they would have preferred to be under it by a greater margin if that were possible. It appears both of these new maps are under it by more. Option E has a 7.5% population deviation and Option F has a 6.2% population deviation.
[It will be interesting to see what factors the committee members give most weight to. In my opinion, although Option F has the lowest population deviation, it is not necessarily the most contiguous of the maps. District 11, frankly, looks terrible with a tiny strip of land along the river that would make more sense being in District 9. Option E, although with a greater population variance, does seem more contiguous to me. I guess we’ll have to wait to find out what the committee decides.]
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=898965&GUID=B2CD3A5A-8CC6-41F9-8101-C603E9965765
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