The Safety and Licensing Committee met 05/11/2022 and took up the redistricting modifications required by the April 15, 2022, Wisconsin Supreme Court Ruling. After a brief discussion, they ended up recommending Option 2 for approval.
Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14) asked Clerk Kami Lynch to summarize the issue and the options prior to seeking a motion on the item.
Clerk Lynch explained that as a result of the court battle over redistricting, a ruling was made approving the redistricting map that had been drawn by the State Legislature. That map included lines that ran through existing wards on the ward and aldermanic district map Appleton had adopted in October of 2021. Lines are not allowed to run through wards, so ward boundaries needed to be changed to accommodate the lines in the newly adopted state map. There were two ways to deal with the problem.
Option 1 – They could split the existing wards with lines running through them into separate wards, so the city would end up with 55 wards instead of the 47 currently in place.
Option 2 – There was a little bit of flexibility to move the aldermanic district line along the Assembly district boundary. This would affect Aldermanic districts 3 and 4 slight. They could move a portion of ward 8 into ward 10 and then, slightly south of that, move some of ward 10 into ward 8. The population swap would be small and was not something that would have to be done.
She went on to say that one of the things that she evaluated when considering any of the changes was if they would end up with a small ward with only three households, for example. Having such a small ward would prevent the residents in it from having privacy around how they voted. Thankfully, Appleton didn’t end up with any of those situations.
If the city went with Option 2, the aldermanic district lines would conform to the Assembly District line and also run more contiguous with the street versus having the slivers that are in place with Option 1. Option 2 was essentially just an opportunity to clean up those lines and have fewer wards in those districts and fewer ballot styles.
Alderperson Croatt asked if her office recommended one of the options, and she answered that they did not.
He asked for a motion to get the item on the table, and Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) made a motion to approve Option 2. Alderperson Croatt seconded it.
Alderperson Hartzheim said that, having worked at a polling place and knowing that poll workers had to manage what ballots were for which voters, she was in favor of Option 2 because it didn’t significantly alter the total population deviation of the aldermanic districts but it did allow there to be fewer ballot styles at voting places which made the most sense to her. She understood that there was the potential for a bit of confusion among the people in those areas, but she thought there was potential for confusion simply by adding wards as Option 1 called for. She thought the current alderpersons of Districts 3 and 4 were very much able and willing to work with the residents in affected areas to make sure they knew what was happening.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) said that when she first read the memo Option 1 seemed very simple and Option 2 was convoluted; however, she thought that Option 2 was aimed at making things simple in the long run, in terms of managing polling places. She also thought that if they had fewer things to manage, print, and distribute, in the end that would save money.
She also asked Clerk Lynch if her staff drew the lines and nobody else was involved in the process. [I took this as her wanting to clarify for the record that these lines were not changed to benefit one political party over the other.]
Clerk Lynch confirmed that she and an employee from the GIS departments were the two people who drew the lines.
Alderperson Alfheim said, “So hopefully we agree as a committee that this was done out of a rational common sense. This is not a political thing in anyway.” Based on the understanding that Option 2 would simplify managing elections, she was in favor of Option 2.
Clerk Lynch noted that if the committee recommended Option 2 for approval, city staff would prepare an ordinance to go with that. Because there was a tight time constraint on updating the city’s lines, the ordinance would appear on the 05/18/2022 Council agenda. However, staff would also prepare an ordinance that conformed with Option 1 just in case the full Council decided to not go with the committee’s recommendation. That way, the Council could go forward with either option at that meeting.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) thanked Clerk Lynch for her work on this. He thought it had probably been stressful, and there were times when the process had gotten bumpy. He appreciated her hard work.
There were no other comments or questions and the committee voted 5-0 to recommend Option 2 for approval.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=951448&GUID=EB4101D4-A4E6-4BDF-A9D3-9B707CA29A4B
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