12-11-2001 Regular Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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e e Redistricting Minutes - Page 2 Committee Member Ed Matuszak will go through the overview of the entire recommended plan the Committee will be presenting to City Council. Each Committee Member will explain the changes to the district lines of the district they represent. After the Committee makes their presentation, ten minutes will be allotted for questions and answers from the audience to each individual district member. At the end of all presentations, there will be a question and answer session for all districts. Mr. Grant requested citizens address the Chairman or the Committee and there be no discussion between the members in the audience, so we can keep order in the meeting. 6 & 7. THE CITY ATTORNEY EXPLAINED RULES AND JUSTICE DEPARTMENT GUIDELINES FOLLOWED BYn1E COMMITTEE AND GUIDELINES SET FORTH BY THE CITY COUNCIL FOR THE REDISTRICTING COMMITTEE City Attorney Knox Askins noted the following items: The Home Rule Charter of the City of La Porte provides that after each federal census conducted every ten years, the City Council look at the census results to determine if the six single member districts have become disproportionate in population due to the growth during the previous ten years. City Council determined, when the census figures were obtained, that there was a great deal of disproportion of population among the various single member districts. The City Council appointed a citizens' committee to undertake the task of simulating the census data. On August 131\ the City Council passed an ordinance that gave the general charge to this Committee, outlining what its duties are as a Redistricting Committee to draw new maps for polling places for the six districts. The law on this is federal law (Voting Rights Act) and applies mainly to the southern states. Court decisions have been made to interpret those statutes. In addition, the Justice Department issued regulations late last year that had to be followed as well. The total population was determined; and the federal law is that these districts should be as equal as possible in population, with a population deviation of no more than +/- 5%, utilizing the best available population data as provided by the federal census for the year 2000. The population of the City of La Porte is 31,880 total citizens. That population total is not voters, but total citizens. For each single member district, the ideal population is 5,313 persons per district. Following the regulations of the Justice Department and taking in consideration the maximum allowable deviation, the districts on the high side should be 5,579 people and on the low side 5,047 people. The regulations stated and were included in the Council ordinance, providing direction to the Committee, noting where possible easily identifiable geographic boundaries would be utilized. The most obvious would be a major street or a boulevard.