County redistricting process warming up...

- First, a little bit of good news:  the measure that would insert the legislature into county-level redistricting, the striker to HB2289, was held by the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, almost certainly killing the idea.  Thursday was the last day for most legislative committees to consider bills. 

If they are really serious about foisting off this measure on the state, there are still a few tricks left (consisting mostly of running the measure through Appropriations, which is still meeting), but it seems highly likely that this one fell in the face of some quickly-organized opposition from most of the counties affected, even the Republican-heavy ones.

- Second, time for the educational part of this post.

Over the next six or seven months, Maricopa County will be engaging in its decennial redistricting process.

Here, we have five supervisorial districts, which will be redistricted with the five coterminous districts (meaning that the districts have the same boundaries...I like big words :) ) of the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) and the Maricopa Special Healthcare District (MIHS).

In addition to those, there are also 25 justice court precincts/districts (redrawn every two years, based on workload, not population), seven districts for the Western Maricopa Education Consortium (West-MEC), and nine districts for the East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT).

Both West-MEC and EVIT are "Joint Technical Education Districts, or JTEDs, which are comprised of a number of school districts combining resources to deliver technical and vocational education to those of their students who are interested.

West-MEC and EVIT are redistricted separately from the County, yet because of their size (between them, they cover most of the county geographically, other than Phoenix), they do a lot of their redistricting work in conjunction with the County.

Besides those, the county must redraw voting precincts, but that won't be done until the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission redraws the boundaries for Congressional and legislative districts - can't have a voting precinct split into two different Congressional or lege districts.

To assist in county-level redistricting, Maricopa County has put up a redistricting page on its website.

That page includes:

- A Powerpoint presentation on the county-level redistricting process that does a far better job of explaining all of this than I can in a brief blog post.

- A Powerpoint presentation on using the County's redistricting mapping tool.

- The redistricting mapping tool itself.  It will allow users to craft suggested maps and submit them to the county for consideration.  There are a few points to this:

1.  Current electeds cannot be redistricted out of their districts.  Their home voting precincts must remain in their districts.

2.  The tool allows for working on board of supervisor (BOS) district, justice of the peace (JP) precincts, and West-MEC (WMEC) districts.

3.  Selecting "check in plan" will submit plans for all three at once.  If you plan on working on more than one plan, don't hit "check in" before all are complete.  If you do, all plans, even incomplete ones, will be submitted.

4.  Read the directions and use the "help" files whenever necessary, and don't be afraid to scrap a plan and start over - even the pros are going to have to do that many times.

5.  When submitting comments (and plans) to the County, remember that everything submitted is public record and can be read by anyone.  In addition, because Arizona is a "preclearance" state under the Voting Rights Act, *all* materials will be submitted to the US Department of Justice for examination and approval before a plan is finalized.

In April and May, County Elections will be holding a series of public meetings to present this to members of the public.  They will be held at various community college districts throughout the Valley -

April 4, 2011

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
South Mountain Community College
Located in the Student Union Room 100 ABC
7050 S. 24th St.
Phoenix, AZ 85042
April 5, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Rio Salado Community College - Surprise
Located in Communiversity
15950 N. Civic Center Plaza
Surprise, AZ 85374

April 6, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Gateway Community College
Located in MA Room 1100N/S
108 N. 40th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85034

April 11, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Chandler Gilbert Community College - Pecos Campus
Located in the Student Center Conference Suite (SC-140-144)
2626 East Pecos Road
Chandler, Arizona 85225

April 13, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Estrella Mountain Community College
Located in Montezuma Hall Center for Teaching and Learning Community Room
3000 North Dysart Rd.
Avondale, AZ 85323
April 14, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Scottsdale Community College
Located in the Torquoise Room
9000 East Chaparral Road
Scottsdale, AZ 85256
April 18, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Mesa Community College - Red Mountain Campus
Located in the Community Room, on the second level of the Mesquite Building (#5)
7110 East McKellips Road
Mesa, AZ 85207
Campus Information
April 19, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Chandler Gilbert Community College - Sun Lakes
Located in SLC-207
25105 South Alma School Road
Sun Lakes, AZ 85248

April 20, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Rio Salado Community College - Avondale
Located in Community Room
420 N Central Ave.
Avondale, Arizona 85323

April 21, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Paradise Valley Community College
Located in Q Building Room 120A/B
18401 North 32nd St.
Phoenix, Arizona 85032
April 25, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Phoenix College
Located in Osborn Site South Willow Room
1202 West Thomas Road
Phoenix, Arizona 85013
May 3, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Glendale Community College
Located in the Student Union Room 104
6000 W. Olive Ave.
Glendale, Arizona 85302

Later...