GAINESVILLE – Newtown Florist Club Executive Director Rose Johnson presented members of the Gainesville City Council a proposed redistricting map for the city’s five wards during public comment at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
“We want to present our map to the council ahead of the redistricting process,” Johnson said.
Redistricting is the process that follows every U.S. Census as population data is used to draw voting districts within a jurisdiction for the purpose of assuring fair representation of all citizens.
Johnson said with all the new residential construction taking place downtown her organization was concerned about what effect the large increase in population within the existing boundaries of Ward 3 could do to alter the district. “We are concerned that those developments will upset the racial balance of Ward 3,” she said.
“What we have done is we have used Dave’s Redistricting Software and prepared our own map,” she added.
Johnson explained that the downtown developments were draw out of Ward 3 (where they were after the 2010 census) and Ward 3 was extended northward. “We did take portions of Ward 2 and we went along Cleveland Highway, out Park Hill Drive, to identify communities of interest.”
Johnson said the committee creating the proposed map followed the requirements of the law and maintained proportional standards.
“We just want to present it to you for the record so that whenever redistricting starts you’ll have our map, and we would really appreciate your input on it, and I look forward to the redistricting process.”
According to data provided by the Newtown Florist Club, the average number of residents in each ward is 8459, with Ward 5 being the most populous at 8806 residents, and Ward 4 having the fewest residents at 8057.
Ward 3 has the largest non-white population percentage at 64.7-percent and Ward 2 has the highest percentage of residents identifying as white at 65.4-percent.
After the city council meeting adjourned Johnson said work on the proposed redistricting map began in August. “We had a meeting with the city to share our concerns,” she explained. “We brought in consultants to help us with this redistricting process and they were very helpful.”
