Matsu Residents Sound Unhappy with Redistricting Board Plans

Andrew Wellner of the Frontiersman reports Matsu people pretty unhappy with the Board's plan, here's the beginning of his piece:

PALMER — Redistricting plans riling up public opinion in the state came to the Valley Monday and attendees almost all seemed to have one thing in common — they don’t like either of the redistricting board’s proposals.

“We don’t feel either option one or option two serve our borough,” said Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss, expressing an opinion arrived at around the assembly table.

Both options call for drastic revisions to the lines carving up the borough, and both would add a fourth state House district. But most agreed that number should be five, and that the two districts representing pieces of the borough — an Anchorage seat also represents the Butte and the Valdez seat includes Chickaloon and Sutton — should be used somehow to make that district.
Steve Colligan, Wasilla resident and vice chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, said both plans don’t serve “any other consideration other than gerrymandering.” He asked that the board look at borough assembly district boundaries.

Board chair John Torgerson noted that the same U.S. Census that prompted the state to redraw its lines will prompt the borough to redraw assembly districts.

“To use those now wouldn’t be worth much,” he told Colligan.

 Read the whole piece here.