ARB - Calista Presentation - live blogging

[This is really really rough.  And I'm having trouble downloading photos at the moment, but I'll put this up and try to clean it up later.]

Torg:  Asking for Powerpoint and tesitmony.
Marcia Davis:  General council and VP for Calista - our region of Alaska is critically impacted by redistricting.  Clarify we're working with - Ruederich said that on short time frame since Friday.
Calista Option 2 and resolved that after meeting with other Native Orgs which will facilitate Board's option.  Now Calista Option 3, sent to Board last night, hard copy on the wall and available online.  Different from Option 2 moves Shismareff from 40 to 39, moved Huslia, ??, and ??? from 39 to 40.  Did that and maintained total deviation to .9%.
One other change - working with Mr. Colligan who is knowledgable of Matsu and refining Matsu boundaries and alligning a Senate pairing.
Overview was on Supreme Court to follow constitution to have  - important, not only based on state, but also federal equal protection.  Umbrella under which all other constitution important.  Second, focused on compact, contiguous, and didn't mess with any city boundaries, though had some borough.  But our ANCSA boundaries are = to borough boundaries, met among ANCSA corporations and socio-economic issues.
Guided by deviation minimization.  Strived for cmpactness, contiguity, only balanace point where deviation is too much to get the others. 
Will be some points - Tom will point them out.  Very low deviation .97, which gives Board some wiggle room.
Fairbanks also has excess population.  Not just looking at Native side, need to look at interests of urban population.  Ester folks are longstanding urban population, to distrupt them and throw them as surplus population is wrong.  Using people on east - military?  - they move in and out, not long standing, had voting average of 5% compared to western FB that has one of the highest voting rates.  This pairing does the least harm to both sides.  Proud of Borough and ANCSA boundaries.  Calista with dominant with Kuskokwim drainage area - listing all but I can't keep up.  AHTNA ingonore in most maps - integrity minus Cantwell,  Koniak and Aleut preserved.  Doyon - they like Bethel have a split propulation - one cause large population the other because small. 

.....  Want to talk about doinut (yes, not donut) problem with Senate pairings.  FB core has five and pair extra with the donut that surrounds FB.  Allows future census cycles to have least disruption. 

Now turn it over to Steve Colligan at E-Terra who will speak to how the map was created and then Tom Begich who has worked on four redistricting process will talk about balance.

Steve Colligan - resident of Wasilla.  30 years ago thought I'd never do a redistricing again, using cards - using digital tools to enforce an analog process.  In this process with Calista and others, started with blank maps.  applied Native Corp boundaries, DDT????, then census blocks (???)  reaching across 100's of miles to find a couple of people. 

Tom Begich:  Resident of Anchorage.  socio-economic expert for state of Alaska in Hickel and also in Knowles, and contract to former Sen. Al Adams, and contractor to Calista, sole employer.  Deviation less than 1% honoring equal protection in Constitution, then compactness and contiguity.  Look at visual compactness.  We wanted to be sure where we had visible compactness also socio- ecomonic compactness.
Computer dropped to floor. 
District 6 on Eastern FB - Eilson and south, Moose river population kept with North Pole and city boundaries kept intact, no city boundaries violated.  Borough - one FB break, one Anchorage, one Matsu, 2 in Kenai.
Created FB city district, Boundary.  Per request to square it off added south part - two city house districts.  One around NPole and one College Chena Hills and connected by zero block along river.  Then older urban population North and west of the city.  One break of FB is here.  Mostly rural or more transient. 
South - area of interest, how take TCC and mesh with AHTNA, 20 years ago analaysis showed intermarriage connections. 
Valdez-Richardson district challenge.  Come in right under the Borough.  Only Matsu incorporated south of old Glenn - about 500 residents of Matsu.  So Matsu has all five of its house districts in tact.  Steve did this inline with some comments from Mayor of Matsu.  This only break, and becomes large district 10.  Not only has all 5 house seats and with Anchorage for Matsu Chugiak Sen pairing. 
In Anchorage with breaking senate pairings to north and south - keeps all pairings together.  Keeps ER together. 
I note four Board maps paired Sandlake and Ocean view so we copied that. 
I believe it's the same as the Anchorage house district maps.
White:  you changed some names?
Begich:  Steve will talk to that.  Had to change some numbers.
Kenai, now, see that Kenai Soldotna district, here - left 35 people out of Kenai City but back in.  Souther part unites with Kodiak, Cordova fishing district.  Twice a day plane service between Kodiak and Yakutat. 
SE briefly - similar to Ketchikan - with south of Prince of Wales - ethnicity of Haida/Tlingkit.  Also Haida people we didn't include.  Petersburg and Sitka boroughs maintained.  Split in Juneau - make as compact as possible.
Finally, take out of Kenai - Nanwalek, Tyonek, and Port Grapham and put in Bristol Bay borough.   . . . 

One exception with TCC Arctic Village for population 153 people incorporated with NWA - about 1/5 %.  Tried to get map as close as perfect for equal protection.
Colligan:  Each map different approaches to Matsu.  Some ??? that overlap. 
Stick to major roads, streams, Matsu with existing precincts has every assembly district split three times.  Adopted Assembly maps before, readjust and make reassignments, easier for public to understand and minimize deviation.  did cause some paring problems, so renumbered pairing north district to palmer, Chugach and rural with KGB, and norther lakes district with Wasilla (??????)

Torg:  Two questions, a little confused Kenai borough twice split?
Begich:  Tyonek, Nanwalek, Port Graham to
and also fishing district.  does maintain Homer in Kenai district.
Torg:  Delta?
Begich:  Current Deltas are kept together - used Highway as boundary - south of highway is ten and north as get toward Tok is in 6.  Tok and that area I think in 10 district. 
White:  Thanks, some questions: 
Fishing district.  I know you've been qualified as an expert.  Tell us how fishing district holds together.  Kodiak.
Begich:  Entire Kodiak borough.  Chugach Alaska Boundaries.  PWSound desire of Cordova to be locked into fishing district.  Whole linkage of commercial fishing district.  Also relationship between Yakutat and Cordova - mostly air relationship but also fishing. 
Fishing, Coastal Alaska, common  Alaska Native roots and two Boroughs complete.
White:  Based on your expertise in Socio-economic integration you say this is ok?
Begich:  Absolutely
White:  Spoke with them and got their agreement?
Begich:  No,  head of Chugach region said frustrating because step children of region because population used for one or the other.  About 350 people, so some flexibility.
White:  Could put the two villages into Kenai and keep deviations under 5%. 
Begich:  Kenai B entitled to at least 3 house districts, absolutel constitutional mandate.  Have to do something with excess population of kenai.  Sometimes geography forces you to broken twice.  We think no other B needs that.  Only 1800 people affected by breaks.
White:  How many live in Eilson?
Begich:  About 2600, to east 19 people - around 4095 people.  When even out FB districts about 10,000, we got down to 8,800 people.  plus or minus .5 deviation in FB and only take out 9000. 
White:  Out of FBNS B took out
Begich:  8,800, most from Eilson, a transient group.
Significantly smaller number comes from permanaent population when take from east side than out of west side. 
White:  You'd agree with me if east or west is within discretion of the B.
Begich:  yes, but if want socio-integrated want to disturb the permanent population less.
White:  Valdez - how many people out of Anchorage? 
Begich:  7548 out of Chugiak area, the ideal amount of Anchorage excess.
Matsu - 512 people and all south of Glenn.  full five house districts for Matsu. 
explaining socio-integration of Anchorage and Valdez - if any part of Anchorage connected to Valdez it is the northern part.  Dittman survey.  Old Glenn takes you to Palmer and out.  You can do this without respecting the B boundary.  You could follow the highway and take more from Matsu?????  Zero blocks there.  If trust our Constitution - socio-economically integrated - Matsu boundary should trump highway. 

White:  Steve can you help difference tween your Matsu map and what the mayor drew for us?
Colligan:  Mayor's map maintain portion of Palmer they give up.  Mayor's map takes this portion Lazy Mt.  in this map maintain Wasilla and portions of Palmer, but it is different mainly ??????
Begich:  Under Calista map, district out of Chugiak in mayor's map comes up into the Valley.  In the Mayor's map it is broken twice.  Under ours it is borken onece.  Have to give up Lazy Mt.  [This is lots of mapping and hard to understand from the words only]

Torg:  Go into public testimony - but a five minute recess first.