Snow Leaving Bike Trails

I decided to use an alternate route because I knew that after the pond there was still very messy snow on the trail.  (There is no permanent lake anywhere near, just snow melt finding its way to Chester Creek.)

Draft Plan - Rural Areas, Valdez, and Fairbanks Approved

[UPDATE: 10pm added maps and board meeting schedule for rest of the week]

Here's a summary, I'll add more to this to fill it out (Maps) and catchup from what I missed yesterday.

Summary:
1.  Adopted Board Plan 1-2 for rural areas.
2.  Adopted Valdez from Board Plan 1-2.
3.  Adopted Holm plan for Fairbanks.
4.  Played a bit with Matsu and Anchorage,
So far, the strategy has been to put together the rural districts first in order to get nine Native districts and then move into the urban areas which theoretically should be easier because there are more people in a compact area and they are reasonably ‘socio-economically integrated.’ 
5.  Memo from Taylor Bickford about Anchorage

So, the question is, will the board become more political as it carves up Fairbanks and Anchorage?  Fairbanks got adopted today based on Holm’s plan.  There was no discussion about incumbents.  Well, there was a question about whether any one knew how this affected incumbents.  Torgerson said all he knew was that Coghill lives in North Pole.  But I find it hard to believe that Holm, who was a Fairbanks legislator until he was defeated in 2006, has no idea where the incumbents live.  He didn’t say anything one way or the other.  I’ll have to check with people from Fairbanks to see what they think these proposed districts will do. 

At least with Brodie doing Anchorage, there’s no indication that he has any idea of how what he’s doing affects the existing incumbents.  Doesn’t mean that he hasn’t checked, but, for example, as he played around with District 24 - my district - moving blocks of people into 23 which needed more people,  he came close to Berta Gardner’s neighborhood, I don’t think he had any idea where she lives. 

double click to enlarge

The meeting went from 2pm and Chair Torgerson said he wanted it to end at 6pm.  I left a few minutes before that.  Member Jim Holm left even earlier to catch a plane to Fairbanks.

Also, note that Kay Brown, who's been attending all the meetings for AFFR (Alaskans for Fair Redistricting) has been blogging on their site.  She understands all this much better than I do.   AFFR is a group made up of AFL-CIO and Native groups and a few others.  You can see who all on their site.

Click to Enlarge

 Board Option 1 v. 2 was approved today, with these caveats.  Basically, what was approved were the rural districts - excluding Southeast, Valdez, Kenai, Matsu, Fairbanks, and Anchorage.

Later, they approved the Valdez district on this map as opposed to the one proposed by Valdez.  They needed to do that to get enough Native districts and, as I understood it, to have District 5 contiguous with a Southeast Native district to be established. 
And later they also adopted the Fairbanks map above. 

The board is meeting tomorrow

Sunday, April 10th
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Location: 411 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501

Here's the schedule for the rest of the week:

Monday, April 11th
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Location: 411 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501

Tuesday, April 12th
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Location: 411 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501

Here's the schedule for the rest of the week:

Wednesday, April 13th
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Location: 411 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501

Thursday, April 14th
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Location: 411 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501

Each meeting may involve periodic recesses to a time certain and the Board may also consider administrative and legal matters at the daily Board meetings. Discussions of legal matters may require executive sessions.

Tomás Gets Third Place in World Press Cartoon Humor Award

On the English language page of the World Press Cartoon website, it says 'gag' cartoons, but in the Portuguese it says "Humor."  I think they should have used the same word in English.  These are humorous, but they aren't 'gags.'  Here's his third prize winning cartoon. Tomás gave me permission to post it here when it was officially announced.   It's called HARD CHILDHOOD/Infancia difícil

The Grand Prize Winner was Australian Rowe and his cartoon entitled "WikiLeaks and Uncle Sam."  You can see all the award winners and their cartoons here.

World Press Cartoon Awards and Alaska Press Club Honor Blogger Friends**

As I write, a lot of cartoonists and people interested in cartoonists are gathered in Sintra, Portugal for the World Press Cartoon Awards ceremony.   Spanish cartoonist Tomás Serrano is there.*  He hiked the Harding Icefield trail at Exit Glacier last summer and then left a comment on my blog post of that hike.  And so we got together when he came through Anchorage.  He's a really gifted cartoonist and has two children's books and he's up for an award.  I have a link to his website on the right - Waldo Walkiria.  

The World Press Cartoon website says the prizes will be announced today.  And it's already tomorrow in Portugal.  They had too good a time to post the winners on their website. 

Also, last week, after my blogging class, I saw that the Alaska Press Club had its annual conference in the same building at UAA.  I got their schedule and saw they had awards too last week.

Two Alaska cartoonists (and bloggers) - Peter Dunlap-Shohl and Jamie Smith won prizes.  (I like Peter's stuff so much I have links to both his blogs here on the right - Frozen Grin and Off and On:  The Alaska Parkinson's Blog., which won Best Commentary Blog from the Alaska Press Club.   I thought I had Jamie's Ink & Snow linked here but I didn't, so I added it.) 

(Jeanne Devon at Mudflats got second in that category and the Alaska Dispatch's Jamie Woodham's blog The Concerned got third.)





Jamie Smith got best Editorial Cartoon (Large print Small print) for his work at the Fairbanks News Miner.

You can get a pdf with all of the Alaska Press Awards here.


Congratulations to Tomás*, Peter, and Jamie, as well as Jeanne and Scott.

* I know Tomás won something, because he emailed me several weeks ago that he was invited to the award ceremony.  He has to of his cartoons submitted and at the time he didn't know which had won or what it had won.  They're both neat and I'll post them when the word comes in. 


** What's a Friend These Days?
In the age of Facebook, what is a friend?   I was hesitant to put 'friends' in the title.  I would say that a couple of the people named in the post qualify, others I like and/or respect a lot, but I just haven't spent much time with.   Jamie, for instance,  I've only exchanged emails with.  Scott, not even that.   Not exactly friends in the old definition, but probably in the FB sense. 

In case anyone is asking this question: 
Answer:  No, I didn't submit anything to the Alaska Press Club Awards.  I didn't even know they had a category for blogs until I saw the list. 

Have a good weekend!

Redistricting Nationwide - NY Times Overview

While I've been focused on Alaska's redistricting, the New York Times today reminds me that this is going on across the country.  In most other states, though, there are two levels of redistricting - for Congressional seats AND for State Legislative seats.  In Alaska, since we have only one US House district, there's nothing to draw - the whole state is the district. 


A couple of more inclusive examples from the Times redistricting article mentioned are:

In Florida, political leaders have set up MyDistrictBuilder, a Web site that will allow voters to propose new, nonbinding maps for the state’s districts. And in Virginia, teams of students from area colleges entered a contest to design new Congressional maps to be considered by a bipartisan advisory commission appointed by Gov. Bob McDonnell.

[The link was to download what I assume is the program, but since there was nothing else except one blue button on the page, and I have a some other things to do today, I didn't try it.]

I've been thinking throughout this process that there should be ways for people to go online and play, "Redraw Alaska's Districts."  Right now it's nearly impossible for someone without the software to be able to draw lines and keep track of all the data necessary - particularly the actual number of people in each district and the percentage of Alaskan Natives in each district. [This is important because of the US Voting Rights Act, see more discussion on this in this prior post.]

The article says that nationally Democrats seem to be ahead in raising money to analyze data and litigate plans they don't like.

Democrats, aided by a ruling last year by the Federal Election Commission [I'm sure the FCC didn't write rules that gave Democrats preference over Republicans] that declared redistricting work exempt from some election financing restrictions, have set up a trust fund for litigation growing out of the redistricting. The trust’s structure will allow Democrats to raise unlimited amounts of “soft” money without running afoul of finance restrictions put in place in 2002 by the McCain-Feingold law, election lawyers say.

The Democrats’ fund-raising is intended to provide “the best data, the best ability to analyze the data, and the best legal team we can,” said Representative Mike Thompson, a California Democrat leading the party’s redistricting efforts across the country.

A good question would be whether any of that is coming to Alaskan Democrats.  I'd guess not since no Congressional seats are affected here.  But the regulars at the Board meetings are people from Alaskans For Fair Redistricting (Unions and Native organizations), a staffer from the Bush Caucus, John Harris (former Republican House Speaker), and less regularly, Randy Ruedrich (though he was back yesterday when the attorney reported his findings on Ruedrich's suggestion to count prisoners in their original home districts instead of at prison locations. The attorney said legally they had to use official Census Data and such block data with characteristics details like race won't be available until June and even then won't identify home addresses.  And if the numbers actually mattered, they would come so late in the process that it would be hard to change everything so late in the process.  But he doesn't think they'll matter anyway.)  Ruedrich, the state Republican chair, has been associated with Alaskans for Fair and Equitable Redistricting  (AFFER - a title that is a bit confusing since it's so close to AFFR). 

AFFR discloses clearly at the end of their report all the organizations they are associated with - including the AFL-CIO which the Times article says is well organized for this.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, meanwhile, has set up the Foundation for the Future, a tax-exempt “527” group with a $750,000 budget to help demographers, mapmakers and other experts aid Democrats. The organization grew out of meetings the union had with top advisers to Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, and others.

You can see the AFFR report,  and the AFFER report along with the others that were submitted on the Redistricting Board's website - right column, first page.  The AFFER report does not say who all was involved the way the AFFR report does.  I should do a post on who all has submitted reports.  It's covered - though scattered over the day's posts on March 31 when they all presented their plans at public testimony.


OK, Alaska, in 2021, let's make sure there's a redistricting contest online so everyone can get involved in the process.  If computer gamers played a hand in this, it would make this fun.  It can't be any more complicated that a lot of computer games people play.  Plus this hidden process would then be out in the open for everyone to see and they would better understand all the factors that need to be balanced and how seriously politics were drawing districts. 

Can the Board Keep to Nine Native Districts? What is Contiguous?

I'm trying to figure out how to write about the Redistricting Board the last couple of days.  They are playing with the software trying to find ways to make maps that meet all the criteria.  I say 'playing' very consciously.  This is very much like a computer game.

The Goal:

Make 40 districts each with 17,755 people, give or take a percent or two.

Restrictions:

No Retrogression

That's what they've been struggling with the last two days.

The current districts include NINE native districts.  Let me clarify.  There are 6 House districts that are either minority-majority or minority-influence districts (see this previous post for explanation) and three Senate districts.  These are:

House District	Incumbent	Senate District	Incumbent	Minority Majority*	Minority Influence*
5	Bill Thomas Jr. (R)	C	Albert Kookesh (D)	5?
6	Alan Dick (R)	C	Albert Kookesh (D)		6?
37	Bryce Edgmon (D)	S	Lyman Hoffman (D)	37 - S
38	Bob Herron (D)	S	Lyman Hoffman (D)	38 - S
39	Neal Foster (D)	T	Donny Olson (D)	39 -T
40	Reggie Joule (D)	T	Donny Olson (D)	40 -T

 *I'm not 100% sure about which districts are Minority-Majority and Minority-Influence.  I'll try to get that confirmed tomorrow. [TB, if you read this, please correct it in the comments.]

The question on the Board's mind - at least on Chair Torgerson's - was whether the Board could avoid any retrogression by creating nine Native majority or influence districts and still meet the state's requirements for compact, socially and economically integrated districts.  They had a plan with nice [nine]. but with a Senate seat made up of two non-contiguous House seats.

Because of Alaska's huge area, unique shape (narrow strips - SE between water and Canada, Aleutians, islands spread out 1200 miles across the ocean), and very sparse population, we already have some districts that are hardly compact.

So they were able to come up with a plan that had nine native districts, but in order to do that, they had to pair a House district in Ketchikan in the southeast with one in Kodiak to make a Native senate district.  So, the answer was yes.  You can see that explained in the first video. 



But, could the meaning of 'contiguous' be stretched to cover two house districts (one in Ketchikan and one in Kodiak) over a large expanse of ocean to make a Native senate seat? That's the question Torgerson asks attorney White in the second video.

Wednesday it appeared they were going to really try to get to nine Native districts. Thursday it wasn't so certain, though Eric, the GIS guy, had come up with another way to get nine Native districts, but still 'ugly.'  Yesterday it seemed like they were going to find a way to do get nine.  Today,  it looked liked they were ready to settle for eight Native districts. But it sounds like they'll go forward with a plan for nine and one for eight. 

One thing I noticed was that the staffers who'd worked hard to get at least a Native-influence district out of SE said, "It can't be done." I think a more accurate way of saying it would be, "We couldn't figure out a way to do it." I don't know if it can be done more elegantly than they did it (because they did do it, though, as they said, "it was ugly"). But I suspect people with real skill and more experience with the software could do seemingly impossible things. Afterall, 30 years ago, people never imagined that people could do the stunts we see in sports like extreme skiing. But the board only has about six days to get the draft plan done.

I'm going to miss the Friday meeting because I have the Ole! blogging class at the same time as the board meeting.  But they'll be meeting Saturday and Sunday at 2pm as well.  They have til Friday to get a draft plan, so no time off.  And those of you who can't get there because of work - well, you can see them in action.  In the Yellow mall on 4th Avenue - 411 W. 4th.  Suite 203.

What Constitutes a Native for Determining Native Percentage of a District?

The US Voting Rights Act has so far proven to be the major force guiding the Alaska Redistricting Board's efforts.  There's good reason for this.  Most of the  prior Alaska redistricting plans have been legally challenged and the courts have required changes.  Furthermore, because an earlier challenge showed racial discrimination against Alaska Natives, Alaska is one of 16 states monitored by the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act.

Staff Attorney Michael White's guidelines for the board say the act requires "no unavoidable retrogression."  (On March 22, Fund for Native American Rights senior staff attorney Natalie Landreth testified that it should be "no retrogression" without the unavoidable.  Later, while White accepted one of Landreth's corrections, he did not accept this one. )

This means, as I understand it, that Native voting strength should not be less than at the last redistricting.   This is measured by how many districts are  'minority-majority' and 'minority-influence.'  Minority-majority districts would have 50% or more Alaska Native population (not necessarily voters).  Minority-influence districts have at least 35% Alaska Native population. 

One of the issues that came up in Tuesday's discussion was whether the plans submitted by various organizations counted Natives the same way the board is counting someone Native.  I thought I was hearing people say 'Native plus one."  But today I heard someone say "Native plus white."  Maybe they used both or maybe my kids are right about my hearing.

This makes a difference.  If a group is using a more lenient definition of Native, then they would count more people as Native than a stricter definition.  Thus they might define a district as Native-Influence because it had, using their numbers, 36% Alaska Natives.  But the way the board is counting, the district might only have 34% Alaska Natives.

But I didn't quite understand what those different ways of counting were.  So I asked Michael White if he could explain it on this video. 




As you can see from the video, the issue is that so far the DOJ has counted, in the past, people identified as Native and people identified as "Native and White."
But NOT other combinations, such as "Native and Black" or "Native and Asian."

At the Wednesday (April 6) meeting, I believe that White told the Board that his understanding was that the Board could only count "Native" and "Native and White" but he's still seeking further clarification. And Chair Torgerson told the staff to find out how the groups that submitted plans to the Board counted someone as a Native. If they used a different way, then the data have to be adjusted to match the way the Board counted them.

And a followup to the question I had about what categories were used prior to 2010 in the video, a February 9, 2011 New York Times article on mixed race says that before the 2000 Census people could mark 'multiracial'.  This raised a myriad of problems. 

"[T]he census in 2000 began allowing respondents to mark as many races as they wanted. . ."

Vote and Pray - Church Ends Being a Voting Site

Yesterday was Municipal election day in Anchorage.

Image sources listed at bottom of the post

Suppose when you put your ballot into the voting machine the wall behind the machine looked like the poster above.  If you were a Muslim, you might or might not object depending on how you felt about your faith and on your understanding of separation of church and state.  I don't have any problem with these images on their own.  But if I were forced to view these in order to vote in my local election in the United States, I would have a problem.

Well, yesterday this is what I actually saw when I put my ballot into the voting machine.

And here's the wall again with the voting machine:

It turns out that the voting officials were there Monday night checking that all the voting booths and other materials were there, when they discovered the previously religiously neutral room now had religious sayings posted on the wall.

They called the Muncipal Clerk's office and were told to cover the religious sayings and symbols.  One of the officials had some butcher paper in her car and covered the wall.  The Municipal Clerk told me that they also called the Pastor Monday evening to let him know that this was being done.  There was some objection and the Pastor said they would not have voting in the church again if the walls were going to be covered.

Sometime Tuesday morning, the voting official told me, a woman came storming in and tore off the paper covering the wall, crumpled it up, and said to the poll workers, "Remember where you are.  This is a church."   This turned out to be the Pastor's wife.


According to the Municipal Clerk, the First Church of God  at McInnes and Tudor will no longer be a site for elections.   The Pastor pulled his church from being used to vote in the future. 

I was not quite sure how to approach this story.  I think that most readers here understand that the separation of church and state is critical, because people should not be forced to face religious symbols and sayings in order to vote.   For some, voting in a church already raises issues as I've posted in the past.  And a study (mentioned in the link) suggests that where people vote affects how some people vote.

I added the Islamic 'wall' above for people who do not see any problem voting before a wall full of Christian sayings and imagery.   I'm hoping that by imagining being forced to see a different religion's symbols when they voted, they might understand why non-Christians (and Christians)  might be bothered by what I experienced yesterday. 

After the covering was torn down, the poll workers did their best to minimize voters being forced to view the images by rearranging the polling booths and the voting machine. 








I am waiting for a copy of the agreement between the Municipality and voting places and I also have a call in to the Pastor.

Images in Islamic Poster  from:
Discover Islam , Islamic Posters,Arlisbest,   Dr. Ardnan Mussalam,   Urduworld,   On Truth and Reality

Minority-Majority; Minority-Influence; Native Gerrymandering - Redistricting Board Eyes Voting Rights Act

The Alaska Redistricting Board began its meeting at 2pm today and looked at the Native districts.  They're looking for ways to comply the the Federal Voting Rights Act.  Alaska is one of 16 states of the watch list - their redistricting has to be pre-cleared by the Department of Justice before it is adopted.  There can be no 'retrogression' - meaning, Native representation can't be less than it is.

As I write this and as I google for more information, I can't find anything specific to Alaska on this.  I think I'm on the cusp of understanding this but I need to ask more questions tomorrow to get it right.

In any case, some definitions:


Minority-Majority District means a district where a minority group has a majority - 50% or more is what they said in the meeting.

Minority-Influence (or sometimes Effective) District means a district where a minority has enough people to have a strong influence in the election.

There's lots more to write up, but it will have to wait, otherwise I won't get anything up.  But there is a discussion of the Minority-Majority districts and the Voting Rights Act and these issues here.  It begins with:

Through the VRA, the federal government moved to guarantee access for all citizens to the ballot. Even so, the right to vote did not necessarily translate into electing representatives for voters who were in the minority. In jurisdictions, particularly in the South, voters who historically had faced racial discrimination (African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Pacific Americans and Native Americans) had been unable to elect candidates of their choice unless they constituted a majority of voters in a given electoral district. In 1982, Congress amended the VRA to include requirements that certain jurisdictions provide minority voters opportunities to elect candidates of their choice

The most interesting part of the meeting today, for me, was when Jim Holm spoke.  He's been pretty quiet and he may have said more in that moment today than he has in all the meetings.

Chair Torgerson had just presented his own proposal (after they'd gone over several others) and said that we can get up to nine Minority-Majority and Minority-Influence districts but it means taking some from the urban areas like Wasilla and Fairbanks.
Holms said this was racial gerrymandering.  Staff attorney White  responded.  You can go down to read it at the bottom of my notes on the session.


[NORMAL DISCLAIMER:  These are my notes during the meeting.  As fast as I can type, I still miss a lot, but this should give a sense of the meeting.  It's pretty rough, I'll try to clean it up later.]

Alaska Redistricting Board  April 5, 2011

2:02 pm  Open meeting
Roll Call - All members here
STaff - Taylor Bickford, Jim Ellis, Eric (new GIS guy) , and Brenda (who is new)
Approve Agenda - yes

Focus on Rural and get the Minority Representation figured out

Torgerson passing out licorice

Starting with Fair and Equitable Plan (Republican Plan) - they have a much better projection system today - it’s much sharper and I can take better photos. 

Torgerson:  Basic flaw in this plan is that the percentages aren’t high enough

They have three majority and one influence and two really close.

Also assumes we would take an influence district that is not contiguous and connect with another to make a Senate district. 

Looking at SE:  Can we change 1 or 3 colors so easier to see different districts.

Chair Torgerson is back in charge after yesterday when Brody took over in the afternoon. 
Torg:  Balance of Baranof island minus Sitka is 2000 people and this plan takes that into consideration.  Eric and I used Indian River as a boundary of the district.  From here to rest of Baranof is 2000. 

McC (McC is for PeggyAnn McConnochie):   A lot I like, but some districts I don’t.  Sitka shouldn’t be split.  The argument that they get to swipes at the apple doesn’t work with more representatives.  It’s too small.
2 looks like Metlakatla - picture -
Torgerson:  Anyone in Hyder?  it says 0.
McC:  A few.  They’re missing opportunities in se.  they came around the left and the back up and jump to get Haines and Skagway and Yakutat and there’s really no population in some of those areas.  Yesterday we went around the left to the west coast that they haven’t been able to include here.  Interesting they went to the east instead of the west. 

Torg:  Focused on rural influence district.  Anyone think we can’t get one in SE?
McC:  Deviance will be bigger.  Smaller communities have lost population, so it’s tougher, but I think we can. 
Holm:  You talking about majority?
Torg:  No, there’s an influence district now.  It’s not going to be pretty.  Always an island district.
White:  Absent something extraordinary, were fairly free in terms of compactness. 
Torg:  We can skip around?
White:  Always odd shape, need to comply with voting act.
Torg:  Is this going to be contiguous?  Using the water?
White:  Always use water.  My concern is using outside ocean for contiguous which is what the ER one does.  State territorial waters.  Saying 2 is contiguous because they cross between 3 and 3 in the middle where Hoonah is.
Torg:  when you say go to the left, would we take Sitka in? 
McC:  yes
Greene:  You say pushing, can you explain.
White:  They’re saying contiguity from Hoonah. 
Mc:  I agree.  You cut at Hydaburg and you can go west, it’s a much cleaner district than doing what they’ve done using the waterway as continuity.
White:  I think they tried to do that to get Hoonah and Sitka together.
Bickford: 
Mc:  You have to look at SE differently.  I tried to get geographic first, then socio-economically linked.  Looked at color of the population.  I made a decision I wouldn’t accept before - Ketchikan, Wrangell, and ??? separate.  But now I do.  It now catches the small communities that are primarily native.  Yeah I’m off by couple 100.  I willing to split up Hoonah, Sitka, Ketchikan.  It’s not reasonable for such small towns to be split.  So I’m ready for a 1% deviation to have more.
White:  And you have an influence district?
Mc:  Yes I do:  35%, just barely. 
White:  Does anyone think we can’t draw an influence district in the se.
You said they claim 37 as a majority.  Not reflected.  But they say by moving 37 up they get a majority-minority. 
Torg:  We have a 6 sort of 42%, 37 is - two senators that’s six, one influence, that’s seven. 
White:  they say that five is. 
Torg:  No, we have a cutoff of 35%, The plan may say it, but our data doesn’t say it.
What do they say 4 has now?  This one has new numbers - it shows 26%
Let’s do it this way:  potential for 2 and 5 and that would give us 9 minorities.
Holm:  Then we’d have non-contiguous Senate
Torg:  We have to change that.  2 is now 4. 
Mc: Whoa!
Torg:  That would work as 9 then, as long as the SE one butts up against 5 - takes in yakutat, whatever this is going to be.  Two influence districts.
White:  In theory it’s there, but I don’t agree with their numbers.
Bickford:  But that leaves three districts in SE and you have to pair one up with someone.
Holm:  South Anchorage.
MC:  Thanks! (sarcastic)
White:  I just don’t think they have the numbers.
Torg:  This shows they don’t.    What’s next?
AFFR plan?  [this is unions, native group plan]

Bickford:  This computer only counts white and native.
1:35pm MC:  SE first?
Torg:  2 is their rural district it looks like, they got to 34%.  This looks like what we did yesterday.
White:  They’re claiming 8.
Torg:  Cut Yakutat in half, I don’t know how many people there.  Made 3
White:  Almost exactly the same as Juneau plan.
Torg:  Kecthikan;  Petersburg with 2, Wrangell goes with Ketchikan. 
Mc:  Economically it makes sense for Wrangell and Ketchikan be split, but the towns themselves should not be split.
Torg:  If we took Saxman out, it would be 35, I think.
Bickford:  They used different categories to calculate natives
White:  What board used last time - Native plus White.
Bickford: I believe if you added it it would take it over 35.  This is just the math and it gets whatever ????
Torg:  You would get 3261?
Bickford:  Both total native and % native is Native and Native and White.  There’s no way to import their data configuration, just the math.  Just can’t do it.  If we knew what categories they used, we can add it to ours.
Torg:  How do we resolve that.
White:  We have to see what DOJ counts as Alaska Native.  Last time only Native and Native + 1.  If we can count more as Native that would help.
Torg:  Will our consultant help?  We’ll have to wait for her to come on Friday.
Bickford:  Not Native + Black, Asian, etc.
Torg:  Our stuff is all consistent right?
Bickford:  Right.
White:  They have three districts at about 50 or above.  12 -  [How did we get to Palmer?] 
Ellis:  It splits Palmer - right down the middle of the valley
Torg:  They have Valdez is 12 and Cordova in 36. 

[Today’s discussion seems more focused and considering more than numbers, but they are trying to get the Native majority and Native influence districts set up.  I’ll try to get some video of this for contrast.]

Torg:  39 is Nome to Border down to McCarthy.
MC:  What do you think about going across State like that. going across for different tribal areas.
Greene:  Would be interested in the testimony we have.  Would definitely be something new.  I’ve lived there for years.  ??? Has communication increased? 
White:  They’re data different again.  They have 50.1
Bickford:  Show 39 53 people over populated.  It takes part of Fairbanks and Tok, but you could take those out and still be within the deviation. 
Brody:  Require a lot of thought to take road system area and connect to roadless.
Torg:  7
Bickford: 7 takes in top of what used to be 12.
Torg:  Valdez went with Kodiak?  So 38 then is Bethel, and went into 6 and picked up their population.  87% Native.  37 is down the chain, fit in all they could - all  - you think that will also be a minority.  It’s 50 or 49.
Bickford:  If not using three races it’s under 50%.
Torg:  This wouldn’t be a bad map if not tied into border from Nome and Wade=Hampton area in Fairbanks.  But other than that, their presentation is good.   Basically four districts and one influence.  39 and 7 tough to swallow.  Hoping we can get the good stuff from different maps.

Torg:  To Bush Caucus Plan - 5 majority - one influence.

Looking at SE - I took some video -
Torg:  We do have our influence district.  Now up 39 - Mother of all mothers, north of McCarthy to Nome, goes down and picks up Unalakleet too.  How do they deal with Fairbanks?  Clear out of there  Did they complete 6?  Also a minority district. 
Bickford:  6 comes over top of North Star Borough. 
Holm:  Leaves out Salcha and picks up Eilson.
Torg:  Put Eilson in with 6? 
Bickford:  Not all, but have base, other areas just farm area, not many people. 
Torg:  37 goes to Dutch I assume, takes in Tyonek.  A lot of plans take in Tyonek.  Kodiak is with Cordova? 
Bickford: yes all the way to Cordova.
Torg:  35?  Kenai Peninsula, including Seward. 
Bickford:  Will probably only gets 4 Matsu seats when their population gives them five.  Splits them 3 ways.
Torg:  Not their intent I don’t think.  Just divide their population by 17,755 isn’t going to get 5.  Zero in on Palmer. 


Torg:  What we’re doing now is racial gerrymandering.  I don’t know how you get around it.  Taking areas so we get the numbers.
Bickford:  The native percentage is really high.  We could give up 4000 here and make it up with population in this area. 
Torg:  Any more on Bush Caucus 4-2? 
Holm:  No 5-1. 
Torg:  I think mine is next.  Load it.  OK, take short break at 3:17pm. 

Torg 3:20:  what I was trying to do.  This is district 4 here, really no one living here, but it touches SE
White: Your plan?
Torg:  dealing with rural only.  Trying to get rid of uglies.  But this is also ugly.  Puts Nome and Kotz together.  6 gets almost to Fairbanks
. . .
Looking at 37 - possibly could drop some villages and get it up to 50%
Torg:  Real goal - can we get 9 districts that don’t take in Fairbanks.  Conclusion - we can but it’s ugly.
Greene:  Why do you have Bethel and Dutch Harbor together.
White:  Continuity issues.
Torg:  Not more than the Kodiak one.  Also Kotzebue and Nome.
White:  DOJ will look beyond just the numbers.  Major SE difference.  Some plans pair native incumbents against non-native incumbents. 
MC:  3 in with Sitka
Miller:  4 in with 5
Torg:  SE what I wanted to do is start in with Nichole???  Idea was to run 1 north and not make it a majority, came out of SE thru Yakutat along Canadian Border, and dropping 40 down - get a skinny 39 down the coast.  But fallout is Kotz and Nome (pairing of incumbents) would this ease the pain of making this 37 go all the way up to Yukon-K area.   I guess where we’re at.  If were going to have 9 majority districts.  we’re going to have to take urban populations.  No other way to do it. 

AFFER does that.  But has other problems.  I like parts of other plans.
Greene:  Have staff work with those plans.  Did you do SE too?
Torg:  What remained?  Anything?  Started with Metlakatla.
Eric:  I believe we got it up to - about 40% - we went all the way to Northway, Eagle, Chicken…
Torg:  ONe time we did that, but didn’t leave that one.  You said you got 46%. 
What you do is eliminate the problem.  Anyway, that’s our look at rural district.  Not sure how to lead us thru the discussion of what to do next.  If our goal is to have nine districts, lets do that and be prepared for them to take large chunks out of the urban areas. 

How about tomorrow.  Will you (Mc) have SE ready to go over?  Keep in mind we’ll want two or three plans so folks will have a contrast, something else to look at, so be thinking about that also.  I think I’ll hijack Eric and continue on the rural districts and take … everyone and see if we can come up with something with the rural.  Jim, will we have Fairbanks to rock and roll tomorrow?
Holm:  Depends on how the rural districts take parts of Fairbanks.
Torg:  If we drop down one, we have retrogression.  How to avoid?
White:  Have to show no lesser retrogressive plan can be drawn.
Torg:  I’m struggling with taking Matsu and Fairbanks down a district.
Holm:  I’m not fine with that.  But one man one vote.  If we say they have enough for five districts, then we have to do that.
White:  Not really, there was a Kenai case.  US Constitution trumps state law.  There is some room.  There isn’t going to be violation unless there is intentional discrimination.  If there is the court won’t allow and deviance from proportionality.
Holm:  You’re saying racial gerrymandering is ok.
White:  No, racial gerrymandering is not allowed
Holm:  If you are moving people around aren’t you doing that?
White:  Laughing, If I could answer that I’d been on the SC. 
Holm:  that’s as good an answer as any because I don’t expect you to be a SC justice.  Folks in Willow will have the same concern.  I don’t know how you’re going to draw it.  We can live with these, then this is how you draw your populations to make things whole.  Then the differential between one percent and ten percent, will really make a difference in the size of the districts.  It’s possible we can take less people from the majority area with 16,000 people instead of 18,000.
Torg:  Exactly what Eric and I were doing.
White:  I think you would be justified.  Decide, for the numbers game, in the rural areas we’re going to have larger deviation, under 10%, then I could probably defend that.  If we say we did it because of the voting rights act, they would say it is trumped by one man one vote.  But you could say we need to have 5% deviation in rural areas so that we don't mess with the rural areas.
Brody:  So far we’ve been going north and south.  What if we go east and west.
Torg:  I think taking out of Anchorage is worse than in rural areas. 
Brody:  people are people.
Torg:  I think rural Wasilla is more rural than Anchorage.
White:  There is excess population in Fairbanks you have to do something with. 
Torg:  We grabbed it.  Including Dutch Harbor with bethel was just an experiment.  I just wanted to see what it looked like. 
Brody:  Quarter of the state. 
Torg:  Put NW arctic back in the way it was.
Bickford:  What you did, didn’t save Fairbanks.

[Then I switched to video and I’ll get that up soon {wishful thinking?)] [There's only a couple of minutes and I'll add it later.  Sorry.  Nothing crucial, it's the winding up of the meeting and dividing of work and staff for tomorrow morning, but you get a flavor of the meeting you can't get from the notes.]

UPDATE Midnight:  Here's the video of the end of the meeting. It gives a sense of style of the meetings.

Anchorage Spring - Mallards, Tulips, More Snow

I generally add 'just' in front of mallard, because the ducks are so common.  But every now and then I am reminded how beautiful they are.  That happened yesterday.  Maybe it was the light, maybe their feathers are more brilliant as they get ready for mating season.  But these birds were brilliant. 

And I was going to take a picture of our tulips popping up through the mulch of old leaves in front of the house yesterday.  But I didn't get around to it.  It's a totally different picture today. 

As we got several inches of fresh snow and it's still coming down.