§ 10. Redistricting Plan and Proclamation
(a) Within thirty days after the official reporting of the decennial census of the United States or thirty days after being duly appointed, whichever occurs last, the board shall adopt one or more proposed redistricting plans. The board shall hold public hearings on the proposed plan, or, if no single proposed plan is agreed on, on all plans proposed by the board. No later than ninety days after the board has been appointed and the official reporting of the decennial census of the United States, the board shall adopt a final redistricting plan and issue a proclamation of redistricting. The final plan shall set out boundaries of house and senate districts and shall be effective for the election of members of the legislature until after the official reporting of the next decennial census of the United States.
(b) Adoption of a final redistricting plan shall require the affirmative votes of three members of the Redistricting Board. [Amended 1998]
§ 11. Enforcement
Any qualified voter may apply to the superior court to compel the Redistricting Board, by mandamus or otherwise, to perform its duties under this article or to correct any error in redistricting. Application to compel the board to perform must be filed not later than thirty days following the expiration of the ninety-day period specified in this article. Application to compel correction of any error in redistricting must be filed within thirty days following the adoption of the final redistricting plan and proclamation by the board. Original jurisdiction in these matters is vested in the superior court. On appeal from the superior court, the cause shall be reviewed by the supreme court on the law and the facts. Notwithstanding section 15 of article IV, all dispositions by the superior court and the supreme court under this section shall be expedited and shall have priority over all other matters pending before the respective court. Upon a final judicial decision that a plan is invalid, the matter shall be returned to the board for correction and development of a new plan. If that new plan is declared invalid, the matter may be referred again to the board. [Amended 1998]
Thursday, April 14, 2011
What the Constitution Says the Redistricting Board Should Do
Now that they've passed the draft plan and people start finding out how it affects their districts, maybe people will start paying attention. Here's what their job is. As you can see, there are nine sections before these two:
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Board Approves Draft Plan While I'm Away
I'm at the airport now waiting for our flight to Chicago and then on to Detroit. Which is why I skipped this morning's Board Meeting. I had a few loose ends to tie up before we left. But the world works in mysterious ways. After team teaching with Dennis at a UAA sociology class this afternoon about the organization Healing Racism in Anchorage, I went to the Thai Kitchen for dinner.
Before J got there, I recognized a gentleman I'd seen and chatted with at the Redistricting Board meetings recently. He invited me to join him, I countered that he should join us at a bigger table. And that's how I found out I didn't miss much at this morning's session where, Randy Ruedrich told us, they talked about Senate pairings. We had a good dinner and interesting, amiable conversation. But appears from the website, that the Board passed the draft plan at their afternoon session, which Randy passed up and I was in class. Here's their official announcement.
Kay Brown's blog at Alaskans for Fair Redistricting gives details on what the districts look like in clear, precise reports.
Before J got there, I recognized a gentleman I'd seen and chatted with at the Redistricting Board meetings recently. He invited me to join him, I countered that he should join us at a bigger table. And that's how I found out I didn't miss much at this morning's session where, Randy Ruedrich told us, they talked about Senate pairings. We had a good dinner and interesting, amiable conversation. But appears from the website, that the Board passed the draft plan at their afternoon session, which Randy passed up and I was in class. Here's their official announcement.
Anchorage, AK - Today, the Alaska Redistricting Board adopted draft redistricting plans for the purpose of soliciting public comment before adopting a final plan. Two of the plans are statewide plans prepared by the Board that differ only in the configuration of state senate district pairings. The Board also adopted alternative plans for Southeast Alaska and the Mat-Su region that can fit with either of the Board's statewide plans.
All draft plans adopted by the Board today have been posted for public download at http://www.akredistricting.org.
After the Board's action today, Chairman John Torgerson made the following statement:
"The Board worked hard in an open manner to build draft plans that protect Alaska Native voting rights while providing fair and equal legislative representation for all Alaskans."
Torgerson added that he believed the Board's draft plans achieve lower population deviation ranges than previous redistricting plans, stating that "A fundamental redistricting principle is the one person one vote rule which means that everyone's vote should be weighted equally. I believe our draft plans reflect the Board's commitment to that principle."
The Board was required by the Alaska Constitution to adopt a draft plan or plans within 30 days of receipt of census data which occurred on March 15, 2011. After receipt of the redistricting data, the Board held hearings in Anchorage, Bethel, Fairbanks, Juneau, Ketchikan, Kotzebue and Wasilla in addition to a statewide teleconference on March 31st to solicit public opinion.
The Board began drafting redistricting plans in public work sessions at its Anchorage office on April 4th.
To set the framework for its draft plans, the Board initially focused on rural Alaska. One of the Board's first actions was to formally state their intention to draft a plan that included 9 Alaska Native influence districts. This was done to comply with the Voting Rights Act requirement of avoiding retrogression when drafting new redistricting plans. Retrogression occurs when a redistricting is drawn in a manner that worsens minority voting strength as compared to the previous plan.
In order to solicit a full range of opinions from Alaskans, the Board also adopted plans submitted by private groups as follows: statewide plans from Alaskans for Fair Redistricting, Alaskans for Fair and Equitable Redistricting and the Rights Coalition; regional plans from the Alaska Legislature's Bush Caucus, and the City and Borough of Juneau; and single district plans from the City of Valdez and the Bristol Bay Borough. The Board is releasing these plans as they were presented to the Board. The Board does not endorse any of these plans and did not attempt to verify the accuracy or legality of any private plans.
The Board will begin a series of public hearings around Alaska on April 18 to take comments on its draft plans and private plans that were released today. The public hearing process will end with a statewide teleconference on May 6th. The Board will then begin meeting in public work sessions on May 16 to draft a final plan for adoption by June 13, 2011.
The Board's draft plans are subject to revision before the Board adopts a final plan.
Kay Brown's blog at Alaskans for Fair Redistricting gives details on what the districts look like in clear, precise reports.
Hatching New Alaskan Bloggers
Someone at Ole! asked me to teach a class for them. I have enough to keep me more than busy, but they persisted. I think you should teach about what you know and have a passion for and so I suggested blogging.
I'm learning that I know a lot about a very narrow niche of blogging. When I started I was open to a wider universe of options, but when I chose to go with Blogspot as my blogging platform I narrowed my thinking considerably. And while I keep learning about how to do things on Blogspot - and they keep changing things - I'm more just using it as a tool to write my posts.
So having to put together a four 75 minute classes over four weeks made me see how much I'd hunkered down. This isn't all bad. You can start getting proficient in you little area of expertise and actually do something, like concentrate more on content than process. And there's way too much to know about everything. A little focus is good. As long as you make time to wander outside your normal brain patterns regularly
There were about 15 participants the first week, none of them youngsters, with a wide range of expertise - from a person who didn't have an email account (but she created a blog in class) to several people who had already had blogs, but hadn't gone too far with them. Each has learned to do new tricks with their blogs - from adding bold headlines, tabbed pages under the header, photos, labels, etc.
Many who didn't already have blogs, and some who weren't even sure what a blog was, though they'd heard about them, have actually created blogs. So I'd like to introduce a few of these Alaska bloggers. (I only have a few of the url's - but I saw the blogs in class last Friday.)
Those who had already created a blog:
Dorothy had set up a blog Meanderings by Dorothy to write about some of her interests such as Tai Chi, contract bridge, and Anchorage Opera. It was very basic, but now she has added pictures, has a hit counter, and has set up links in categories.
Joe's blog, HodgePodgepourri, focused on documenting family history and personal recollections, has been around a couple of years. There's an interesting series of tales, last November, of his childhood working in the "Buckingham Palace" a hotel his family owned in Indiana.
Ed has a very focused blog, Building an Alaska Wilderness Sauna, on the family's sauna at their cabin. There are dramatic pictures of it burning down. He's recently put up a lot of step-by-step pictures of the rebuilding.
Michael had begun a Wordpress blog, but wasn't doing much with it. Since the class began, he created a new blog, Reflections, to share his interest in philosophy and particularly the ideas in his book, The Reality of Being.
The last one for this post, is Lynne's first ever blog, Koralling Genius. Lynne can't actually see her blog, because she is blind. But she can hear it. And you can tell she has a lot of thoughts on how the world tends to dismiss people with disabilities. I think this is a blog that will give people a view of the world they don't usually hear. And give her a platform where she can speak without being prejudged.
This week, as I head off to Detroit to J1 and B's engagement party, several local bloggers will be guests in the class to talk about their blogs and blogging. Thanks to Phil at Progressive Alaska, Kellie, at Stress Management, Peter at Frozen Grin and Off and On: The Alaska Parkinson's Blog, and Mel at Henkimaa.
I'm learning that I know a lot about a very narrow niche of blogging. When I started I was open to a wider universe of options, but when I chose to go with Blogspot as my blogging platform I narrowed my thinking considerably. And while I keep learning about how to do things on Blogspot - and they keep changing things - I'm more just using it as a tool to write my posts.
So having to put together a four 75 minute classes over four weeks made me see how much I'd hunkered down. This isn't all bad. You can start getting proficient in you little area of expertise and actually do something, like concentrate more on content than process. And there's way too much to know about everything. A little focus is good. As long as you make time to wander outside your normal brain patterns regularly
There were about 15 participants the first week, none of them youngsters, with a wide range of expertise - from a person who didn't have an email account (but she created a blog in class) to several people who had already had blogs, but hadn't gone too far with them. Each has learned to do new tricks with their blogs - from adding bold headlines, tabbed pages under the header, photos, labels, etc.
Many who didn't already have blogs, and some who weren't even sure what a blog was, though they'd heard about them, have actually created blogs. So I'd like to introduce a few of these Alaska bloggers. (I only have a few of the url's - but I saw the blogs in class last Friday.)
Those who had already created a blog:
Dorothy had set up a blog Meanderings by Dorothy to write about some of her interests such as Tai Chi, contract bridge, and Anchorage Opera. It was very basic, but now she has added pictures, has a hit counter, and has set up links in categories.
Joe's blog, HodgePodgepourri, focused on documenting family history and personal recollections, has been around a couple of years. There's an interesting series of tales, last November, of his childhood working in the "Buckingham Palace" a hotel his family owned in Indiana.
Ed has a very focused blog, Building an Alaska Wilderness Sauna, on the family's sauna at their cabin. There are dramatic pictures of it burning down. He's recently put up a lot of step-by-step pictures of the rebuilding.
Michael had begun a Wordpress blog, but wasn't doing much with it. Since the class began, he created a new blog, Reflections, to share his interest in philosophy and particularly the ideas in his book, The Reality of Being.
The last one for this post, is Lynne's first ever blog, Koralling Genius. Lynne can't actually see her blog, because she is blind. But she can hear it. And you can tell she has a lot of thoughts on how the world tends to dismiss people with disabilities. I think this is a blog that will give people a view of the world they don't usually hear. And give her a platform where she can speak without being prejudged.
This week, as I head off to Detroit to J1 and B's engagement party, several local bloggers will be guests in the class to talk about their blogs and blogging. Thanks to Phil at Progressive Alaska, Kellie, at Stress Management, Peter at Frozen Grin and Off and On: The Alaska Parkinson's Blog, and Mel at Henkimaa.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Redistricting Board Adjourned Early to Tweak
[UPDATE 5pm: The Board has posted "Conceptual Regional Maps" that are still being tweaked to become, as a package, their draft plan. In some cases - Southeast and Wasilla - there are alternative maps, but only the main options are shown.
The staff is still working on getting the deviations (amount each district is above or below 17,755) as close to zero as possible, and to make the districts cleaner looking and more compact. The four maps I looked at - Anchorage. Rural, Juneau, and Matsu - didn't have district numbers on them, but all but the Juneau maps have more information than what they handed out at the meetings. Juneau was already more detailed.
The Board looked a bit more at Matsu, adopted staffer Jim Ellis' plan as Matsu Plan 1 (Wasilla is in two or three different districts) and Member Brody's plan (which puts downtown Wasilla all in one district) as Matsu Alternative.
They then adjourned to let the staff prepare the maps for tomorrow when they will try to approve them for the Draft Plan. The detailed map of the Anchorage districts I was promised yesterday, and then today, wasn't available. I talked to the attorney about this. He was concerned that the board would be expected to post each iteration of a plan when everything was still in flux. And said it would be available Thursday. I pointed out that the plan was approved by the board even though they didn't even see the details, when they approved it and that I would post with appropriate disclaimers that this was what they had approved as the working draft and the absolutely final draft plan would be completed by Thursday, April 14. I would be happy with just taking pictures off someone's computer screen. He said he'd get back to me. There appears to be a significant shift in districts to the south, based on my sitting there watching what they were doing. But even if you videotaped the whole process it would be hard to tell where things ended up. The map they handed out yesterday was so big there were no landmarks with which to figure out where the district borders were, even approximately. I have some maps showing this on the post about yesterday's meeting.
I also talked to board member PeggyAnn McConnochie after the meeting and clarified the districts in her map. I want to do a post on this - but in brief, the three northern SE incumbents stay in their own districts in her latest version and the two southern SE incumbents would be in one district. The two incumbent Senators are in the same House district. And there is one district that will have to have a non-contiguous connection to another district outside SE to make up a Senate district.
Here are my notes from this morning's meeting: [Usual disclaimer: these are rough notes, but give a reasonably accurate account of what happened. But check before you bet the farm on any of the details.]
Redistricting Board April 12, 2011 11am meeting
[I got here at 11:20 - they are looking at another map of Matsu. Staffer Jim Ellis was presenting when I came in and there’s a new map. This one splits up the city of Wasilla into, it looks like, three districts. At this point, I couldn’t tell you at all how it’s different from the previous ones.]
Brody is now presenting his map.
Brody: The deviations are no more than 50. I could tweak it a little more
McConnochie: Do you remember the testimony on this?
Torgerson: The mayor wanted to split on the highway and have two districts.
[Brody’s seems to have downtown Wasilla as unified district.]
Torgerson: The only testimony we got from Wasilla was to divide along the highway. [So if one person, even if it is the mayor, gives testimony it has to be followed? What do other people think? I’m not saying to ignore him, but it would be helpful to find out his reasoning. Is it more compelling than your reasons not to?]
Brody: It’s ok what the mayor says, but it’s part of our charge.
Torgerson: I would be ok, but that’s the only testimony we have. Did they give us a resolution? [No] We could show this as split and see their reaction. In Jim’s, in order for the rep to get to Pt. McK he’d have to drive all the way around. We could make one the plan and one the alternate as we did in Southeast.
McConnochie: Let’s adopt Jim’s plan as the main plan and Brody’s as the alternate.
Torgerson: The motion: Jim’s Tuesday plan and Brody’s as alternate.
Passed Unanimously. That completes the pieces of the puzzle.
Brody: Did we adopt Anchorage yesterday?
Yes.
Brody: Can I see a copy of that? [They gave him the map I posted yesterday which doesn’t really show any details]
Torgerson: We have FR, FER, DEmocrats, Bush Caucus, Valdez,
Move to take all the plans submitted . . .
Holm: I’d like to add the Native languages map.
Torgerson: We got that off the web, yes. There was another one that seemed to be a better map.
Motion to take all the plans on the circuit.
White: Valdez plan doesn’t fit into any other plan . . . Never mind.
Torgerson: None do, we’ve taken bits and pieces, some suggestions from every plan.
Miller: Which Bush caucus?
Torgerson: There are four. Scan them in and put them all on one map. Try to get them all on big maps. That was my thought on the Bush caucus so everyone can see. We need some identification so we know who those people are.
McConnochie: Could we have population deviations identified on each map?
Torgerson: Is that an issue?
Eric: No. That can be done.
Torgerson: OK this will be an encompassing act, I can’t repeat it.
Greene: One of the questions that will be raised is the minority-majority information [I think for each plan.] When will that information be available? We need to be prepared to respond to that before we get there.
Torgerson: We can’t defend any of those plans because we haven’t made anything up. On pairings - only that we are taking a SE district and pairing it out because we have two minority districts. [One in SE and one on the eastern boundary with Canada]
We’re going to change so much, I’m not sure it makes sense to do pairings.
White: AT least alternative pairings for the SE district.
Torgerson: Follow our constitution as nearly and as practicably as possible. We could take a few suggestions with us. SE and Valdez would take care of Cordova’s concerns about being connected to SE. Or Kodiak, and we have precedent of Metlakatla being paired with Kodiak. Let’s take care of the motion. We’ll come back to pairings.
Unanimous pass.
Sentate pairings? Would it be improved to say SE? That one we know will have a pairing that will be non-contiguous.
White: I think we should give some ideas of what you are thinking. So people can tell us if they like it or not. I guess we haven’t made any pairings, but we’re taking testimony.
Bob: If you put Ketchikan with Kodiak and that causes a major reallignment all the way. If not, then the others are pretty easy.
Torgerson: Only one I really know is Al Kookesh.
Open for discussion. Attempt to adjourn today and return at 11 tomorrow. Meanwhile the staff make a big map and we’ll take the vote. Tomorrow we can take the final vote and take the draft plan, or wait til the 14th.
Bickford: Should we try to continue to reduce deviations? Or should we jam it all together in a big map?
Torgerson: I don’t like the word jam. Technical changes should be at the discretion of the staff, but I don’t know what technical means.
Holm: Since these aren’t final boundaries, and this clean up takes most of the time, I don’t think it’s necessary.
Torgerson: Maybe if there are some big deviations, you can do that.
White: My concern with not offering the Senate pairings is that this might be interpreted as an incomplete plan.
Bickford: FR did.
White: Not sure if you have a legal obligations.
Greene: I won’t be in at the morning.
Torgerson: And Mr. Holm will call in from Fairbanks.
We’ll come in at 11 just to look at the maps and then reopen at 3.
Adjourn at 11:55.
The staff is still working on getting the deviations (amount each district is above or below 17,755) as close to zero as possible, and to make the districts cleaner looking and more compact. The four maps I looked at - Anchorage. Rural, Juneau, and Matsu - didn't have district numbers on them, but all but the Juneau maps have more information than what they handed out at the meetings. Juneau was already more detailed.
- Rural
- Southeast
- Fairbanks/Interior
- Matanuska-Susitna
-Kenai Peninsula
-Anchorage]
The Board looked a bit more at Matsu, adopted staffer Jim Ellis' plan as Matsu Plan 1 (Wasilla is in two or three different districts) and Member Brody's plan (which puts downtown Wasilla all in one district) as Matsu Alternative.
They then adjourned to let the staff prepare the maps for tomorrow when they will try to approve them for the Draft Plan. The detailed map of the Anchorage districts I was promised yesterday, and then today, wasn't available. I talked to the attorney about this. He was concerned that the board would be expected to post each iteration of a plan when everything was still in flux. And said it would be available Thursday. I pointed out that the plan was approved by the board even though they didn't even see the details, when they approved it and that I would post with appropriate disclaimers that this was what they had approved as the working draft and the absolutely final draft plan would be completed by Thursday, April 14. I would be happy with just taking pictures off someone's computer screen. He said he'd get back to me. There appears to be a significant shift in districts to the south, based on my sitting there watching what they were doing. But even if you videotaped the whole process it would be hard to tell where things ended up. The map they handed out yesterday was so big there were no landmarks with which to figure out where the district borders were, even approximately. I have some maps showing this on the post about yesterday's meeting.
I also talked to board member PeggyAnn McConnochie after the meeting and clarified the districts in her map. I want to do a post on this - but in brief, the three northern SE incumbents stay in their own districts in her latest version and the two southern SE incumbents would be in one district. The two incumbent Senators are in the same House district. And there is one district that will have to have a non-contiguous connection to another district outside SE to make up a Senate district.
Here are my notes from this morning's meeting: [Usual disclaimer: these are rough notes, but give a reasonably accurate account of what happened. But check before you bet the farm on any of the details.]
Redistricting Board April 12, 2011 11am meeting
[I got here at 11:20 - they are looking at another map of Matsu. Staffer Jim Ellis was presenting when I came in and there’s a new map. This one splits up the city of Wasilla into, it looks like, three districts. At this point, I couldn’t tell you at all how it’s different from the previous ones.]
Brody is now presenting his map.
Brody: The deviations are no more than 50. I could tweak it a little more
McConnochie: Do you remember the testimony on this?
Torgerson: The mayor wanted to split on the highway and have two districts.
[Brody’s seems to have downtown Wasilla as unified district.]
Torgerson: The only testimony we got from Wasilla was to divide along the highway. [So if one person, even if it is the mayor, gives testimony it has to be followed? What do other people think? I’m not saying to ignore him, but it would be helpful to find out his reasoning. Is it more compelling than your reasons not to?]
Brody: It’s ok what the mayor says, but it’s part of our charge.
Torgerson: I would be ok, but that’s the only testimony we have. Did they give us a resolution? [No] We could show this as split and see their reaction. In Jim’s, in order for the rep to get to Pt. McK he’d have to drive all the way around. We could make one the plan and one the alternate as we did in Southeast.
McConnochie: Let’s adopt Jim’s plan as the main plan and Brody’s as the alternate.
Torgerson: The motion: Jim’s Tuesday plan and Brody’s as alternate.
Passed Unanimously. That completes the pieces of the puzzle.
Brody: Did we adopt Anchorage yesterday?
Yes.
Brody: Can I see a copy of that? [They gave him the map I posted yesterday which doesn’t really show any details]
Torgerson: We have FR, FER, DEmocrats, Bush Caucus, Valdez,
Move to take all the plans submitted . . .
Holm: I’d like to add the Native languages map.
Torgerson: We got that off the web, yes. There was another one that seemed to be a better map.
Motion to take all the plans on the circuit.
White: Valdez plan doesn’t fit into any other plan . . . Never mind.
Torgerson: None do, we’ve taken bits and pieces, some suggestions from every plan.
Miller: Which Bush caucus?
Torgerson: There are four. Scan them in and put them all on one map. Try to get them all on big maps. That was my thought on the Bush caucus so everyone can see. We need some identification so we know who those people are.
McConnochie: Could we have population deviations identified on each map?
Torgerson: Is that an issue?
Eric: No. That can be done.
Torgerson: OK this will be an encompassing act, I can’t repeat it.
Greene: One of the questions that will be raised is the minority-majority information [I think for each plan.] When will that information be available? We need to be prepared to respond to that before we get there.
Torgerson: We can’t defend any of those plans because we haven’t made anything up. On pairings - only that we are taking a SE district and pairing it out because we have two minority districts. [One in SE and one on the eastern boundary with Canada]
We’re going to change so much, I’m not sure it makes sense to do pairings.
White: AT least alternative pairings for the SE district.
Torgerson: Follow our constitution as nearly and as practicably as possible. We could take a few suggestions with us. SE and Valdez would take care of Cordova’s concerns about being connected to SE. Or Kodiak, and we have precedent of Metlakatla being paired with Kodiak. Let’s take care of the motion. We’ll come back to pairings.
Unanimous pass.
Sentate pairings? Would it be improved to say SE? That one we know will have a pairing that will be non-contiguous.
White: I think we should give some ideas of what you are thinking. So people can tell us if they like it or not. I guess we haven’t made any pairings, but we’re taking testimony.
Bob: If you put Ketchikan with Kodiak and that causes a major reallignment all the way. If not, then the others are pretty easy.
Torgerson: Only one I really know is Al Kookesh.
Open for discussion. Attempt to adjourn today and return at 11 tomorrow. Meanwhile the staff make a big map and we’ll take the vote. Tomorrow we can take the final vote and take the draft plan, or wait til the 14th.
Bickford: Should we try to continue to reduce deviations? Or should we jam it all together in a big map?
Torgerson: I don’t like the word jam. Technical changes should be at the discretion of the staff, but I don’t know what technical means.
Holm: Since these aren’t final boundaries, and this clean up takes most of the time, I don’t think it’s necessary.
Torgerson: Maybe if there are some big deviations, you can do that.
White: My concern with not offering the Senate pairings is that this might be interpreted as an incomplete plan.
Bickford: FR did.
White: Not sure if you have a legal obligations.
Greene: I won’t be in at the morning.
Torgerson: And Mr. Holm will call in from Fairbanks.
We’ll come in at 11 just to look at the maps and then reopen at 3.
Adjourn at 11:55.
What's With Charter College and Lt. Governors?
I was looking for the Alaska Constitution and got linked from the Legislative website to this notice on the Lt Governor's website:
I know this is possible because I got an email from the Greater Ormand Street Hospital in London advising me they were changing their URL and asking me to change my link to the new one.
So, while I was on the Lt. Governor's site trying to find the Constitution I found this notice:
My question is this: What is the link between Charter College and the Lt. Governor's office?
Yesterday when I tried to link from a national state legislative districts website to get individual Alaska district maps, I got the same announcement, also from the Lt. Governor's page. I understand the Lt. Governor may want to revamp the website, especially since the old pages had the name of the previous Lt. Governor on them. And to his credit, Treadwell has not put his name on the new URLs. But they might also pay attention to how many people are linked to them and even send them messages.Page not found.
We're sorry, the link you tried has expired or is no longer available
I know this is possible because I got an email from the Greater Ormand Street Hospital in London advising me they were changing their URL and asking me to change my link to the new one.
So, while I was on the Lt. Governor's site trying to find the Constitution I found this notice:
Lt. Gov. Treadwell to Deliver Charter College Commencement AddressSorry, it was last Saturday, so you missed it. But I went to the graduation last year. I knew one of the graduates. Well, he still had a couple classes to complete. Lt. Governor Craig Campbell was the commencement speaker last year at Charter College.
April 8, 2011, Anchorage, AK – Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell will deliver the commencement address to Charter College graduates tomorrow at 1:00 pm. In his speech, Lt. Gov. Treadwell will announce his goals as the new co-chair of Alaska’s State Committee on Research.
Who: Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell
What: Charter College Commencement address
When: Saturday, April 9 at 1:00 pm
Where: Atwood Hall, Anchorage Performing Arts Center, AK
Contact: Michelle Toohey (907) 269-7460
My question is this: What is the link between Charter College and the Lt. Governor's office?
Life Beyond the Redistricting Board
There is life beyond the Redistricting Board meetings. The board got out early today - 3:30pm - and I walked home. Most folks have trouble imagining walking to the University area from downtown, but it's only about 3.5 miles which isn't much if you went for a hike. And I needed the exercise.
Headed for the post office, I ran across what looked like the State Ombudsman office. It turned out to be the State Library, which turned out not to be a book library, but a library for the visually impaired. This is on the north side of what used to be called the Post Office mall downtown, near the post office. But they directed me to the third floor, where I found the ombudsman's office. I've published several ombudsman articles and book chapters on ombudsman offices, but had lost track of the Alaska ombudsman. I thought they were headquartered in Juneau, but they are here in Anchorage. But the ombudsman happened to be in Juneau this week.
A little further on there was a man on the roof untangling the flag above the Mexican Consulate.
On 15th at C St. there's a little mall on the north side with a little Camera Service shop. This place is a reminder of the best of what we lose to big box stores - competent, reliable service. Someone who can answer our questions and guide us to make the right decisions. You can get used cameras there, accessories, and repairs. The edge of my Canon Powershot that has the little hand strap had come off. I figured out how to slip it back on, but I realized there were two empty screw holes. He found some tiny screws to fit in and noticed another missing screw on a different side. $6. That may sound a lot for three tiny screws and putting them in, but he has a minimum charge of $37 for service. So, if you need camera repairs, check out Camera Service Center and keep him in business in case I need more screws.
I passed a pawn shop and saw all these cameras. There were no Canon Powershots.
I feel uncomfortable with pawnshops, knowing many people have left stuff there because they had no money and they got pennies for the dollar for their things. There's a lot of jewelery there. But I did find a phillips head screwdriver. Our two good screwdrivers are missing and I have a started project on hold for lack of a screwdriver. $.49.
A bit further on I stopped in the Korean grocery. They didn't have any bananas, but he offered some banana milk. Not quite what I had in mind. But I got a small piece of ginger.
And on 36th I passed this bit of urban wilderness.
A little further on there was a man on the roof untangling the flag above the Mexican Consulate.
I passed a pawn shop and saw all these cameras. There were no Canon Powershots.
I feel uncomfortable with pawnshops, knowing many people have left stuff there because they had no money and they got pennies for the dollar for their things. There's a lot of jewelery there. But I did find a phillips head screwdriver. Our two good screwdrivers are missing and I have a started project on hold for lack of a screwdriver. $.49.
A bit further on I stopped in the Korean grocery. They didn't have any bananas, but he offered some banana milk. Not quite what I had in mind. But I got a small piece of ginger.
And on 36th I passed this bit of urban wilderness.
Which Shell is the Pea Under? Watching the Redistricting Board Create Districts
[Note: I say 'today's meeting' here and mean Monday, but I couldn't get this posted until Tuesday. ]
I feel a little like I've been watching peas being moved around under walnut shells as the board has been moving Anchorage districts bit by bit trying to get them all as close to equal and 17,755 as possible. On the one had they are taking a couple of blocks here and moving them into another district, but they are so close up that you can't see the whole picture, but then they move back out and you can't see enough detail to know exactly where the borders are. Yesterday they spent a lot of time working on my own district - 24 - so after it was over, I asked if they could show me the borders of the district. When it came up, I could see they'd taken just enough off the north, from Northern Lights south to 36th, and then just a bite out south of 36th to snatch Geneva Woods, where my representative, Berta Gardner (D) lives, putting her into 25, Mike Doogan's (D) district.
Here's what Anchorage looked like at 6pm Sunday (photo of projection on the screen):
What had happened last night when the staff had cleaned up the map, which was presented in an Anchorage map that was too big to see where the streets were? There was only one map - below - that didn't show nearly enough detail to figure out what the new borders of districts were. Here's what we got today, though they did some tweaking at the meeting after this was passed out:
Not very easy to see where the districts actually are. The numbers were clear on the map, and on my photo, and I saved it in high resolution, but they are just so small that on the computer they get lost. In comparison, here's a map of current districts from the Lt. Governor's website:
At least you get an idea of where the districts are.
And today there was also a new Southeast map. They approved one yesterday, but now there was a new one. Southeast had given me some hope that this process would be fair. They had two Republicans running against each other by putting Ketchikan (Johanson) and Wrangell (Peggy Wilson) together. But Kyle Johanson had a recall vote because he'd pulled out of a leadership position because his 'good friend' Charise Millett hadn't gotten the appointment she wanted. This pairing is still there. But they'd also left Beth Kerttulla (D), the House minority leader's downtown Juneau district pretty much intact, but paired north Juneau's Cathy Munoz (R) with Haines' Bill Joe Thomas Jr. (R and Native). When they approved this yesterday, it sounded like this was done except for minor tweaking. Torgerson said, "Ok, this map and staff can make adjustments so we can pair this with D 5." But apparently PeggyAnn McConnochie spent a fair amount of time changing this all around for today.
Today's alternate version
While they have talked about incumbents in Juneau previously, there was no such discussion today before they approved it. It's not real clear. Wrangell and Ketchikan are still paired. But it looks like Cathy Munoz (R) and Beth Kerttula (D) are now in the same district. [UPDATE April 12 afternoon: I spoke with PeggyAnn McConnochie today after the meeting to clarify this. I was wrong. Munoz (R) is alone in her district, Kerttula (R) is alone in her district, and Bill Thomas (R) is alone in his district. That a key change here - separating Haines (Thomas' home) from North Juneau. However, in this plan, both incumbent Southeast Senators - Kookesh (D) and Stedman (R) are in the same House district.] (It would be hard to pit two Democratic incumbents against each other since there are four Republican representatives and one Democratic representative in Southeast.)
And it would help if the public notices on the Redistricting Board website were kept up to date. The last time they were posted was March 31, 2011 and all but the April 4 meeting are scheduled there for 2pm. But today's meeting and the next two meetings are scheduled for 11 am. You would only know that if you went to the meetings and picked up the revised schedule. Or if you knew to go to the State of Alaska Public Notice site which is hardly something most Alaskans even know about, let alone use.
Here are my notes for the afternoon of Monday, April 11. As usual, these are rough notes, but the best you'll get online. Actually, the only detailed notes. (The board has audio up for their March 16, 22, and April 6 meetings. And there's an agenda for April 7. But they've been meeting every day since then and their draft plan has a deadline of April 14.) In fact there is precious little posted on the Board's website that would help someone from the public know what is going on, when, or what happened. None of the maps I'm posting are available, at least I couldn't find any. I don't just mean today, but since I've been posting. The staff has been very helpful in person, but I don't think they can keep up with all that needs to be done.
Redistricting Board - April 11, 2011 Afternoon [Rough Notes Warning]
I got here about five minutes late, while I was getting the morning post up at the Westmark lobby where I could get wifi.
McConnochie has a new Southeast map. This appears to be a total revision of yesterdays. Holm commented that it didn’t look too contiguous, but the others said it was, using the water.
Now they are talking about splitting Census districts into voting districts. Eric says it can be done, but you need the right software.
McConnochie
Bickford: If you have zero population in a block, you can do it, but otherwise you can’t split it because they [Census] don’t have a smaller unit.
They’re talking about there being 3 or 4 people on Admiralty Island
McConnochie: I think this is a tighter plan. And I go right through Yakutat.
Motion to count PAM SE Plan as Board’s SE alternative plan. [Except the plan they adopted yesterday has the same name.]
Holm: Can we swap Ketchikan and Petersburg?
McConnochie: Can’t do it, population . . .
[I’m not sure what they are doing now, something about Hyder and Hydaburg. Gets more Native count.]
Member Brody left. He’d asked if the meeting could start at 1 rather than 2 because he had to leave, but Torgerson had said there wouldn’t be time to be ready by 1. He doesn't seem happy.
Torgerson: Any other changes - now Hyder included in Ketchikan.
Adopted 3-1. Brody has left for Koda
Now to Anchorage
Bickford: Only dif between 32 and 30 is 30 has this tail, we put it back in yesterday to make it look better. Harder to explain decision by decision. Just moving population off of 30, Didn’t really touch ER districts, they were right on.
McConnochie: Any questions?
Bickford: District 20, long and skinny. Mt. View. Could be wider.
Holm: what;s the population of 16? Any overflow at all? When I did it from the south, I came up with overflow beyond Peters Creek.
Bickford: Setting the boundary at Peters Creek the numbers come out perfect for all the districts.
Holm: Where is govt. hill? 23. Is that reunited? I notice 32 is bifurcated. Doesn’t go up through the Hillside? Correct. Hillside is now 30? Yes
Torgerson: Testimony…
Do you have a plan Jim?
Holm: Yes, but I started with some incorrect assumptions. Started at Indian and also south of Peters Creek. Otherwise, everything you said is correct. The Census block lines in the city are haywire. But what we can’t change we can’t change.
Bickford: It would look completely different if we started somewhere else yesterday. Also some worse shapes yesterday, District 30 came around this way, was awkward.
The map they handed out doesn’t show enough detail to know where things are.
Holm: I used more ppulation going up north than Taylor did when he took Indian out. I don’t think mine is particuoarly instructive, the numbers are good. Certainly tweakable.
Torgerson: I’d like to see tweak for 32, 17, and ??? - get the numbers lower - moving 30 or 40 people.
Bickford: 17 is down 140 an 19 is up 130 (my numbers not right)
Holm: ???
McConnochie: Can we do something to tweak the changes a little more?
They’re going to rerun the numbers and see what happens
Moving from 17 to 32, no from 32 to 17. They grabbed four block and now 22 is -171 people. 26 = -127 30=-152.
Probably won’t get closer than that. 22 is now -75.
Now 26 -
Bickford: we could take 50 or 60 from 25.
I’d try to video this, but I’m already so backlogged with video I haven’t posted that it makes no sense. Plus this really doesn’t tell you anything and no one is talking while they watch the blocks move around. The only issues people are talking about are:
1. the numbers - the deviation from the goal of 17755 per district
2. getting rid of strange shapes in the districts.
White: 30 is that following some natural boundary or census blocks?
Bickford: Census blocks.
Torgerson: What’s your call here?
McConnochie: I move we adopt this.
Holm: Second it.
Torgerson: What is this? Anchorage 2, 3?
White: You haven’t adopted any Anchorage plan yet.
Torgerson: Motion we adopted Staff/chair’s Anchorage dated 4/11. Discussion?
4yes and Brody is absent.
Move on to Matsu. And print off and give to the members so we can look at it tonight. If we get Matsu done, then we’ll have the whole state to look at tomorrow.
2:50 back from very short break to work on Matsu. Ellis on the computer.
Ellis: I used a combination of roads and blocks, and the river there.
Torgerson: looks like we’re splitting neighborhoods.
Ellis: Some, this is just an exercise to show you the issues. 13 uses Matsu River.
Torgerson: Can you put the city limits of palmer up?
…..
Holm: Palmer is not completely included in 13?
Ellis: Yes, city is in 13.
Holm: NW is farming area.
Ellis: It’s in between Wasilla and Palmer. I’d say you more rightly put it in Palmer. But there are farms throughout here.
14 hee grabbed balance of farm area in eastern part. More to west - in Fairview-Knik.
Torgerson: What’s the major difference?
Ellis: Extended 14 . . relatively few NS boundary lines in the area, not clean and distinct.
Torgerson: We did the same in Anchorage. Just looked cleaner in Anch.
McConnochie: Just not as clean in Matsu.
Torgerson: Bring up the other one.
Ellis: Apologize for the local roads, when zoomed in it could be helpful.
Torgerson: Looks like Taylor spilled worms on there.
Ellis: A few differences, uses Bogard road (very straight line)
Torgerson: I like that.
Holm: You are 1500 people over, so . .
Ellis: That’s in Peter’s Creek.
Holm: Don’t you have wiggle room you could push people toward Anchorage?
Torgerson: Anchorage also over. You have Palmer in the city limits with ER?
Ellis: Yes, just as an exercise. Awkward reach.
Torgerson: Meadow Lakes area. Is 12 right on? Population in 12. Is that accurate? A little over on 12.
Bickfor: You could move excess to 38. It would help with deviation but not with Native population in 38, but you’d have some socio-economic problems.
Torgerson: And you don’t know - Valdez and Cordova?
Elis - it would be possible to dip in this area, but then you wouldn’t be using the Parks Highway. Hard to find clean NS boundaries?
Holm: Isn’t there a nice road you could use?
Ellis: Little roads but go into subdivisions.
They like straight lines rather than jagged lines.
McConnochie: Deviations on your other map were much lower right?
Ellis: I believe they were about the same.
[They agreed on Matsu yesterday. I’m not sure why we’re back here, except maybe to see the repercusions of the Anchorage border being at Peters Creek.]
Torgerson: Anyone else have a map.
Holm: I went down to Peters Creek.
Torgerson: Borough wants five districts. Our population deserves it. Mayor of Wasilla wanted Parks Highway to be the divider of Wasilla districts. Palmer wanted the greater Palmer area, but not clear if that was butte and Lazy Mountain or Fishhook Road. My guess is that we won’t adopt a plan that has city of Palmer with ER. But it does show alternatives.
McConnochie: Can you go back to that first plan you had?
Holm: I think that’s more compact.
Torgerson: See if there’s a way to move population. Look at 38 again. I’d like to get the deviations down a bit.
Holm: Show us 12 and 11 on the chart. 11 doesn’t show anything at all. Can we get those numbers so that we’re correct. Right now. If we have 1500 extra folks in those five districts. We might be able to change boundaries of 11 and 5.
Bickford: We can, but it would require moving Matsu population into 5 and 38.
Torgerson: I’m not sure…
Ellis: Theoretically possible to take excess Matsu population and put into Peters Creek.
Torgerson: I don’t want to ripple into Anchorage. Probably harder than rippling into North. But maybe not.
Ellis; Matsu people less happy to move north than south. ???
Torgerson:
Holm: I probably think it’s ok to wait for Bob in the morning. It won’t make any difference in how many we take in. I think he’d like to be involved.
Torgerson: I think we’ll take the same number whether he is here or not.
Any board comments?
Holm: Beautiful day.
Torgerson: 3:12. Stand adjourned for today at 11. Be prepared to come in and out during the day. Adjourned.
I feel a little like I've been watching peas being moved around under walnut shells as the board has been moving Anchorage districts bit by bit trying to get them all as close to equal and 17,755 as possible. On the one had they are taking a couple of blocks here and moving them into another district, but they are so close up that you can't see the whole picture, but then they move back out and you can't see enough detail to know exactly where the borders are. Yesterday they spent a lot of time working on my own district - 24 - so after it was over, I asked if they could show me the borders of the district. When it came up, I could see they'd taken just enough off the north, from Northern Lights south to 36th, and then just a bite out south of 36th to snatch Geneva Woods, where my representative, Berta Gardner (D) lives, putting her into 25, Mike Doogan's (D) district.
Here's what Anchorage looked like at 6pm Sunday (photo of projection on the screen):
At least you get an idea of where the districts are.
 |
| 4/10 Juneau Plan |
Today's alternate version
 | |
| 4/11 Juneau Plan - Pink at lower right (Hyder) was moved to the green - Ketchikan |
And it would help if the public notices on the Redistricting Board website were kept up to date. The last time they were posted was March 31, 2011 and all but the April 4 meeting are scheduled there for 2pm. But today's meeting and the next two meetings are scheduled for 11 am. You would only know that if you went to the meetings and picked up the revised schedule. Or if you knew to go to the State of Alaska Public Notice site which is hardly something most Alaskans even know about, let alone use.
Here are my notes for the afternoon of Monday, April 11. As usual, these are rough notes, but the best you'll get online. Actually, the only detailed notes. (The board has audio up for their March 16, 22, and April 6 meetings. And there's an agenda for April 7. But they've been meeting every day since then and their draft plan has a deadline of April 14.) In fact there is precious little posted on the Board's website that would help someone from the public know what is going on, when, or what happened. None of the maps I'm posting are available, at least I couldn't find any. I don't just mean today, but since I've been posting. The staff has been very helpful in person, but I don't think they can keep up with all that needs to be done.
Redistricting Board - April 11, 2011 Afternoon [Rough Notes Warning]
I got here about five minutes late, while I was getting the morning post up at the Westmark lobby where I could get wifi.
McConnochie has a new Southeast map. This appears to be a total revision of yesterdays. Holm commented that it didn’t look too contiguous, but the others said it was, using the water.
Now they are talking about splitting Census districts into voting districts. Eric says it can be done, but you need the right software.
McConnochie
Bickford: If you have zero population in a block, you can do it, but otherwise you can’t split it because they [Census] don’t have a smaller unit.
They’re talking about there being 3 or 4 people on Admiralty Island
McConnochie: I think this is a tighter plan. And I go right through Yakutat.
Motion to count PAM SE Plan as Board’s SE alternative plan. [Except the plan they adopted yesterday has the same name.]
Holm: Can we swap Ketchikan and Petersburg?
McConnochie: Can’t do it, population . . .
[I’m not sure what they are doing now, something about Hyder and Hydaburg. Gets more Native count.]
Member Brody left. He’d asked if the meeting could start at 1 rather than 2 because he had to leave, but Torgerson had said there wouldn’t be time to be ready by 1. He doesn't seem happy.
Torgerson: Any other changes - now Hyder included in Ketchikan.
Adopted 3-1. Brody has left for Koda
Now to Anchorage
Bickford: Only dif between 32 and 30 is 30 has this tail, we put it back in yesterday to make it look better. Harder to explain decision by decision. Just moving population off of 30, Didn’t really touch ER districts, they were right on.
McConnochie: Any questions?
Bickford: District 20, long and skinny. Mt. View. Could be wider.
Holm: what;s the population of 16? Any overflow at all? When I did it from the south, I came up with overflow beyond Peters Creek.
Bickford: Setting the boundary at Peters Creek the numbers come out perfect for all the districts.
Holm: Where is govt. hill? 23. Is that reunited? I notice 32 is bifurcated. Doesn’t go up through the Hillside? Correct. Hillside is now 30? Yes
Torgerson: Testimony…
Do you have a plan Jim?
Holm: Yes, but I started with some incorrect assumptions. Started at Indian and also south of Peters Creek. Otherwise, everything you said is correct. The Census block lines in the city are haywire. But what we can’t change we can’t change.
Bickford: It would look completely different if we started somewhere else yesterday. Also some worse shapes yesterday, District 30 came around this way, was awkward.
The map they handed out doesn’t show enough detail to know where things are.
Holm: I used more ppulation going up north than Taylor did when he took Indian out. I don’t think mine is particuoarly instructive, the numbers are good. Certainly tweakable.
Torgerson: I’d like to see tweak for 32, 17, and ??? - get the numbers lower - moving 30 or 40 people.
Bickford: 17 is down 140 an 19 is up 130 (my numbers not right)
Holm: ???
McConnochie: Can we do something to tweak the changes a little more?
They’re going to rerun the numbers and see what happens
Moving from 17 to 32, no from 32 to 17. They grabbed four block and now 22 is -171 people. 26 = -127 30=-152.
Probably won’t get closer than that. 22 is now -75.
Now 26 -
Bickford: we could take 50 or 60 from 25.
I’d try to video this, but I’m already so backlogged with video I haven’t posted that it makes no sense. Plus this really doesn’t tell you anything and no one is talking while they watch the blocks move around. The only issues people are talking about are:
1. the numbers - the deviation from the goal of 17755 per district
2. getting rid of strange shapes in the districts.
White: 30 is that following some natural boundary or census blocks?
Bickford: Census blocks.
Torgerson: What’s your call here?
McConnochie: I move we adopt this.
Holm: Second it.
Torgerson: What is this? Anchorage 2, 3?
White: You haven’t adopted any Anchorage plan yet.
Torgerson: Motion we adopted Staff/chair’s Anchorage dated 4/11. Discussion?
4yes and Brody is absent.
Move on to Matsu. And print off and give to the members so we can look at it tonight. If we get Matsu done, then we’ll have the whole state to look at tomorrow.
2:50 back from very short break to work on Matsu. Ellis on the computer.
Ellis: I used a combination of roads and blocks, and the river there.
Torgerson: looks like we’re splitting neighborhoods.
Ellis: Some, this is just an exercise to show you the issues. 13 uses Matsu River.
Torgerson: Can you put the city limits of palmer up?
…..
Holm: Palmer is not completely included in 13?
Ellis: Yes, city is in 13.
Holm: NW is farming area.
Ellis: It’s in between Wasilla and Palmer. I’d say you more rightly put it in Palmer. But there are farms throughout here.
14 hee grabbed balance of farm area in eastern part. More to west - in Fairview-Knik.
Torgerson: What’s the major difference?
Ellis: Extended 14 . . relatively few NS boundary lines in the area, not clean and distinct.
Torgerson: We did the same in Anchorage. Just looked cleaner in Anch.
McConnochie: Just not as clean in Matsu.
Torgerson: Bring up the other one.
Ellis: Apologize for the local roads, when zoomed in it could be helpful.
Torgerson: Looks like Taylor spilled worms on there.
Ellis: A few differences, uses Bogard road (very straight line)
Torgerson: I like that.
Holm: You are 1500 people over, so . .
Ellis: That’s in Peter’s Creek.
Holm: Don’t you have wiggle room you could push people toward Anchorage?
Torgerson: Anchorage also over. You have Palmer in the city limits with ER?
Ellis: Yes, just as an exercise. Awkward reach.
Torgerson: Meadow Lakes area. Is 12 right on? Population in 12. Is that accurate? A little over on 12.
Bickfor: You could move excess to 38. It would help with deviation but not with Native population in 38, but you’d have some socio-economic problems.
Torgerson: And you don’t know - Valdez and Cordova?
Elis - it would be possible to dip in this area, but then you wouldn’t be using the Parks Highway. Hard to find clean NS boundaries?
Holm: Isn’t there a nice road you could use?
Ellis: Little roads but go into subdivisions.
They like straight lines rather than jagged lines.
McConnochie: Deviations on your other map were much lower right?
Ellis: I believe they were about the same.
[They agreed on Matsu yesterday. I’m not sure why we’re back here, except maybe to see the repercusions of the Anchorage border being at Peters Creek.]
Torgerson: Anyone else have a map.
Holm: I went down to Peters Creek.
Torgerson: Borough wants five districts. Our population deserves it. Mayor of Wasilla wanted Parks Highway to be the divider of Wasilla districts. Palmer wanted the greater Palmer area, but not clear if that was butte and Lazy Mountain or Fishhook Road. My guess is that we won’t adopt a plan that has city of Palmer with ER. But it does show alternatives.
McConnochie: Can you go back to that first plan you had?
Holm: I think that’s more compact.
Torgerson: See if there’s a way to move population. Look at 38 again. I’d like to get the deviations down a bit.
Holm: Show us 12 and 11 on the chart. 11 doesn’t show anything at all. Can we get those numbers so that we’re correct. Right now. If we have 1500 extra folks in those five districts. We might be able to change boundaries of 11 and 5.
Bickford: We can, but it would require moving Matsu population into 5 and 38.
Torgerson: I’m not sure…
Ellis: Theoretically possible to take excess Matsu population and put into Peters Creek.
Torgerson: I don’t want to ripple into Anchorage. Probably harder than rippling into North. But maybe not.
Ellis; Matsu people less happy to move north than south. ???
Torgerson:
Holm: I probably think it’s ok to wait for Bob in the morning. It won’t make any difference in how many we take in. I think he’d like to be involved.
Torgerson: I think we’ll take the same number whether he is here or not.
Any board comments?
Holm: Beautiful day.
Torgerson: 3:12. Stand adjourned for today at 11. Be prepared to come in and out during the day. Adjourned.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Board Talks to Voting Rights Consultant Lisa Handley Calling from Afghanistan
This morning the board finally got to talk to the Voting Rights Act consultant, Lisa Handley, whose proposal they selected to analyze their plan before sending it for pre-clearance from the Department of Justice. Handley is currently in Afghanistan. I put some of the audio onto a video tape so you can get a sense of this consultant. She literally wrote the book, or at least one book, on Voting Rights, which was published in 1992, and she was the 2001 Board's consultant as well.For those with a technical bent, here are some notes on what Dr. Handley told the NCSL National Redistricting Seminar on Measuring Minority Vote Dilution.
The audio covers some technical file information, the how to count Native who identify was multiracial where staff attorney White is able to get the consultant up to speed. I edited the audio where board staff was hard to hear and to shorten it a bit.
Here are my notes from the rest of the conversation.
[USUAL WARNING: This was typed on the fly at the meeting and I'm putting it up with only rudimentary proof reading. It doesn't capture everything and could be inaccurate. The Board should have the audio up on their website soon.]
Redistricting Board - April 11, 2011
Talking via phone to Consultant Lisa Handley who called from Afghanistan.
Discussion fairly technical about the kind of data she needs to do her analysis.
I came in a bit late and then recorded about 8 minutes. Then I edited out some of it because the audio quality was terrible (worse than some parts I left - sorry, this is documentation, not art.) Then I just started typing with the recording going as well.
Handley: If one is white and one minority - count as a minority
If more than two, wonder what we do then. DoJ may have given us some guidelines in recent weeks. A lot of people will be captured by this.
Mike White: in February 9th - will do their retrogression analysis
1. Native and Native + white
2. Native and Native + all
Required because of footnote in - Georgia v. Ashcroft - SC said if you only have one race at issue, you should do what people self identify.
OK, that answers that question.
Something slightly different - I’m talking a data base for analysis of racial block voting analysis. In Chicago, much more complicated because different minority groups. But here it’s much less complicated.
Mike White: 35% number. Board would like to know how you arrived at 35%
C: I don’t know it will be 35% this time. I think you are asking, what % of Natives needed to elect a Native. Differential in minoirty and white turnout, how much white crossover vote can we expect for Native candidate.
Ten years ago, we found enough white cross-over, a 35% district might cut it. aaysls has to be redone. Might not be 35% this time round.
White: Could be higher or lower.
C: That’s right.
Actually, this turnaround, not only magic 35%, but since you’ve had minority candidates running statewide, so we can look at that data as well.
Eric: You want a column of total # of Cauc and column for Native - this would be anyone who checks the Native box on Census.
Handley: Yes. Some who marked just Native, but also Native and white, Hispanic, black.
Eric: Someone who marked all six races?
Handley: That’s my understanding.
Torgerson: relating to 35% how might voting age population affect that?
Handley: 35% offers Native an opportunity to elect a candidate of choice. Relates to turnout rates of whites and minorities, cohesion of Natives, how much white support for Natives? 35%
White: Last time based on total population and not 35% voting age population.
Handley: REALLY??!!! If it says total rather than voting, that’s what it is.
White: Assuming that you considered voting age in determining 35%. S
Handley: Since we focused on total population, the voting age is in there. Did I do that for both?
Torg: Can I talk to you about timeline? We’ll be drawing final plan sometime in the second week of May. When do you think we’ll have your analysis. Not trying to nail you down, but get a general idea.
Handley: Given your tight time line. Probably not sufficient for section V submission, but
for drawing purposes, why don’t I analysis just those districts that involve native candidates.Then the 3 statewide Native candidates.
Then maybe 15 races.
Somthing like that would take a couple of weeks to analysis. Given that the data base is ready when I get back, I can start immediately.
Torg: That would fit in our timeline.
Handley: Another measure - the disaggregted results of minoirity candidates ????
White: Lisa can provide us with a working number, but that wouldn’t be the pre-clearance analysis.
Handley: But then I would do more races. But first shot would be all races including minority candidates.
Torg: I realize you’ll have to do final analysis
Handley: Do you have election results in the data base you’re using to draw the districts.
Eric: NO
Handley: It might be useful to show ??? that are minority preferred to include in your data base. I’ll begin my analysis with those districts.
McConnochie: We’re using 35% to make a minority district. I realize we need to also look at voting age. Possible to give us a number of voting age for us?
Handley: Not necessarily the number we’ll use this time. That’s only part of it. The DOJ is going to do another analsysis. If you have a district that are sitting at 50% that are vastly underpopulated. You’ll say, I couldn’t draw this at 50% I drew it at 35%. If you CAN draw it above 35% but only do 35% you could be in trouble.
McConnochie: The other way. Areas that lost a lot of population and trying to get it to and above 35%.
Handley: Looking at districts as currently composed. And you have some minority that is really underpopulated right?
White: We have one that was minority-majority but is now 2% underpopulated and trying to move it around
Handley: You can do that DOJ doesn’t insist these are the same districts, but the same number of districts.
White: We have some that are minority-majority and they will remain majority, but reduced because of out migration.
Handley: DOJ will look at the data, if they see the numbers went down. If they see you just couldn’t do it, they’ll be fine.
Torg: When are you going to be back from Afghanistan?
Handley: April 24 - Easter Sunday.
Torg: Well have you up, sometime in Mid-May.
Handley: who is compliling the data base - Eric - email me on my aol account, better luck that g-mail account here.
11:45am
Hang up.
McConnochie - very important that we buy the map, so when they redraw important not to redraw - it will be helpful to them to understand our minority districts. They could come up with other districts but destroy what we’ve tried to do.
White: Some of the other ones - not 40 - part of the justification to DOJ.
Torgerson: Memo from City Manager of Cordova. The board may have adopted Valdez plan that includes Cordova, based on my comments that we were ok with going with Valdez, well, we aren’t.
So, if any member of the board wishes to bring this issue back up, then a motion would be in order to revise this.
Brody: I would lean toward leaving it the way it is until we can visit Cordova until we can tell them what our options were. See if they prefer other options. Message is vague.
Torg: I didn’t wnat any accusations that the board adopted this based on interpretation of what I said in error. OK, that will stand as adopted.
We’’ll recess then technically to call of chair, but probably at 2.
Brody: Could we do this at 2pm?
Torg: Not sure we’ll be ready. When would you be ready McConnochie? You aren’t going to have lunch then?
McConnochie: Apparently not.
Torg: We’ll recess until 2pm
11:54am
Here's the first page of the Table of Contents of the book Handley coauthored on Voting Equality. You can read some of it online here.
Redstricting Board Update
The Board met from 2pm until 6pm today. They went over Kenai, Matsu, Southeast, and Anchorage. Sorry this is taking so long to post, but I have a bunch of things that have been neglected that I had to see to. Like getting tickets to go to my daughter's graduation in June.
Before today they approved of rural districts - locking in nine Native districts - then Fairbanks yesterday, as well as Valdez district. Today they approved a
[Usual Warnings Apply: These are rough notes and not necessarily accurate. There are missing words and sentences and probably some mistakes, but it will give you a sense of the meeting.]
Open at 2:03pm
All members present except Jim Holm who went back to Fairbanks yesterday.
Staff here too.
Going to do:
Brody: Kodiak and Kenai: Kodiak takes most of downtown Homer.
McConnochie: You can’t take all of Homer?
Brody: Then the numbers don’t work.
Kept most of these other districts with a couple of changes.
Kodiak takes western side of the borough - Seldovia, Halibut Cove, to the outskirts of Homer, I think outstide city limits.
Leaving 33 untouched, but had to go a little futher into Anchorage - to Girdwood again.
McConnochie: What’s on the eastern side. W
Bordy: Whittier going with 34, N. part of Kenai Peninsula.
Torgerson: Seward went with Homer?
Brody: yes
Torgerson: Sort of what is existing.
Brody: This one [I think this was a second Kenai option] was a radical change. Split Kenai and Soldotna. Kenai going up to Girdwood. By giving . . . 33 had to come down more into 35 which moved up into this area. ??? Skips Homer but goes to Seward.
McConnochie: Mr. Chair how do you feel about Kenai and Soldotna being split? I don’t think it’s a problem.
Torgerson: (who is from there) It’s not necessarily a problem, but … Glacier Road, leaves out quite a few. But splitting the towns, I like the idea of both together, when they did that in 1992, but like all the rest of our plans, whatever works. That’s the problem area - Primrose South, all the way to the Exit Glacier area.
Looks like you have Sterling in three different districts. But, a lot of neighborhoods around the state split. Used the Kenai River, so . . .
[They’re looking at the maps and talking about ways to make adustments - hard to track since they’re referring to changes they are making in the maps and I can’t keep up with all that. Even video is tedious for that, but gets it better.]
They just imposed the Katchemak City limits on the map to see if they’ve split it.
They’re trying to get the counts of the different districts as close to 17,755 as possible and as even as possible. Should they take people on Seward Highway south of Tern Lake with Homer instead of Seward to make the numbers better?
Torgerson: They are fishing towns, a little more commercial out of Seward, but also tourist.
McConnochie: Halibut Cove makes sense with Homer. You could get 36 down some other way.
Torgerson: This something we want to adopt today or hold off until tomorrow? I think a little shifting back and forth - the only place , well there could be a lot , I’m not sure what that boundary off 33 to the right. [Photo]
Brody: That was there from the last districts.
Torgerson: And we’re splitting subdivisions all over.
What are the red lines?
Eric: Census districts.
….
McConnochie: I move to adopt this plan.
Brody: Second. I can pull this back out of Anchorage about 100.
Torgerson: Remember we heard a lot of testimony from ER folks in 32. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on that when we know we’ll have a lot of adjustments coming out of Anchorage. Marie, you alright with that?
Brody: 400 people there you could spread through those 3 districts.
Torgerson: Can we have a motion to adopt? What do we call this? I guess Kodiak, Seward District (Kenai/Soldotna). Any more discussion? All in favor?
Unanimous (Greene, McConnochie, Brody, Torgerson, Holm absent)
Torgerson: Next we’re going to discuss Matsu and Anchorage districts. First, as I was working with staff the other day, pretty apparent we set northern boundaries for ER and S. boundary for Matsu: Peters Creek is the natural boundary which is what we’re using already. Also keeping in mind the memo from the Lt. Governor not to take patches of the military bases to get numbers.
Matsu, then move through Anchorage. Recess
2:53pm ten minute recess.
At break, Brody went to Rudy Ruedrich (head of Republican Party) and asked if that was ok. Ruedrich squinted, pointed out the room, and walked out. Deborah Williams (Executive Director of Democratic Party) asked something like, “You’re getting approval?” Then Brody said, I’ll talk to anyone and began talking to Deborah. Ruderich is back and in Brody’s face. You [video of discussion between Ruedrich, Brody, and Peggy Wilcox from AFFR here taking notes. Haven't looked at it yet, not sure about the audio.]
3:02 Back
Taylor Bickford (Staff): Similar to what we did with rural districts. Set northern and southern boundaries. After the drill yesterday looked at what was created and most of the interior Anchorage districts were fine, but there were problems at either end.
If we set the northern boundaries.
Down to Indian or Girdwood. Kenai and Matsu would have to affect District 12. Since we ruled out the Canadian border for that, we had to go back to the boundaries.
No really natural boundaries to ER and so we looked at Peters Creek and worked north and south from that boundary. Now boxing in a simpler puzzle in the middle where the numbers work out. Trying to keep this area together as close as possible and the deviations as low as possible. District 20 = +.07 deviation, D 21 = (similar to current 17)= neg. . 62 and
Lt. Gov Treadwell said it’s best to have districts that are majority military and take little pockets into non-military, then they are forced to put polling places off base. If they can do it without impacting deviations at all. This jagged line is the boundary. The AFFR plan took the downtown and took 3000 people on base. That looked problematic, it divided the base in half. Created issue of off-base and on-base population, problems taking 50% of the
AFFRE plan did a better job of leaving the base in a traditional block. The way this was drawn, you don’t have those issues. about 6,000 at Elmendorf, which leaves you about 11,000 short. Some advantages of having it over here - North Muldoon. Going to video.
[UPDATE Tuesday April 12: It turns out the Lt. Governor's letter must have come up on Friday when I wasn't there and was first distributed then.]
Brody isn’t ready to leave the Bases as two separate bases. The staff added some of the military to ER and took a bit of Anchorage with Elmendorf. I have a bit of that on video.
[First Bickford seemed to be saying, because of the Lt. Gov’s memo, they should leave the bases as a whole district and said that AFFR split the bases in half and that wasn’t good. But then it seemed to me that Elmendorf was split form Fr. Rich and half of Ft Rich went to ER in his plan. I need to ask him.]
Brody: I don’t buy that yet, but I see what you mean. I guess I’m dense.
McConnochie: Why don’t you do this? Mark boundary for Ft. Rich. That district is too large. Break it up into 2 is unwieldy.
Brody: You have almost?? District 17 in one. And then this part of ER needs 8000. We may come back to that - in Kodiak we have the Coast Guard base. Inconvenient for those people.
Torgerson: I agree with Bob. There are a lot of ways to make it work. I think we need to do what Taylor’s talking about if we take out Ft. Rich.
That doesn’t mean we can’t look at different options.. We’d have a repeat of 32 which everyone in ER hates. [Everyone? Or at least the ten or so who testified]
Bickford: There’s no other way. If you take this out of 20, there’s no other way. [Drives me crazy when someone says, “There’s no other way.” Really he’s saying, “I couldn’t find another way.”]
Brody: By setting this, we’re setting he boundaries for the Matsu. I would move that we set the n. boundary of Anchorage along Peters Creek for preliminary purposes. And accept 21 as presented and work out the others. [He was just opposing it and now he’s making the motion to adopt it!]
Torgerson: Any other discussion on the motion?
Quick look at Matsu and then. . . Jim you can lead us through.
Ellis: A couple of these I didn’t do with the N. boundary at Peters Creek, I did one that way, and it doesn’t make substantial changes to the northern boundary.
You could make rational arguments to connect Pt. McKenzie with big lake area or Knik Fairview [Video walking through the districts he’s set up.]
Torgerson: I think Pt. McK should go with Knik-Fairview. How would you move Palmer into 14?
Ellis: You take this chunk here into Palmer and move this part of 13 further south.
Torgerson: You had a tradeoff between Fishhook or Lazy Mountain and Butte? [A: Yes.] Do you have the other option too?
3:37pm
Looking at the alternate with Palmer and Lazy Mt and Butte.
3:56 - Brody is now showing his plan for Southeast. It’s a good thing I’m not on the board because I’m getting glassy eyed. But that doesn’t mean the board members aren’t glassy eyed as well.
There’s more map moving in and out. I can’t tell how this compares to what they looked at the other day. Though now they have a Native-Influence district that comes over the mountains to touch the rest of Alaska so they could connect that way for a contiguous Senate seat.
There was only one staff member in the room now. Brody was at the computer, and Seth watching from the audience. I’m going to see what I can find out about the Lt. Governor’s communication.
They said they’d get me a copy.
McConnochie is now going over her plan for SE, with Seth working the computer.
McConnocie: SE is a complete conundrum. Tried to reduce the deviations. The Native district is 1.9%. Rather than going to Valley in Juneau, I went to ???
Brody: They’re virtually the same, just small differences.
McConnochie: I got 36.7% in the Native district.
Greene: Neither splits Sitka?
McConnochie: No, Sitka is too small a town. [But Saxman is split from Ketchikan - I understand why, because it helps with the numbers for the Native District. Later, Brody and Ruedrich explained to me that you really can’t tell that Saxman is any different from downtown Ketchikan and they are 95% economically integrated, but that Saxman maintains its identity fiercely.]]
Brody: Can you justify taking a little piece like Saxman?
White: They have in the past.
Torgerson: We could adopt it and let staff hook things up. ???
Brody: It’s pretty much the same as mine. It looks good.
White: Haines and Skagway with Juneau? Yes. Can’t come down the other side?
McConnochie: Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka. Largest cities. Other ones around there are majority white. You need significant sized communities, but then you destroy the Native percentages.
Brody: Splitting Sitka is the only way to avoid pitting incumbents.
McConnochie: Splitting Sitka destroys the Native percentage.
Miller: There are reps from Wrangell and Ketchikan. Not Sitka. And Senators from Sitka and Angoon. ???
Brody: Pairing reps in Ketch and Wrangell. There’s an in town Juneau seat. Pairing Thomas and Munoz. District 2 would be an open seat. (2 is the Native district.)
McConnochie: I’m not prejudiced. I think this is the hardest district to do. Making a native district is very, very difficult. I did. I personally feel the small towns shouldn’t be split.
Brody: You want a motion to adopt?
Torgerson: Are you ready?
MC: If people see something that I have missed, there is a lot of latitude to change. I’m more than willing to have.
Brody: On the maps say McConnochie ….???
Torgerson: Ok, this map and staff can make adjustments so we can pair this with D 5.
Pass 4-1, Holm is absent.
4:15pm Break to 4:30pm
4:40 Back on.
Brody working the computer looking at Anchorage.
Looking at Post Road and Hollywood Drive. (I’ve got the letter from Lt. Gov. Basically it says that when a precinct is both on and off base, the voting place has to be off base because people can’t come on base thru the security to vote.. [Turns out this was passed out Friday - the day I wasn’t here.])
They’re trying to figure what is base and what isn’t.
5:15pm -
Brody: We’re picking up all those who aren’t in ER, not on the Base, and not in Matsu.
D 19 now has 2000 too many people.
Now we’ve taken all the ER people who used to be associated - way down here - and hooked them in with
Look at 71, how it snakes in there. [I think he meant 17]
There must be a road here that has a lot of people on it, huh? [I think he’s going up ER Road.] Now taken those people I was referencing and turned them into ???. Before we wrapped the ??? this way.
Torgerson: Not many people mostly territory.
Brody: These are the ER suburbs that now will be hooked to Anchorage.
Bickford: Actually works pretty well.
Brody: Ok, that brings us to town. 20 and 21.
Torgerson: We should probably start with 26 or 27 on the water and move in. We’re going to have a crash somewhere. Deviations now about 1500 between districts.
Airport area. Yesterday we moved these guys over here - made it downtown.
Torgerson: We’re forcing the population to the east. You’ll have another district there.
[There goes Bootlegger’s Cove. It was with south of Westchester Lagoon and now it’s downtown.]
Brody: I have 1400 people too many.
26 is under. Should we take this for 26?
Torgerson: 23 looks like.
[Taking west of the RR I think from 25 and putting them into 26. Or that could be Minnesota, not sure.
26 is now a backwards L from Westchester Lagoon to south of International. He’s moving stuff out to 27 I think. Now 26 is all east of Minnesota. Taking out chunks near Westchester Lagoon. ]
Brody: 26 and 27 are pretty good. 24 is over and 25 is under.
[He’s going block by block to get the numbers. working. Ruedrich is watching closely. The AFFR and Democratic reps have gone home, but the Bush Caucus rep is still here.]
McConnochie: You’re taking out trailer park. You should keep them all in the same districts. (He’s at Bragaw) Give it back to 20. See where it says 66. Can’t remember the boundaries are.
Miller: Penland Park, Northway Drive, and Airport are the boundaries. Across from Northway Mall.
Brody: 93 over. We could give back both of them.
[There has been no discussion of incumbents as they move district boundaries in the Central Anchorage districts. As he moves things in and out, the districts are morphing. The numbers right now aren’t even close to 17,755 each.
23= 19,332; 25 = 14,851, 26- 17,629, 27= 17, 689; 28 = 18,473, 29=18,022 30=25,845, 31= 17,744.
It would be interesting to see what the numbers were before he started all this. [Just a few mouse clicks makes a big difference - check these photos as he tries to balance 30 and 32.
So now he has most of the districts close, except for 30 which has 6,600 extra. And 32 which is under 5,500. But 31 seems to be in between them. And 30 and 32 are the same color. I don’t know if there is a better way to do this, but this is really trial and error. Or at least it looks that way.
Now 30 is 7,000 over. They moved the map back and 32 is also to the east of 30 and the color is a slightly different green. 32 goes down Turnagain Arm. No, that’s 34 now. There are some strange pockets, but they look like they’re in Chugach State Park so there won’t be people living there. He’s adjusting those.
Hmmm, never thought I’d be doing play-by-play for map making. ]
6:00pm
Now the numbers are
26= 17829
27= 17,869
28=17715
28=17793
30=17,683
31=17,700
32=18,493
Though they change as I type.
They’re adjourning.
Torgerson: We’ll meet tomorrow at 11. Our voting rights expert will be on the phone from Afghanistan. Then we’ll probably adjourn until probably 2pm. We’ll have a full board.
Adjourn at 6:05
Brody and Ruedrich are looking at the maps and talking.
Before today they approved of rural districts - locking in nine Native districts - then Fairbanks yesterday, as well as Valdez district. Today they approved a
- Kenai plan put together by Board Member Brody
- Matsu plan put together by staffer Jim Ellis
- Southeast map, which gets a Native-influence district that will connect to District 5 (which I assume means they can have two contiguous House seats that make up a Native Senate seat and they don't have to join Ketchikan and Kodiak like they talked about the other day.
[Usual Warnings Apply: These are rough notes and not necessarily accurate. There are missing words and sentences and probably some mistakes, but it will give you a sense of the meeting.]
Open at 2:03pm
All members present except Jim Holm who went back to Fairbanks yesterday.
Staff here too.
Going to do:
Brody: Kodiak and Kenai: Kodiak takes most of downtown Homer.
McConnochie: You can’t take all of Homer?
Brody: Then the numbers don’t work.
Kept most of these other districts with a couple of changes.
Kodiak takes western side of the borough - Seldovia, Halibut Cove, to the outskirts of Homer, I think outstide city limits.
Leaving 33 untouched, but had to go a little futher into Anchorage - to Girdwood again.
McConnochie: What’s on the eastern side. W
Bordy: Whittier going with 34, N. part of Kenai Peninsula.
Torgerson: Seward went with Homer?
Brody: yes
Torgerson: Sort of what is existing.
Brody: This one [I think this was a second Kenai option] was a radical change. Split Kenai and Soldotna. Kenai going up to Girdwood. By giving . . . 33 had to come down more into 35 which moved up into this area. ??? Skips Homer but goes to Seward.
McConnochie: Mr. Chair how do you feel about Kenai and Soldotna being split? I don’t think it’s a problem.
Torgerson: (who is from there) It’s not necessarily a problem, but … Glacier Road, leaves out quite a few. But splitting the towns, I like the idea of both together, when they did that in 1992, but like all the rest of our plans, whatever works. That’s the problem area - Primrose South, all the way to the Exit Glacier area.
Looks like you have Sterling in three different districts. But, a lot of neighborhoods around the state split. Used the Kenai River, so . . .
[They’re looking at the maps and talking about ways to make adustments - hard to track since they’re referring to changes they are making in the maps and I can’t keep up with all that. Even video is tedious for that, but gets it better.]
They just imposed the Katchemak City limits on the map to see if they’ve split it.
They’re trying to get the counts of the different districts as close to 17,755 as possible and as even as possible. Should they take people on Seward Highway south of Tern Lake with Homer instead of Seward to make the numbers better?
Torgerson: They are fishing towns, a little more commercial out of Seward, but also tourist.
McConnochie: Halibut Cove makes sense with Homer. You could get 36 down some other way.
Torgerson: This something we want to adopt today or hold off until tomorrow? I think a little shifting back and forth - the only place , well there could be a lot , I’m not sure what that boundary off 33 to the right. [Photo]
Brody: That was there from the last districts.
Torgerson: And we’re splitting subdivisions all over.
What are the red lines?
Eric: Census districts.
….
McConnochie: I move to adopt this plan.
Brody: Second. I can pull this back out of Anchorage about 100.
Torgerson: Remember we heard a lot of testimony from ER folks in 32. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on that when we know we’ll have a lot of adjustments coming out of Anchorage. Marie, you alright with that?
Brody: 400 people there you could spread through those 3 districts.
Torgerson: Can we have a motion to adopt? What do we call this? I guess Kodiak, Seward District (Kenai/Soldotna). Any more discussion? All in favor?
Unanimous (Greene, McConnochie, Brody, Torgerson, Holm absent)
Torgerson: Next we’re going to discuss Matsu and Anchorage districts. First, as I was working with staff the other day, pretty apparent we set northern boundaries for ER and S. boundary for Matsu: Peters Creek is the natural boundary which is what we’re using already. Also keeping in mind the memo from the Lt. Governor not to take patches of the military bases to get numbers.
Matsu, then move through Anchorage. Recess
2:53pm ten minute recess.
At break, Brody went to Rudy Ruedrich (head of Republican Party) and asked if that was ok. Ruedrich squinted, pointed out the room, and walked out. Deborah Williams (Executive Director of Democratic Party) asked something like, “You’re getting approval?” Then Brody said, I’ll talk to anyone and began talking to Deborah. Ruderich is back and in Brody’s face. You [video of discussion between Ruedrich, Brody, and Peggy Wilcox from AFFR here taking notes. Haven't looked at it yet, not sure about the audio.]
3:02 Back
Taylor Bickford (Staff): Similar to what we did with rural districts. Set northern and southern boundaries. After the drill yesterday looked at what was created and most of the interior Anchorage districts were fine, but there were problems at either end. If we set the northern boundaries.
Down to Indian or Girdwood. Kenai and Matsu would have to affect District 12. Since we ruled out the Canadian border for that, we had to go back to the boundaries.
No really natural boundaries to ER and so we looked at Peters Creek and worked north and south from that boundary. Now boxing in a simpler puzzle in the middle where the numbers work out. Trying to keep this area together as close as possible and the deviations as low as possible. District 20 = +.07 deviation, D 21 = (similar to current 17)= neg. . 62 and
Lt. Gov Treadwell said it’s best to have districts that are majority military and take little pockets into non-military, then they are forced to put polling places off base. If they can do it without impacting deviations at all. This jagged line is the boundary. The AFFR plan took the downtown and took 3000 people on base. That looked problematic, it divided the base in half. Created issue of off-base and on-base population, problems taking 50% of the
AFFRE plan did a better job of leaving the base in a traditional block. The way this was drawn, you don’t have those issues. about 6,000 at Elmendorf, which leaves you about 11,000 short. Some advantages of having it over here - North Muldoon. Going to video.
[UPDATE Tuesday April 12: It turns out the Lt. Governor's letter must have come up on Friday when I wasn't there and was first distributed then.]
Brody isn’t ready to leave the Bases as two separate bases. The staff added some of the military to ER and took a bit of Anchorage with Elmendorf. I have a bit of that on video.
[First Bickford seemed to be saying, because of the Lt. Gov’s memo, they should leave the bases as a whole district and said that AFFR split the bases in half and that wasn’t good. But then it seemed to me that Elmendorf was split form Fr. Rich and half of Ft Rich went to ER in his plan. I need to ask him.]
Brody: I don’t buy that yet, but I see what you mean. I guess I’m dense.
McConnochie: Why don’t you do this? Mark boundary for Ft. Rich. That district is too large. Break it up into 2 is unwieldy.
Brody: You have almost?? District 17 in one. And then this part of ER needs 8000. We may come back to that - in Kodiak we have the Coast Guard base. Inconvenient for those people.
Torgerson: I agree with Bob. There are a lot of ways to make it work. I think we need to do what Taylor’s talking about if we take out Ft. Rich.
That doesn’t mean we can’t look at different options.. We’d have a repeat of 32 which everyone in ER hates. [Everyone? Or at least the ten or so who testified]
Bickford: There’s no other way. If you take this out of 20, there’s no other way. [Drives me crazy when someone says, “There’s no other way.” Really he’s saying, “I couldn’t find another way.”]
Brody: By setting this, we’re setting he boundaries for the Matsu. I would move that we set the n. boundary of Anchorage along Peters Creek for preliminary purposes. And accept 21 as presented and work out the others. [He was just opposing it and now he’s making the motion to adopt it!]
Torgerson: Any other discussion on the motion?
Quick look at Matsu and then. . . Jim you can lead us through.
Ellis: A couple of these I didn’t do with the N. boundary at Peters Creek, I did one that way, and it doesn’t make substantial changes to the northern boundary.
You could make rational arguments to connect Pt. McKenzie with big lake area or Knik Fairview [Video walking through the districts he’s set up.]
Torgerson: I think Pt. McK should go with Knik-Fairview. How would you move Palmer into 14?
Ellis: You take this chunk here into Palmer and move this part of 13 further south.
Torgerson: You had a tradeoff between Fishhook or Lazy Mountain and Butte? [A: Yes.] Do you have the other option too?
3:37pm
Looking at the alternate with Palmer and Lazy Mt and Butte.
3:56 - Brody is now showing his plan for Southeast. It’s a good thing I’m not on the board because I’m getting glassy eyed. But that doesn’t mean the board members aren’t glassy eyed as well.
There’s more map moving in and out. I can’t tell how this compares to what they looked at the other day. Though now they have a Native-Influence district that comes over the mountains to touch the rest of Alaska so they could connect that way for a contiguous Senate seat.
There was only one staff member in the room now. Brody was at the computer, and Seth watching from the audience. I’m going to see what I can find out about the Lt. Governor’s communication.
They said they’d get me a copy.
McConnochie is now going over her plan for SE, with Seth working the computer.
McConnocie: SE is a complete conundrum. Tried to reduce the deviations. The Native district is 1.9%. Rather than going to Valley in Juneau, I went to ???
Brody: They’re virtually the same, just small differences.
McConnochie: I got 36.7% in the Native district.
 |
| McConnochie's SE Plan that was approved |
McConnochie: No, Sitka is too small a town. [But Saxman is split from Ketchikan - I understand why, because it helps with the numbers for the Native District. Later, Brody and Ruedrich explained to me that you really can’t tell that Saxman is any different from downtown Ketchikan and they are 95% economically integrated, but that Saxman maintains its identity fiercely.]]
Brody: Can you justify taking a little piece like Saxman?
White: They have in the past.
Torgerson: We could adopt it and let staff hook things up. ???
Brody: It’s pretty much the same as mine. It looks good.
White: Haines and Skagway with Juneau? Yes. Can’t come down the other side?
McConnochie: Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka. Largest cities. Other ones around there are majority white. You need significant sized communities, but then you destroy the Native percentages.
Brody: Splitting Sitka is the only way to avoid pitting incumbents.
McConnochie: Splitting Sitka destroys the Native percentage.
Miller: There are reps from Wrangell and Ketchikan. Not Sitka. And Senators from Sitka and Angoon. ???
Brody: Pairing reps in Ketch and Wrangell. There’s an in town Juneau seat. Pairing Thomas and Munoz. District 2 would be an open seat. (2 is the Native district.)
McConnochie: I’m not prejudiced. I think this is the hardest district to do. Making a native district is very, very difficult. I did. I personally feel the small towns shouldn’t be split.
Brody: You want a motion to adopt?
Torgerson: Are you ready?
MC: If people see something that I have missed, there is a lot of latitude to change. I’m more than willing to have.
Brody: On the maps say McConnochie ….???
Torgerson: Ok, this map and staff can make adjustments so we can pair this with D 5.
Pass 4-1, Holm is absent.
 |
| l-r,: Oliver Leavitt, Randy Ruedrich, Eric Sandberg |
4:15pm Break to 4:30pm
4:40 Back on.
Brody working the computer looking at Anchorage.
Looking at Post Road and Hollywood Drive. (I’ve got the letter from Lt. Gov. Basically it says that when a precinct is both on and off base, the voting place has to be off base because people can’t come on base thru the security to vote.. [Turns out this was passed out Friday - the day I wasn’t here.])
They’re trying to figure what is base and what isn’t.
5:15pm -
Brody: We’re picking up all those who aren’t in ER, not on the Base, and not in Matsu.
D 19 now has 2000 too many people.
Now we’ve taken all the ER people who used to be associated - way down here - and hooked them in with
Look at 71, how it snakes in there. [I think he meant 17]
There must be a road here that has a lot of people on it, huh? [I think he’s going up ER Road.] Now taken those people I was referencing and turned them into ???. Before we wrapped the ??? this way.
Torgerson: Not many people mostly territory.
Brody: These are the ER suburbs that now will be hooked to Anchorage.
Bickford: Actually works pretty well.
Brody: Ok, that brings us to town. 20 and 21.
Torgerson: We should probably start with 26 or 27 on the water and move in. We’re going to have a crash somewhere. Deviations now about 1500 between districts.
Airport area. Yesterday we moved these guys over here - made it downtown.
Torgerson: We’re forcing the population to the east. You’ll have another district there.
[There goes Bootlegger’s Cove. It was with south of Westchester Lagoon and now it’s downtown.]
Brody: I have 1400 people too many.
26 is under. Should we take this for 26?
Torgerson: 23 looks like.
[Taking west of the RR I think from 25 and putting them into 26. Or that could be Minnesota, not sure.
26 is now a backwards L from Westchester Lagoon to south of International. He’s moving stuff out to 27 I think. Now 26 is all east of Minnesota. Taking out chunks near Westchester Lagoon. ]
Brody: 26 and 27 are pretty good. 24 is over and 25 is under.
[He’s going block by block to get the numbers. working. Ruedrich is watching closely. The AFFR and Democratic reps have gone home, but the Bush Caucus rep is still here.]
McConnochie: You’re taking out trailer park. You should keep them all in the same districts. (He’s at Bragaw) Give it back to 20. See where it says 66. Can’t remember the boundaries are.
Miller: Penland Park, Northway Drive, and Airport are the boundaries. Across from Northway Mall.
Brody: 93 over. We could give back both of them.
[There has been no discussion of incumbents as they move district boundaries in the Central Anchorage districts. As he moves things in and out, the districts are morphing. The numbers right now aren’t even close to 17,755 each.
23= 19,332; 25 = 14,851, 26- 17,629, 27= 17, 689; 28 = 18,473, 29=18,022 30=25,845, 31= 17,744.
It would be interesting to see what the numbers were before he started all this. [Just a few mouse clicks makes a big difference - check these photos as he tries to balance 30 and 32.
So now he has most of the districts close, except for 30 which has 6,600 extra. And 32 which is under 5,500. But 31 seems to be in between them. And 30 and 32 are the same color. I don’t know if there is a better way to do this, but this is really trial and error. Or at least it looks that way.
Now 30 is 7,000 over. They moved the map back and 32 is also to the east of 30 and the color is a slightly different green. 32 goes down Turnagain Arm. No, that’s 34 now. There are some strange pockets, but they look like they’re in Chugach State Park so there won’t be people living there. He’s adjusting those.
Hmmm, never thought I’d be doing play-by-play for map making. ]
 |
| Anchorage Districts at 6pm |
6:00pm
Now the numbers are
26= 17829
27= 17,869
28=17715
28=17793
30=17,683
31=17,700
32=18,493
Though they change as I type.
They’re adjourning.
Torgerson: We’ll meet tomorrow at 11. Our voting rights expert will be on the phone from Afghanistan. Then we’ll probably adjourn until probably 2pm. We’ll have a full board.
Adjourn at 6:05
Brody and Ruedrich are looking at the maps and talking.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Philosopher Denys Turner on the Difference Between an Atheist and a Negative Theologian
The commercials on KSKA (I know they call them sponsor messages or some other euphemism, but they are still commercials) announced that a famous philosopher would talk on "The Unknowability of God."
When Denys Turner came to the mic Friday evening in the packed room at UAA's library, he apologized. He'd prepared for a talk to maybe ten philosophers, not to a large crowd with lots of non-philosophers. And so he was going to read his paper which, he warned, would be a bit more dry than people might be expecting from the topic title.
Fortunately, the sound of the words rolling off his Irish tongue were a music all of its own, even if you didn't keep up with the lyrics. Basically, he was arguing that his adopted field - theology - was finally catching up with the rest of the academic disciplines (and some of their own medieval practitioners) in recognizing that some thing were simply unknowable, indeterminate.
This was the opening of the UAA Philosophy Department's 6th Annual Undergraduate Philosophy Conference.
One of the issues that arose was the inadequacy of human language to talk about these topics. I wondered whether it wasn't also the inadequacy of the human brain. After all, dogs probably just don't have the mental capacity to a lot of things humans can do. I'm guessing humans haven't evolved enough to grasp some of these things.
In the video Turner is responding to a question: "How is a negative theologian different from an atheist?"
Fortunately, I didn't say anything snarky about the speaker to my wife during the talk, because it turned out that the woman we squeezed in behind in the packed room was Turner's wife with whom we had an enjoyable chat after the talk.
And one comment about the room. UAA's library addition has rounded corners and leans out toward the world. I've been to a number of talks and meetings in this room (Library 307) and I think its slightly amphitheater shape adds greatly to any talk in the room. For me, round rooms are wonderful spaces. This room isn't round, but it is at least rounded.
When Denys Turner came to the mic Friday evening in the packed room at UAA's library, he apologized. He'd prepared for a talk to maybe ten philosophers, not to a large crowd with lots of non-philosophers. And so he was going to read his paper which, he warned, would be a bit more dry than people might be expecting from the topic title.
Fortunately, the sound of the words rolling off his Irish tongue were a music all of its own, even if you didn't keep up with the lyrics. Basically, he was arguing that his adopted field - theology - was finally catching up with the rest of the academic disciplines (and some of their own medieval practitioners) in recognizing that some thing were simply unknowable, indeterminate.
This was the opening of the UAA Philosophy Department's 6th Annual Undergraduate Philosophy Conference.
One of the issues that arose was the inadequacy of human language to talk about these topics. I wondered whether it wasn't also the inadequacy of the human brain. After all, dogs probably just don't have the mental capacity to a lot of things humans can do. I'm guessing humans haven't evolved enough to grasp some of these things.
In the video Turner is responding to a question: "How is a negative theologian different from an atheist?"
Fortunately, I didn't say anything snarky about the speaker to my wife during the talk, because it turned out that the woman we squeezed in behind in the packed room was Turner's wife with whom we had an enjoyable chat after the talk.
And one comment about the room. UAA's library addition has rounded corners and leans out toward the world. I've been to a number of talks and meetings in this room (Library 307) and I think its slightly amphitheater shape adds greatly to any talk in the room. For me, round rooms are wonderful spaces. This room isn't round, but it is at least rounded.
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