Alaska Redistricting Board's Draft Options C and G and the Four Third Party Maps

One of the effectst of not having an executive director is that the Board can't get the website to do what little even the Board wants it to do:  post the maps of the options.  They are all sitting in huge files at a GoogleDrive page.  You have to download all of files for each map - including all the GIS files needed to put them on the mapping software the Board is using.  All this kind of stuff was getting up on the Board's website quickly and easy to use formats when they had an executive director last year.  And let's hope that by 2020, there will be software that's free and available for anyone who wants to try doing their own maps.

So, here's what I'm doing here.  I've already put up the Board's Options A, B, D,  and E and F.  in earlier posts.

So in this post I'm going to put up

• Board Draft Option C and
• Board Draft Option G here and

the third-party options from

• AFFER (Republicans), 
• Gazewood-Weiner (attorneys for the Riley Plaintiffs in Fairbanks and the Democrats have had involvement with this map), 
• Calista (Native Corporation who used the same GIS guy as the AFFER group), and
• Ketchikan Borough (who just did a Southeast Alaska map).

I've put these files on SCRIBD which should make them easier to see than the earlier ones.  (Plus they were PDF files and much bigger than the previous ones.) (There's no enlargement option when I tried this on the blog, but you can click on the linked heading of each map and go to the map on SCRIBD where you can enlarge it.)

Board Draft Plan C Map by Steve

Board Draft Plan G Map by Steve

AFFER Map (Alaskans For Fair and Equitable Representation)

Gazewood and Weiner Map by Steve

Calista Map by Steve

Ketchikan Gateway Borough by Steve

Board Meets - Accepts 7 Board Options, Four Private Options in 30 Minute Meeting

I'm going to post this quickly. These are raw notes. I'll proof them later and also add some photos of the new maps in another post. 

Roll call - all here - PeggyAnn McConnochie by phone.

White:  Court adopted our schedule as the Court ordered scheduled.  Issues was never that, whole public hearing thing, couldn't believe ordered to do so.  After court finished with process, whole litigation process starts anew.  Based upon historical proceedings on remand and article VI of Constitution, Board doesn't believe right interp.  Should be remand as in the past.  After we adopt one of these or if Section 5 thrown out, people would be able to challenge, but wouldn't start over , with petitions, .  . . so we're seeking final approval from SC to lodge this appeal.

PeggyAnn McConnochie:  moves to

Brodie:  I understand limited application to court to determine how they interpret the Constitution on this.
White:  What process is required - Court thinks we're starting anew.  Our interpret.  people can challenge, filed a few days after adopted.  Eight or nine people replied.  Same as 2001.  Not go back and do whole new trial.
Torgerson:  Questions

Motion approved 5-0.

Item 5:  Approval of draft plans.  There are seven board draft plans.  Walk through with a little explanation.
A:  Valdez to Matsu, similar to some other plans
B:  Utilizes Valdez population, Richardson Highway, Girdwood, South Anchorage
C:  Bob's -
Brodie:  Major difference is Western Alaska, instead of getting 5 districts and combine with urban.  4 districts.  Kept all boroughs whole, split minimally those that had excess population in house districts.
D:  Torgerson:  Takes North Slope Borough down to Canadian border.  Different approach
E:  From one of our GIS techs, (Ray) takes PWS and Yakutat to Chugiak.  Larger Bethel district.
F:  Another person on loan drew:  North Slope divided, NWAB and takes more Yukon River and creates district on Canadian Border to Aniak, relatively large district.  Takes pop from Chugach to Valdez.
G:  Same as A in Rural.  Major difference is Matsu and Anchorage same as Proclamation

So seven options, I'd recommend the Board take them all to hearings.

Brodie:  I move to adopt them for public hearings.
Green:  I second
McConnochie:  Wonderful idea.
Torgerson:  Discussion?
Green:  I appreciate what we've received so far.  That we have that type of data.  Looking forward to hearings, especially looking forward to hearing from rural Alaskans.
Torgerson:  There are some strikingly similar districts and some totally different.
Roll call vote:  5-0 yes.  Adopt plans A-G

Torgerson:  Now to Private plans - all are posted except Calista. [White drew a map on the board.]
Gazewood and Wiener (Wallerie works for this firm)
AFFER
Partial from Ketichikan Borough - Ketchikan-Craig

Three complete statewide plans and one regional plan.

Brodie:  I move we accept the three complete and one regional plan and take them to public hearings for discussions.
McConnochie seconded.

[Calista gave White a small version.]  Torgerson:  It's being printed off.
I'm not aware of any other plan.  Marie you said SE has a plan?
Green:  That's what I was told.  I haven't heard anything since.
Torgerson:  If you want to add the SEAlaska plan - the deadline was noon - but . . .
Green:  ???
Torgerson:  Motion to adopt the three plan and Ketchikan Regional plan [not SE].
5-1 approval

Torgerson:  We had a little issue with the website yesterday.  I apologize.  I told people we'd have it up by Wednesday but didnt' get up til yesterday.  In the process of hiring a website firm.  None of us know how to do this.  There is a link to Google drive.  As soon as Eric can, we'll have the third party plans up.
Brodie:  Just want to think everyone who participated int he last two weeks, when the air conditioning was off and we had subtropical heat.  It was hard, thank everyone who pitched in.
Holm:  Thanks for the hard work.  Eric especially worked hard.
First day in 15 without fans running.  Silence is deafening.
Next meeting June 28 at Anchorage LIO, then July 1 in Fairbanks, July 2 in Juneau.

We'll be working 5,6,7 - we'll have a majority but not all members and will work if we need.
White:  Board needs to make steps to do steps 2 and 3 of the Hickel process - Court ordered.  I hated coming over here last week.  Everyone working hard.

Torgerson:  No other discussion we'll adjourn this meeting

Hangin' In There

Headed to the Redistricting Board meeting.  This guy we saw last night on the way to the Thai Kitchen seemed like a good metaphor.

What's Fair Game When Public Officials Get Careless?

OK, that's a loaded question.  Careless isn't even quite the right word. Here's the context.  The Redistricting Board has had working meetings.  There are Board members in and out almost all day each day as the techs work on maps.  Sometimes the Board members are working on maps in their offices in the back, sometimes they're out in the meeting room.  It's an open meeting, though it's a work session.  It's not really formal.  People are trying out ideas.  They're talking casually.  Even joking.  Except I'm there.  So, careless only in the context of being 'on' long enough that they might forget there's a blogger in the room.

Talking is intermittent.   So I'm not sitting their typing everything they're saying the way I often do at meetings.  And sound recording is iffy because of the ventilation noise due to the unusual heat outside and the broken air conditioning in the building. Mostly they aren't saying anything. There's not much happening to video tape.  People working on their computers with little changes happening on the screens that wouldn't mean much to someone watching.    

So, when the chair stopped to talk to Ray about the map he was working on, I got out my pocket cam and turned on the video to see what I could get.

What rules should I use to decide what to post in this situation?  Here are some of my thoughts on this.

1.  It's a public meeting.  Everything is fair game.  They know I'm a blogger and that I'm listening.  They need to be professional about how they handle themselves and in what they say. 

2.  It's good for people doing serious work to joke at times.  But joking often reveals what they are thinking.  Joking is a way, in some settings, to say what you're really thinking, but then be able to back off and say, "Just kidding" if it doesn't go down well.

• Some jokes are neutral - joking about the weather and heat in the room.  
• Some jokes are self-effacing - talking about one's own faults.  This works ok if you you're generally pretty good at what you do.  It shows modesty, though it could come across as false modesty.  It might not work so well if you joke about a fault that is driving everyone crazy.  
• Some jokes are directed at others - your perceived opponents (in court or the media for example) or people over whom you have power.  Or the public. These are not jokes you should make publicly.  These are for relieving stress with your inner circle.  Such as something like, "Not even Wallerie would sue over this." [Wallerie is the attorney for the Riley plaintiffs in Fairbanks.]  OK, this seems innocuous enough and Wallerie would probably laugh if he heard it.  And I'm guessing if Wallerie were in the room, they still might have said it.  It's natural given the growing sense of them versus us when you're being challenged in court.  Yet there's a difference between being personally sued and when you're being sued as a public official doing your job.  You should be more like athletes - competitive in the game, but able to go out together for a drink afterward.  But the Board does seem to be a tad touchy about the Plaintiffs and members of the Supreme Court.   It's understandable, but the Board should recognize that people have differences of opinion and  that's part of the process.  If they take it personally and get bristly with some people they become less effective in the quest to find a fair and equitable plan for all Alaskans.  

3.  What if people are saying things that help reveal the process?  What's going on?  That's really what I'm here to learn about and to share with the world.  After all, the point of making this all as transparent as possible is to make sure the Board does its job as competently and as fairly as possible.

4.  What if they don't know I'm recording what's going on?  Again, it's a public meeting and they know there's a blogger in the room.  They're public officials.  They're grown ups.  No, they can't let their guards down too far.

5.  What if it prevents them from talking frankly about their doubts and questions?  I'm not doing "Gotcha" journalism.   I'm not trying to get headlines by trapping people into saying something stupid or by writing things out of context to make them look bad.  But anything going on at a public meeting is on the record.  Even these work sessions that aren't (to my knowledge) being recorded or transcribed.  In fact, that's even more reason for me to be vigilant and to record what's happening.  Last year, I thought long and hard before posting a video of the Board's attorney talking pretty candidly about what he thought about an Alaska Supreme Court's decision.  It was during a break.  But I had my camera out and he was looking at me.  And I'd recorded him like that a number of times before.  Even so, I sought guidance from journalism ethics sites and  people with actual journalism degrees before I posted it.  The clincher for me was that he said pretty similar things in an written appeal to the Supreme Court.   I'm glad I did all that, because he wasn't pleased when he saw me next and complained that he didn't know I was recording.  And he wouldn't talk to me again if I was recording.

All this is preface to a video that's pretty bad technical quality - both video and audio.   I took it because it was the first time I actually heard the Chair talking more than a sentence here or there during the work sessions and he was close enough to me there was a chance the audio would get past the noise of the cooling equipment.  It was more to just give readers a sense of how this process works, how decisions are made, the kind of conversations that go on.

Ray, one of the new techs on loan from the Department of Natural Resources, was working on Anchorage and the chair came over to see what he was doing.  It seemed like a good thing to record.  To let readers get a sense of how this works.  As it went along - it's pretty brief  - it touched on a topic I've been trying to understand.  Exactly how much are they starting from scratch and how much is borrowed from old maps?  Both Torgerson and Eric had already told me they started with blank maps.  Torgerson even showed me on the computer how to create a new blank map.  But how, I keep asking myself, did these maps often seem to look so similar to old ones and how did they get such similar numbers for the districts?  This seems to add to my questions here.

The audio's not great, so I've written up a transcript that, I think, catches the meaning if not all the exact words.

Torgerson:  So these deviations came from?
Ray:  Already in the plan????
Torgerson:  See how tight those are?  That one is zero
So there are already constitutional in their nature?  So you’r saying you didn’t change these from one plan to the next.  The court said we might have painted ourselves into a corner because we didn’t do something different from what we did.   But in reality, there’s not a hell of a lot we can we can do with a lot of those districts.  Particularly the ones that are kind of isolated.  The ones like you’re working on, the south Anchorage and maybe the north Anchorage,  east and west, yeah, those are in play. The ones like 28 are pretty hard to do anything with that.  But if you change one, you might change all, you might have to because of deviation.

The Other Two Draft Options Since They Aren't On The Redistricting Website Yet [UPDATED WITH LINK TO MAPS]

[UPDATE 4:30pm :  Just an email from the Board:

Due to unforeseen issues with the Redistricting Boards WEB page, we are providing access to the Board unadopted draft plans through Google Drive.

Please click of the following link:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B23vqYskBnILUjd6V092U2V0clk&usp=sharing

You can get the maps here in all sorts of formats. ]

 [UPDATE 7:00pm:  What the email didn't say is that easier links to the maps, stats, and GIS files are available on the main page here. (June 20 entry if you read this later.)]

Yesterday, a board member asked why I was taking pictures of the plans they had on the wall at the work session, since they were putting them up on their website that afternoon.

"Well, I'll have them up right away and I can direct people to find them on your website, since people won't know that's what your doing.   Nothing's been posted on the Draft Plans page for a long time, so why would they know to look there?  It would help to have an announcement on the home page directing them there."  I was also thinking, "Let's see if your webguy really gets them up today."

Well, I'm pleased to say that announcement is on the home page, but unfortunately, as I write this, almost 24 hours later, none of the draft options are up yet on the website. 

When Taylor Bickford was still working for the Board, he was in charge of the website.  Not much has been done with it since he left.  Though one of the best parts of it have disappeared - mainly the the long list of court documents that made it easy to see all that had been filed by the Board and the various challengers and the Court decisions.

The lack of updates and the missing court documents were noted in Judge McConahy's last order, because the Fairbanks North Star Borough had mentioned them in their amicus brief.  From McConahy's order:

"FNSB contends that the Board is not providing public notice of its meeting in a consistent fashion and is no longer using its website to post court pleadings and has not updated its Facebook page and Twitter accounts since 27 August 2012"

As good as websites and Facebook pages might be, you need to keep them up-to-date and that takes time as this blogger can tell you.

Recently the Board, perhaps in response to the judge's mentioning it, has hired (or contracted or just made an agreement, I'm not sure which) to have Michael Soukup in the Governor's office update the website.

So, until the higher resolutions copies are online, here are the next two - Option E done by tech Ray and Option F done by tech Erin.  (Of course if someone with a little aesthetic sense had thought this through, Erin's would have been Option E.)

Options A, B, and D were posted yesterday here.  I figured I'd get that much up and alert people to check for the others.  But since they still aren't up, I'll post them so you can see them.  [The Draft Plans Drop Down menu is no longer working, which I'll take as a sign that Michael is working on it.]  And close ups of Southeast on all five options were posted here.  Option C had been pulled for more work and they weren't sure if it would be used or not.  


Board Draft Option E

Board Draft Option E

Board Draft Option E - Anchorage

Board Draft Option E - Fairbanks

Board Draft Option E - Kenai

Board Draft Option E - Matsu/ER

Board Draft Option F

Board Draft Option F (Erin)

Board Draft Option F - Anchorage

Board Draft Option F - Fairbanks

Board Draft Option F - Kenai

Board Draft Option F - Matsu/ER

And, as I said above, close ups of Southeast on all five options were posted here.

Russell Brand Brilliantly Exposes The Emptiness of American TV News/Talk Hosts/Anchors

Gryphen had this video posted over at Immoral Minority. 

It's amazing video.  Russell Brand is a comedian I'd never heard of.  He's on Morning Joe, an MSNBC Talk Show promoting his tour Messiah Complex.  They treat him like a bimbo.  Turns out he's sharper and more aware than all three of them and turns the whole process upside down.  He chastises them  for objectifying him and for talking about him in the third person as though he weren't there.  He literally exposes the shallowness of what they're doing.  This is especially clear when he talks about the theme of his tour:

RB:  I'm talking about Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Gandhi, and Jesus Christ and how these figures are significant culturally and how their icons are appropriated to designate consciousness and meaning, particularly posthumously.  
Q:  And what brings all those people together?
RB:  They're all people that died for a cause, they're all people whose icons are used to designate meaning, perhaps not in the manner in which they intended.
Q:  That sounds dead serious.
RB:  [Hard to hear but sounds like "It's a lot funnier when I do it as comedy on stage."
Q:  Can't we get like 30 seconds now?
RB:  Not really love, this is my work. (hard to hear exactly because the third host is saying, and pointing, "Gandhi, go."

This is the point where we get a direct hint at the depth of Brand's thinking.  The hosts are simply not up to his level of adult seriousness.  But while they slip back into silliness, he calls them on it.  And he does it so politely, and with a big smile.  And as they fall apart, he takes over as an anchor and starts doing their job for them. 

I was watching him thinking how vapid these hosts were and this whole nonsense he has to go through to promote his show in the US, thinking about which way to take this, then deciding to say directly what he's thinking about what they're doing to him (and us the audience.)  Did they do any preparation for this interview?  They have no idea of who this man is. He turns this into a brilliant expose/satire.

This is what people should be doing all the time - articulately, politely, and with humor pulling of the facade of all the bullshit we deal with daily.  But not many people have the wit and stage presence to pull it off.    

It made me think of The Newsroom.  I only saw the first episode online of this satire series on television news.  But here is Russell Brand doing it on a real television newsy/talk show.  

Comparing The Five Southeast Alaska Configurations From The Board

Since I didn't do close ups of Southeast Alaska in the previous post, here they are - plus the two extra maps I didn't get up in the last post.  Again, all five maps - A, B, D, E, and F (yes, no C, for now at least - they are still working on it and it may return) - are scheduled to be up in much better resolution on the Redistricting Board Website in the Draft Plans tab.

Board Draft Option A - Southeast

Board Draft Option B - Southeast

Board Draft Option D - Southeast

Board Draft Option E - Southeast

Board Draft Option F - Southeast

Reminder, Option C was removed, but may return.  They're still working on it. 

Alaska Redistricting Board Has 4 Draft Plans

[UPDATE 4pm - I've added Kenai and Matsu/ER maps for Option A. You can look at closer views of Southeast - in all five options - here.]


The temperature in Anchorage is down a bit today and I decided it was time to visit the Board's work session again.  Board member PeggyAnn McConnochie gave me a weather report (yesterday the main room was 88˚F and one office was over 100˚F) and then a tour of the draft plans on the wall.

There are four draft plans - I took pictures of Plans A, B, C, and D.  But as I'm writing this, plan C has been replaced by Plan E. [UPDATE:  I double checked, C was taken down for more work and may or may not come back]

NOTE:  ALL THESE PLANS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE BOARD'S WEBSITE SOMETIME THIS AFTERNOON.  THEY SHOULD BE POSTED HERE IN THE DRAFT PLAN TAB.  THESE WILL BE MUCH BETTER RESOLUTION THAN MINE.

These are labeled DRAFT in big letters.  It's what the Board and staff have come up with so far.  From what I can tell, they didn't completely reinvent the wheel and used what they learned the first time around to help them make districts.

I saved these all in a little higher resolution than normal so you can enlarge them, though the light is bad and they aren't great.  You should be able to get much better files on the Board's website soon.

BOARD DRAFT OPTION A - NOT ADOPTED

BOARD DRAFT OPTION A ANCHORAGE

BOARD DRAFT OPTION A - FAIRBANKS

BOARD DRAFT OPTION A - KENAI

BOARD DRAFT OPTION A - MATSU/ER

BOARD DRAFT OPTION B - NOT ADOPTED

BOARD DRAFT OPTION B - ANOCHORAGE

BOARD DRAFT OPTION B -FAIRBANKS

BOARD DRAFT OPTION B - KENAI

BOARD DRAFT OPTION B - MATSU/ER

BOARD DRAFT OPTION D - NOT ADOPTED  [C WAS REMOVED AND REPLACED BY E (RAY'S) AND THEN LATER CAME F [ERIN'S]

BOARD DRAFT OPTION D - ANCHORAGE

BOARD DRAFT OPTION D - FAIRBANKS

BOARD DRAFT OPTION D - MATSU/ER

BOARD DRAFT OPTION D - KENAI

While I was uploading and downloading my photos, they added two more Draft Options - E (Ray's) and F (Erin's).  Ray and Erin are GIS tech's lent to the Board by the Department of Natural Resources.  [Probably good I waited - they've just replaced Option F twice now.]

I also seem to have left out Matsu and Kenai in Option A.  I'll try to add them in.

And, since Southeast didn't have its own little box, I didn't do a closeup of them.  I'll try to repair that oversight too.

And everyone hear assures me that the new person they contracted to keep the website up-to-date will get these all up any time now, so you'll get much better images there. 

And for those who are curious, yes, there's a reason Kenai is larger - it's vertical and I can use Blogger's standard extra-large setting without it running into the sides.  I can play with it in HTML, but I'm trying to get these up quickly.



[UPDATE:  You can look at closer views of Southeast - in all five options - here.]

Court Again Rules For Plaintiff Against Alaska Redistricting Board

This is a June 11, 2013 order that I should have put up earlier. It's not too long. Basically it tells the Board

• to follow the timeline it adopted after the previous court order
• to get moving on the Voting Rights Act parts of the plan as soon as they complete the Hickel Plan and it says 
• any Alaskan voter who has a problem with the plan is eligible to challenge it in court within 30 days of promulgation.

You can see the schedule the Board adopted in a post I put up a little while ago.

It also gives more context to my take on the Board's June 7 meeting (before this ruling) where I thought they basically said that they were planning to set a faster schedule and hold  public hearings because they wanted to, not because the Court was telling them to.

Petersburg, Calista Corporation, and the Fairbanks North Star Borough filed amici briefs supporting Riley.  Fairbanks also noted that the Board was not consistently posting meeting notices on its website and had taken down the long and very helpful links to court filings it had earlier.

Below is the ruling.  It's only five pages and relatively straightforward for anyone not used to reading court orders. 

[UPDATE 10:10am - I just got an agenda for the June 21 meeting which includes:

"Discussion of limited appeal to Alaska Supreme Court of Superior Court ruling."

2013-06-11 Order Re Riley Motion for Reconsideration (Alaska Redistricting)

Small Earthquake in Anchorage - 4.4 [Later: 4.0]

Enough of a movement in the house to notice and think about moving, but it ended before I got up.  USGS doesn't have it listed yet - it was about 13 minutes ago (11:20pm).  This follows the warmest day I can remember in Anchorage - it was 88˚F in our backyard this afternoon, but the breeze coming in through the windows is much cooler now.  (I remember temperatures in the 80s, and maybe I'm just suppressing memories of it this warm.*)

The report is up now at USGS  - they're calling it a 4.4 and in the greater Wasilla  area.

*UPDATE June 19, 2013 10:10am - The Anchorage Daily News says the 81˚F recorded at the airport was a record for June 18 and the all time high was 87˚F in 1953, well before we got here.  So my memory isn't that bad.  (The airport is generally cooler - in summer - than other part of Anchorage.)