May 25, 2021
By: Dwayne Page
The DeKalb County Redistricting Committee will consist of eleven members including seven county commissioners, two school board members, the county mayor, and the administrator of elections.
During Monday night’s regular monthly meeting, the county commission took the first step toward redistricting by adopting a resolution establishing the redistricting committee. The committee will begin the process of preparing a redistricting plan when the population numbers from the 2020 Census count are released later this summer or fall. The plan must be completed and in the hands of the county commission by no later than October 25.
In addition to County Mayor Tim Stribling and Administrator of Elections Dennis Stanley, members of the Redistricting committee are County Commissioners Shaee Flatt from the 1st district, Myron Rhody- 2nd district, Susannah Cripps Daughtry- 3rd district, Janice Fish-Stewart- 4th district, Anita Puckett – 5th district, Matt Adcock – 6th district, and Bruce Malone from the 7th district. The two school board members appointed were Jim Beshearse of the 3rd district and Shaun Tubbs of the 7th district.
By law the county commission district boundary lines must be redrawn every 10 years following completion of the United States census. The federal government stipulates that districts must have nearly equal populations and must not discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity.
The U.S. Census Bureau announced in February that it would deliver the detailed datasets needed for redistricting by September 30, 2021 although the numbers could be released as early as August 16.
Once the census numbers are known, the redistricting committee must produce a recommendation to submit to the county commission, which has the final say on redistricting. The approved plan then goes to the election commission to redraw precinct boundary lines so that voters and candidates for the 2022 elections know in which districts and precincts they reside.
Commissioner Bruce Malone made a motion that the redistricting committee be made up of the seven members of the county commission, who are not serving on the budget committee, along with the county mayor, administrator of elections and two school board members. Commissioner Myron Rhody offered a second to the motion. Commissioner Anita Puckett suggested that those two school board appointees be the 3rd and 7th district members since their districts may be impacted most by redistricting. Malone included Puckett’s suggestion in his motion.
Fifth district Commissioner Jerry Adcock then moved to amend Malone’s motion saying all fourteen county commissioners should be included on the redistricting committee, the same as 10 years ago. Commissioner Julie Young offered a second to Adcock’s motion to amend but it failed by a vote of 10 to 3. Even Young voted against it. Adcock was joined in the vote by only Commissioners Flatt and Pafford.
After Adcock’s amendment failed, the commissioners approved Malone’s motion on the make-up of the redistricting committee by a vote of 12-1 with Jerry Adcock voting against it. Commissioner Sabrina Farler was absent.
Once the census numbers are released, the redistricting committee will have to get to work quickly.
Matthew Hill explained the redistricting process for members of the county commission last Thursday night during a committee meeting of the whole.
Hill, who will be assisting the DeKalb County Redistricting committee, is the senior GIS Specialist for the TN Comptroller’s office and has presided over the Redistricting process for other Local Government officials the last 10 years.
Hill said it is estimated that DeKalb County has grown in population over the last 10 year and is now at more than 20,000 residents with the third and seventh districts having grown the most.
“Right now we think the county commissioners will represent about 2,860 per district. That is up from the 2,675 residents that you represent now. It also looks like the growth and declines in your county have actually been evenly distributed. With the estimates it looks like District 6 may have to gain some folks while Districts 3 and 7 may have to lose some population. All that means is that Districts 3 and 7 have grown at a faster pace than the other districts while District 6 has lagged a little bit behind the other districts in population,” said Hill.
“ We can start redistricting as soon as we begin processing all the data but even then you have only a very slim timeline to redistrict in DeKalb County. For counties like yours who have a primary in 2022, we recommend that you get your district lines set as quickly as possible and get the plan over to the election commission in preparation for that primary,” Hill said. “The worst thing that could happen is for people to come in to pick up a petition and the district lines are not set which would cause confusion.”
“I will come down here with my laptop and project on a screen all the census blocks and form those districts. Our office has GIS technology which allows us to redistrict with precision. We can zoom down and adjust these census blocks to generate statistics in real time to allow you to see it before we commit to it. Census blocks are what the Census Bureau gives to us. It is the smallest statistical geography that we get from the Census. The way I typically describe a census block is it is dotted by roads or by features you can see such as a power line, a creek but it can be non-visible features like county line boundaries, city limits, or school boundaries.”
“The Census Bureau provides us the total population with the makeup of all the demographics including white, black, Hispanic, and others and our GIS software will calculate as we select census blocks how many people we are moving from district to district and what it does to the overall deviation. Census blocks are really the building blocks of the plan. We are grouping census blocks to create districts and voting precincts”, he added.
DeKalb County Election Administrator Dennis Stanley, who also addressed the county commission during Thursday night’s committee meeting, said a redistricting plan must be in place before the election commission begins issuing candidate petitions in mid-December for the 2022 local primaries.
“Whatever the impact of redistricting, it will take my office quite a while to make those changes in the voter data system”, said Stanley.