Thomas MacMillan Photo
Priti Mathur explains.
In 10 years, New Haven’s population has shifted to the east. Political boundaries in Fair Haven, the Heights, and the Annex will have to shrink accordingly.
An aldermanic committee absorbed that lesson as it kicked off its every-10-years redistricting process with a briefing Thursday night at the Columbus Family Academy on Blatchley Avenue in Fair Haven.
Redistricting is required once a decade, following the release of decennial census data and the completion of redistricting at the state level.
The process ensures that the city’s 30 wards — each of which is represented by an alderman — are roughly the same size. Wards are drawn around equal groups of city residents, with consideration given to race, census block boundaries, geographic features, and state congressional districts.
To accomplish the task, a special 11-member aldermanic redistricting committee has been appointed this year by the board’s leadership. The group — chaired by Hill Alderwoman Dolores Colon — met for the first time Thursday evening in the cafeteria at the Columbus school.
They heard from Priti and Sam Mathur (pictured), two Virginia-based consultants who won a bidding process for the opportunity to help the city redraw it’s ward lines. The city is paying them $25,000 for their work.
Priti walked the committee through the basics of the redistricting process. The Voting Rights Act mandates that wards be contiguous, compact, and equal, she said. That is, no multi-part wards, no gerrymanders, and no wild population differences.
The new wards should also ensure that “minority populations” are fairly represented, Priti said. That means no “stacking” or “cracking” — you can’t pile all the minorities in one ward or split up minority communities so they become just smaller pieces of other wards, she later explained.
With 30 wards and a population of 129,779 according to the 2010 census, New Haven should ideally have 4,326 people in each ward, Priti said. (That’s assuming aldermen don’t decide to increase or decrease the number of wards in the city, which they could do with a revision of the city charter.)
By law, the wards cannot have a maximum deviation — the difference between the most and least populated wards — greater than 10 percent. The maximum deviation is currently 61.49 percent, Priti said.
ARCBridge Map
Red’s too full. Green’s too empty.
She showed a city map color-coded to indicate which wards have too many people and which have too few. Wards in Fair Haven, Wooster Square, part of East Rock, Quinnipiac Meadows, Fair Haven Heights, and the Annex are overpopulated, along with parts of downtown, West Rock, and Amity. The rest of the city’s wards are underpopulated.
Priti displayed other maps showing a ward-by-ward racial breakdown of the city. One showed which of three ethnicities — white, black or Hispanic — holds a majority in each ward, though not necessarily 50 percent of the population. Other maps broke it down further, block-by-block. Click here to see those maps, along with all the ward numbers.
Finally, Priti presented an option for new ward boundaries. She showed a map with a maximum deviation of only 1.57 percent. It requires closing in the boundaries of some of the overpopulated eastern wards.
Using a laptop hooked up to a projector, Priti demonstrated with ward 14, which has a whopping 1,024 more residents than it ought to. It’s a difficult situation, since all the wards around 14 are similarly maxed out. But by moving around ward boundaries with her cursor, Priti showed how the task could be accomplished ward by ward.
“I’m willing to work with each board member,” Priti said. “We can work like this and see what you like.”
Board President Alderman Jorge Perez (pictured) said aldermen will look next at whether their wards need to expand or contract and start working with neighboring aldermen to see how that might best be accomplished.
The redistricting committee will meet again on March 20. It must complete the work by May.
I will be at the next one!