UPDATE: 9.11: Commission to unveil new district voting maps - SEE MAPS BELOW

Surprise! Surprise!

With slow and no response to public records requests and with minimal public notice, Sarasota County will unveil its proposed new District-level maps next week. All this stems from the Board's decision in April to explore reconsideration of the boundaries of the five county districts, in light of the new Single Member Voting.

Please attend the County Commission meeting Wednesday morning 9 AM:

County Administration Building

County Commission Chambers, 1^st Floor

1660 Ringling Blvd, Sarasota

Why this matters: Cathy Antunes

Show your opposition to this “plan”. An Open to the Public session will 

precede the Redistricting discussion. See you on Wednesday!

 <<<<BREAKING NEWS: Here are the maps Spitzer will present Wednesday:>>>>

Note: Above maps courtesy of Rachel Hackney of the Sarasota News Leader

Wednesday 9.11: 9 a.m. at the County Commission 1660 Ringling Blvd:
Open to the Public

Kurt Spitzer

Kurt Spitzer, redistricting consultant hired by Sarasota County with a no-bid
contract, will review the “alternative” District maps created with private 

input from individual County Commissioners.
How’s that FL Sunshine Law workin’ for ya? 

Board of County Commissioners Agenda: Page 1
1. OPEN TO THE PUBLIC – (Three-minute time limit per person.)

How open is it?  From The Sarasota News Leader:

Additionally, county Media Relations Officer Drew Winchester
confirmed with staff that, as of late afternoon on Sept. 4, three of the
commissioners — Charles Hines, Nancy Detert and Christian Ziegler —
have scheduled one-on-one telephone conversations with the consultant
who is handling the redistricting initiative for the county,
Kurt Spitzer of Tallahassee. The Sarasota News Leader

Will this telephone conversations be recorded? Will it be known how long
they lasted, what was discussed?

While the consultant and commissioners huddle over the phone preparing their own maps, the information needed by and promised to the public is being withheld.

Is it ignorance or incompetence?

It isn't ignorance. The commissioners were told during the final open to the public comments on August 27 that the deliverables from Spitzer and Associates (block-level GIS data) were not publicly available.

It might be incompetence. 

County staff says, "The [block level] data was in an Aug. 2 memorandum from Spitzer to the County Commission." 

The memo, however, does not contain the county-wide block needed by the public to produce their own redistricting maps. Instead, it provides info for "key growth blocks by district."  

Despite repeated public records requests from several citizens, as of September 5, the County and Spitzer had provided block-level population data for only:

1. 6% of the population (23,153 out of an estimated 417,000 Sarasota County residents)
2. 1% of the blocks (92 out of about about 7,500 Sarasota County census blocks) 

Finally on Sept. 6, a public records request for block data from The Sarasota News Leader was responded to. According to the county,  the entire block data spreadsheet is now here.

By the deadline [contract deadline July 31] , just one of the deliverables below -- Part (c) -- was delivered -- two days late, on August 2.

Part (b) was provided to the public late on September 6

Spitzer & Associates has not fulfilled their Task 1 contractual obligations, and the county has been laggard in providing the data necessary for the public to prepare alternate maps. (see below)

If it's not incompetence, they know exactly what they're doing -- withholding information to prevent an informed public response to the maps being presented on September 11.

Image of districts formerly used on BCC web page

===

By the deadline, just one of the deliverables below -- (c) -- was provided:

Copies of Task 1 Deliverables from SC PO #193092.. Vendor: KURT SPITZER AND ASSOCIATES INC...Including:  

(a.) GIS - The 2010 and 2018 population estimates in file geodatabase or shapefile format at the 2010 Census Block level of geography. 

(b.) Spreadsheet - Block-level results will be summarized by commission district and exported to Excel format. 

(c.) Report – A narrative report describing the methodology used to update the 2010 Census data. THIS WAS PROVIDED 

(d.) Map - A “heat map” in PDF format showing 2010-2018 growth by block. It will be shaded semi-transparent with imagery as a base. Commission district boundaries will be shown. A table summarizing the population estimates by BCC District will be included on the map showing the following 2018 information:  

 BCC District number Average (mean) population  Actual population Deviation from the mean Percent deviation White population and Percent white population Black population and Percent black population Hispanic population and Percent Hispanic population Other population and Percent other population.

Detert: Redistrict before 2020 Census

Sarasota  CountyVoting Districts

Courtesy of the Sarasota News Leader

Detert proposes redrawing of County Commission districts before 2020 Census results available

February 28, 2019 by Rachel Brown Hackney, Editor & Publisher

She cites population disparity in context of passage of Single-Member District Charter amendment, which will affect 2020 elections of commissioners

Commissioner Nancy Detert. Rachel Hackney photo

The last time the Sarasota County Commission adjusted the boundaries of the five districts of its members was in June 2011, in response to the findings of the 2010 U.S. Census.

This week, Commissioner Nancy Detert suggested that the board not wait until the data come in from the 2020 Census to modify the districts again. Her reason? The Single-Member District Charter amendment that won approval of voters on Nov. 6, 2018.

Beginning with the 2020 County Commission elections — which will occur before the next Census figures are final — a voter will be able to cast ballots only for County Commission candidates who live in the same district within which the voter resides. The process will be the same for primaries as for the general election.

Previously, in a General Election, any voter could cast a ballot for a commission candidate in each district race, regardless of where the voter or the candidate lived.

Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections (SAFE) conducted a citizen-initiated petition drive to gain enough voter signatures to place the proposed Charter amendment on the Nov. 6, 2018 General Election Ballot. The Single-Member District measure won approval of 59.84% of the voters who marked the question on their ballots, Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Office records show.

Detert, Commissioner Michael Moran and Chair Charles Hines all were elected in November 2016 to four-year terms. Hines must step down in 2020 because of term limits. However, Detert and Moran will be eligible to run again. Detert, who lives in Venice, represents District 3; Moran, who lives in Sarasota, represents District 1.

These are the results of the Nov. 6, 2018 vote on the Single-Member Districts Charter amendment. Image courtesy Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Office

On Feb. 26, Detert told her colleagues, “We should probably look at redistricting our own districts, just because of the balance in population. There’s a pretty noticeable disparity.”

Even though redistricting will occur in the state after the next Census has been completed, she continued, “I don’t think that we legally need to wait … It’s just something that I feel we need to do, just so that we all serve as close to an equal [number] of people as we can.”

Hines then asked County Attorney Stephen DeMarsh about the authority the Sarasota County Charter gives the board in regard to redistricting.

“The commission can redistrict whenever it wants,” DeMarsh replied, though it must do so in response to U.S. Census results.

Hines then asked that staff look into how long the process would take, as well as the expense and “the best time to do it.”

In response to a Sarasota News Leader question, county Media Relations Officer Drew Winchester wrote in a Feb. 28 email that the last time the County Commission approved redistricting was on June 8, 2011. The board conducted the second of two required public hearings that day.

These are the County Commission districts with population figures current as of April 2011. Image courtesy Sarasota County

This is the graphic the County Commission considered in June 2011 for the revision of its district boundaries before it redrew them. Image courtesy Sarasota County

Winchester provided a map of the population of each of the five districts in April 2011.

He was not able to give the News Leader current population data for the districts prior to the News Leader’s publication deadline this week.

However, on Feb. 5, in response to a News Leader question, Rachel Denton, communications and voter outreach manage for the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Office, provided the following figures for the number of voters in each commission district:

• County Commission District 1: 57,353.
• County Commission District 2: 61,755.
• County Commission District 3: 66,030.
• County Commission District 4: 64,238.
• County Commission District 5: 73,769.

A graphic shows the five County Commission districts in effect since June 2011. Image courtesy Sarasota County Government

In framing her question on Feb. 26, Detert joked, “Just in case the staff had some free time …”

She brought up the topic of redistricting after a nearly two-hour workshop on overcrowding at the county jail. (See the related story in this issue.)