Ward remap: Will it or won't it be completed today?

According to the rules for ward redistricting, City Council is to have passed the new ward boundary map by Dec. 1.  At the Monday evening, Nov.  28, redistricting meeting organized by 1st Ward Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno, it was stated that it was possible that legally, there was a legal way around that rule. Apparently that has been discovered because the earliest, barring a special meeting, for the passing of this map is at the Dec. 14 City Council meeting.

Late Wed. night, Joe Lake, who always has his hear to the ground about such things, reported that the map will be presented today. Today the Chicago Tribune indicated that as of yesterday sources reported that three more of the 50 wards would be Latino wards at the expense of two African-American wards.  As of late afternoon, the map has apparently still not been presented.

Alderman Richard Mell, 33rd Ward, chairs the Committee on Rules and Ethics, which has been working on one map while the two protected voting class groups (Black Caucus and Latino Caucus) have each worked on their own. The two caucuses and Mell's committee have been holding meetings for months. The public was given several opportunities to express their concerns and requests at sessions set up by Mell's committee and the Latino Caucus. It is the responsibility of the Rules and Ethics committee to present the proposed map.

Voter interests are not only about classes and ethnicity, they are about other local issues. For example, currently the Chicago/Grand Neighbor's Assn.'s area has members in three different wards. They are interested in being in just one ward. It is difficult to have to engage three alderman when they are attempting to accomplish something, be it safety, development or city services. On the political side, which is legal in the creation of wards, there is no doubt a view at future election victories is influencing the where some want ward boundaries to fall.

In 1990 the Chicago was sued on the remap and spent $36 million of taxpayer money defending it. The  judge changed four precincts out of approximately 2500. In 2000 the city decided to give the two caucuses money to hire attorneys on their behalf. That resulted in expenditures of only $2 million and there were no challenges.

The 2010 census showed a population loss of approximately 200,000, with Blacks being  180,000 and Whites around 20,000. The Latino population, on the other hand rose in the last ten years. That shift in population is what is driving the need to insure proper representation for Blacks and Latinos.

Process wise, in addition to the public meetings, each alderman sat with the mappers and talked about their ideal ward would look like. Then the mappers had to look at that data, check for protected classes and review their numbers in the ward, talk with the aldermen and try to smooth out the overlapping of their "ideal" ward.  They also had to make sure that each ward had only about 54,000 voters

Once the map is presented, the public will have an opportunity to view it prior to the vote, which will most likely be at the next City Council meeting, Dec. 14. It will take 26 votes to pass the proposed map. If, however, 10 people agree that they do not support the map and withhold their votes from the 26 and offer an alternative, they can force a vote in a referendum during the next election in March 2012.

During the Monday nigh meeting Amy Kurson, an attorney for the Latino Caucus, said that none of the 50 aldermen wanted to change their boundaries yet they knew that each ward must be at about 54,000 voters.  While Moreno wants to add areas such as the CNGA and elsewhere, his challenge is that he needs to keep a balance of Latino to White voters.

Several of others at the meeting asked the aldermen questions about possible effects of having to move into a new ward structure.  Susan Fontana, a resident who is part of the Wicker Park Garden Club and sits on the Wicker Park Advisory Council, asked what if an organization is carved out of his district, "Will you have some liaison to smooth over the transition?...Our sweat equity is what we have in these organizations and to start over from ground zero would be difficult."

Moreno responded by saying that he absolutely would as he hoped the other alderman would do for any area he picked up.