Redistricting: Council Meeting 3/29/22

We’re calling it now - The City Council Majority is going to move forward with a district map that splits up communities to give extremist right wing incumbents an unfair advantage. 

CALL TO ACTION: Email City Council asap or show up to speak this Tuesday evening! Voice your support for good district maps that keep communities whole, and speak out against gerrymandered maps.

Public Submission Map 6 and its variants 6B and 6C are just plain terrible looking, with some districts stretching out and grabbing random parts of the city. Why did Sean Morgan and co. move this awful map (Public Map 6) forward last Council meeting? After the meeting two people (the original creator and one other person) created modified versions of Public Map 6 with very similar attributes, leading us to believe this is the favorite of the extremist majority. The creators of this map and its variants have not revealed themselves, and we want answers.

Kasey Reynolds lives just north of Bidwell Park, an area of largely democrats, but maps 6, 6B, and 6C place her residence in a peninsula attached to a primarily red district at the north end of the city. We’re having flashbacks to the Butte County Supervisors redistricting process. We won’t just point fingers at Kasey though - there may be other nefarious motives behind the egregious shapes of districts and disregard for communities of interest. 

Public Submission Map 7 has also made it to the final round. Map 7 has major issues, especially carving the Avenues Neighborhood up into 4 districts, but it has nothing on the wackyness of Map 6 and its variants. Two demographer maps, 4 and 5, were moved forward and also have modified versions available. These maps are fine, but not quite as good at preserving communities of interest as Planning Commissioner Bryce Goldstein’s maps. Her Public Submission Map 2 has made it onto the final round, in addition to a demographer-created variant (2B) and two Goldstein-created variants: 2C and 2D.

All maps are available here: https://chico.ca.us/post/redistricting-process-notice-special-public-hearing-32922-600-pm

What do you think? Are the districts in Public Maps 6 and 7 shaped to benefit certain council members or allow a new extremist candidate to run in November? Does somebody live in one of these weird shapes who the majority wants to prevent from running? Let us know in the comments.

Be sure to send those emails to City Council by noon on Tuesday! We recommend stating support for Public Submission Maps 2C and 2D. Demographer Maps 4B and 5B aren’t bad either.