Redistricting Proposal Based on the 2020 US Census - No Funding Required

33:00Yes, sir. I'll be doing it leading the discussion on that.

33:07So as part of the uh every sin every I guess ten years, decade census does a census we got those numbers for Pasco County back in August and and so at the board direction we sat and talked to each of you individually. as far as how would you like to see the the new districts drawn, how would we like to adjust them based on the new population uh in the way the population came into Pasco County and so After meeting with y'all

33:38um individually uh probably two, three months ago, right after we got the maps or the after we got the population. Um We came up with one option and then there were three other options that have been asked to that we've been asked to draw based on the input by specific district commissioners. And so what I'd like to do is we'll pull up the option one on the screen and I think you have hard copies eleven by seventeen of all the options.

34:04But they're they're not numbered. numbered.

34:06They should be at the bottom.

34:10Oh, okay, never mind.

34:13So I'll start off with the the census population as of April first, twenty twenty for Pasco County was five hundred and sixty-one thousand eight hundred and ninety-one

34:26I think we all recognize that was week three of the pandemic before we started setting sales records. I am not sure how comfortable I am with that number, but that's the number published by US. So it is what it is.

34:45So with that we have um keep after we sat down with each of you and each of you gave us feedback on what you'd like to see with respect to your district. We kind of combined all that and kind of tried to come up with a compromise map, which is what I would call my preferred option, because that's one based on feedback from everybody. And that's the one that's on the board here. And so I will go One to five, and I'll do these on this one because in general the districts for district

35:15one and two, the proposed districts really don't change in any of the other options. So I'll start off here. We'll start off at 41 and county line in the county line for district one. And this is obviously the east boundary for District five. And what we tried to do is follow major arterial collections as best we could, balance it as best we could with population and our geographical features, i.e. there's one place where we follow a river. Um and so I kinda wanna

35:46know what so we start up here, forty one, down to fifty two, then you go out fifty two to Old Pasco Road. Down Old Pasco Road to Overpass across 75 to Boyette, then straight down to 54, and we don't make that little jog that Boyette does. We keep going on nothing Van Dyke. So that's I can't remember the name of it. It's there. To 54, then 54 out to River Glen Boulevard. Up to Hancark,

36:16down Elon, Morris Bridge, back to the county line, and then you you see the rest of what District One would look like as the county line.

36:23Is there a pointer? Are you showing a pointer?

36:26On here, not on this your screen. Well

36:29I can't see

36:29that feedback. I see. So I'm I'm not gonna

36:34be like Commissioner Weightman be colorblind.

36:37Well it's blue, so we're good.

36:39Yeah, I don't see it.

36:40So I'll start here at 41 and 52 where we actually have four districts eight for district two. So District Two follows the same line as District One down to the County Line, then across County Line Road to Collier Parkway, up Callier Parkway to 54, 54 to 41, and then 41 back to 52. Okay, so is District 2. Yes, except for the one little small piece here that we need to move over to uh balance the district. Okay. So

37:10district three I'll start at Suncoast Parkway in the county line. It goes up Suncoast Parkway to the Enclot River, and we follow the Enclote River to the back of Aristida, then up and around Aristida, up Starkey Boulevard to River Crossing, River Crossing down the Little, Little down the Old County 54 or County Rome 54. That across 254 then up Rowan to Trouble

37:41Creek and Trouble Creek out to his current boundary of US 19. And then follows the current boundary up and then out.

37:49So district four we'll start So same as District 2 to the county line, county line over to Sun Coast, Suncoast up to Anclo River, around Aristid, up Starkey Boulevard to River Crossing, River Crossing to Little, and then the same route all the way back to 19. Then it follows the current line up to Ridge. Ridge out to County

38:21Road seventy side. I think that's

38:22Regency.

38:23Regency, thank you. Up to San Miguel Boulevard, that out to Little Road, Little Road up to 52, and 52 out to 41. Again, as best we could try to stay with major roads and not necessarily split up subdivisions, but you can't do all that. And then District 5 commissioners, everything else.

38:48I could go through that if you want, but

38:53he's

38:53good with that.

38:54Yeah, what we tried to do as best we can. You see right here at Sam Miguel Ridge, we couldn't get down the ridge because we needed that population in four, not five. Um and then up and around here we brought out Trouble Creek to Rowan because I needed that in three and so there are There are a couple places where we're not necessarily on arterials, we're on collectors, but as best we could, we tried to stay on major roads and our major geographical features and balance the population. You'll see on this one the

39:24population, the difference between the largest and smallest district is less than 2%. So it's a really tight number for that. And again, this is the one we tried to build based on all the feedback we got initially from the whole board, which is why I call it this preferred option, because it's kind of well what I would say is we took all your input into a into a blender, mixed it up, and kind of came out with this. I know it's not necessarily perfect. But it's it's

39:54what we could do to to best balance the population across the county in based on the feedback you gave us and make it reasonably easy to describe what your district boundaries are uh to uh to to a member of the public or somebody in the community, right? Try to make it as easy as possible. Um So any questions on on that?

40:19That's good. All right. So I would go through the

40:22Mr. Chairman Mariano. We'll get to the end of it, but just in my district, um and I I I agree with the seamlessness. I actually forgot about one neighborhood that I've spent a lot of time with with the Water Summer Tree Department. And that's right below fifty two. I knew they were cutting the moon lake out and I think that was smart to do it because One commissioner there should handle that whole thing coming through, and I think it's good to set that up. And I think as Bayxley grows, District 4 is going to explode anyway. But that summary area, I don't mind picking up the extra population in the sense

40:52of that water issue is still a private utility out there. I've spent trips up there with a bus. I don't mind taking the extra population even to monitor it, but I just hate to lose that part of it. And The only description is gonna be with the people to say Where's my district is along fifty two, including Summer Street?

41:09And and I was too to what we I do have Jeremy here from GIS and so if you have specific what I'd ask is let's kind of resolve ourselves to one option and then if you have some specific tweaks you want to make to that option then we can we can run those numbers. I would prefer not to do it in the meeting. I e let him go out, work on 'em and then come back. Um so Yeah. And I didn't get the population on summer tree before we came in here and I meant to. But um so that's That's

41:40again that's what I call the

41:42Just to make I wanna make a statement on that. Um and I don't mind Jack continue to work with those people, that'd be good. Uh but if that line can't Y'all should work at agreement that it's okay you work over there to help them too, because all the citizens here in Pasco, whether in your district or not, I I try to help them when they call me. And I think y'all do the same thing. So that line is just a line other than it being your district where you normally look out for those folks and all,

42:12you can still do that across lines too. So

42:15Make a big issue to it, but I just wanted to bring it out to

42:17make it work. Yeah. And so Mr. Chair, I can go through the other options. I will say that you know Mr. Jack's here from the school district. Well that's I want to copy. Yeah, yeah. And and so they don't necessarily you know, they did in twenty eleven adopt the same maps. Everybody adopted the same maps, but that's not necessarily required. You know, but you ought to take that into consideration because it makes it easy. Um but he is here if you want to ask him but

42:42Well, um, you know, I I made a few phone calls this morning because I I wasn't involved in redistricting in twenty ten 'cause I was coming out of the school board. Um and I finally um through texting 'cause he called me when I was on the phone, got a hold of John Gallagher and I would say that last time we did redistricting, there was a committee meet of three county and I think he told me three county committees and two school board members. Um And I I you know, I'm not

43:12sure why we didn't do that this year. But um But uh I'm just speaking to the Aristidda line because we do have a school board member who may or may not choose to run again. Like I haven't decided if I'm running again next time yet, but um you know, we don't wanna Draw out I think the rules are you can fi you can finish out your term in the district even even if you've been drawn out. But however if you want to run again, then that makes an issue.

43:43So um it in my opinion it'd be very easy for the school district to Bring their line on that bump down. to panicum or take out at Iris D whatever they want to do to make sure that the school board member in that district is not removed from her district. So just wanted at that point that's

44:04Jeremy's here to check my numbers, but I ran on the Aristida number and it was like two hundred and seventy seven people. It was a population of that. since it's tracked. But so not a huge number. Yeah.

44:15Um and that there's a there's a line where it it can be made in the in the neighborhood or they can take the whole neighborhood. That shouldn't mess up everything else for everybody.

44:25Mr. Chairman? Yes, sir. So so back then way back when, there was actually all five members of both boards sat together. Oh he told me to do it. I mean it might have been a previous

44:36and ten though, I don't think.

44:38I asked for two thousand ten.

44:41I wasn't sure.

44:42Absolutely. Mass Steve Lucart was actually worried about what was going on down around the cities and because one of the schools would be taken out, but they went along with the with it and just they still worked together in the district, et cetera, to say, look, we're gonna still represent and they did. Uh so I I think what we're what we got set up here is Commissioner Moore. I think your district makes a lot more sense coming over where it's gonna go. Uh Commissioner Starkey, I think, way back when, you know, Commissioner Hildebrand was fine with it going all the way out there. Should kind of like that mall from what I hear.

45:10Crazy, crazy.

45:12And I think uh you know Commissioner Oakley with Zephyrhills as well going right in there. You know, I think the the tweaks that were that are being being made here. Real good.

45:20Yeah. I would agree. I mean do we need to keep looking at maps? I'll make a motion to approve map one. Right now. I mean I I'm this is I mean yeah, I mean if you Yeah, I mean you t you took everyone's everybody's input and you needed a balance the the objective I think Mr. Steiner can step in is a balanced population. Um and then we did this based on feedback. This one looks good to me. I'll make a motion to approve map more. Second.

45:44Okay. And that would be to put that out for public hearing. Right. Yeah.

45:49For for this new district lines. Okay, I got em I g go ahead.

45:55Does that mean we'd still consider the few tweaks or are we just okay with the I just go with the way

46:01it is and

46:02Okay so I'm okay with that as well. I just wanted to make sure I could continue to work on the projects that I was already working on. Thank you.

46:09Okay. So I have a motion and a second to approve um

46:16I guess the first map, the preference map. And um we will um all those in favor say aye. Aye aye. All opposed like sign. Motion pass five zero. So uh Mr. Gabb, would you like to step up and speak to the board while you're here?

46:40I what I have to say is now irrelevant. But uh in all preference um to Mr. Biles, because I know he worked hard on putting this together. Uh in fact um the county commission and the school board did meet together in a board workshop in August 16, 2011. Uh back in the early 90s, it was actually our superintendent, Kurt Browning. um had suggested that for uh confusion with your constituency that

47:11we um try to combine the districts so that school board districts and commission districts were the same. And so in 2011 we met. We adopted the same districts. The school board did that by resolution. You've already pointed out in the little bit of discussion you had that one of our school board members has been cut out of District 4 and is now in District 3. Ms.

47:41Starkey, um I don't think anybody on this board other than Ms. Starkey participated in that 2011 meeting.

47:48No, I didn't. I wasn't elected.

47:51Okay.

47:52Average Joe Blow in twenty two thousand.

47:54Um you weren't a school board member?

47:56No. I had run for the House for twenty ten and

47:58um the um the issue for us of course is that um we thought it was a good idea to have uh commission districts and school board districts that were the same. In the past we cooperated on that. Um now we have a school board member um Miss Crumley who is carved out of District 4 and therefore the district is going to have to do their own commission districts and they very well could be very different

48:28than yours. I was hoping to have some discussion on that so that our staffs could meet at least one time in the spirit of cooperation, but you've already made that call, and I think it's unfortunate that the school board and the county didn't meet to discuss this issue prior to that decision being made. So

48:49a question why does it have to be real different? Is that

48:53Could just be a little tiny tiny, tiny,

48:56tiny section. Hundred houses? Why why is that real different?

49:00Well you'd have to you'd have to make that adjustment or we would have to make that adjustment.

49:04Tiny carb of like a few hundred.

49:07And then she's no longer carved out, but the districts are different then. Yeah. Yeah. Hundred houses or something.

49:15But but you also have to be aware that none of my school board members have seen this map. So they could uh make that simple adjustment and then adopt the districts But I don't know what any of them think about these maps. As I look at these maps, they look okay to me. I don't have major problems with them. But a school board member was cut out of their district. So it will be incumbent upon us to adjust our districts and go through the public hearing

49:45process and so forth as a result. Thank you.

49:49Mr. Chairman Mariano. Okay. Ray, where do you go? I mean, I think we we lined out pretty good. We've got a solution so nobody's gonna get carved out if you guys can make that adjustment. Um The the changes we've made are pretty simple. If you if you're really pushing that we want to do another another five on five meeting, I don't mind.

50:07No time.

50:08But timing's critical. May maybe maybe show show show the maps and have a discussion and maybe Mr. Bowes can go with it. And if we need to make make some recommendations, make some tweaks back, we can take a look at it.

50:19Well, I mean if if our goal is to keep the districts aligned And that's may not be your goal, um, but it has been in the past. And um then someone is carved out. Uh so the school board maps would have to be different than the one you proposed to. Right.

50:40Well we know we we

50:41we

50:41know we've got a situation. Our goal would be to do that in a normal situation. This is a very rare situation with two members living in different districts that that that go. We we can accommodate both of them. We can accommodate our commissioner here and hers, and you guys can just make that little bit of a tweak which would be less than 200 people in a population depending how much it's not a big shift uh but out of again courtesy for the rest of it if they want to show the map and have a rejection to it to to bring it back to us. And that's

51:11Yes, sir. I just uh a couple points. Remember we got about anywhere from four to six months less time to do this than we did in you know a decade ago because of the pandemic and the census delay in getting everybody the data, not just the cities and counties, but even the state. reallocation was you know three to four for six months later or everything exact day. So part of the way we went through this was because of that I mean we really just didn't have the time to put that together. So

51:41I also I I did a little analysis and I know it's more by population than by schools, but I had this conversation with another school board member. Um Megan Harding has twelve schools currently in her district. Cynthia Armstrong currently has fourteen. Um Alan Altman currently has nineteen, but Mrs. Crumbley has twenty-two. So she has ten more schools in her district. than Meghan Harding. So

52:07and and that's actually very irrelevant when you're talking about redistricting because it's about a population distribution based on the census, not the number of schools. Yes. So that's completely irrelevant. Um my only concern is that it is a little tweak, as Commissioner Mariano says, if we just want to adopt what the um County Commission has already done carve out that piece. It's a little bit difficult for us to do because we haven't been involved in the

52:37process from the get-go. So none of our board members know what these maps look like and so forth. But listen, I'm not going to beat a dead horse. I've made my point and I appreciate you hearing me out. Thank you.

52:51Thank you.

52:52Mr. Miles.

52:53And just one separate from that, uh the agenda memo mentions that the the public hearing would be December seventh, but it says date C, that meeting is actually in New Port Richey. We would like to keep the December seventh meeting, but have the public hearing in New Portie. Do you need a motion to that's where yeah that's where the December meeting will be will be in Newport.

53:12Move to have the next meeting on this December seventh in Newport right too. Yeah,

53:16thank you. Public hearing.

53:18Public hearing. So you want to direct the clerk to advertise it for public hearing at basically the motion which is in your your staff uh your staff report except changing the location to New Port Richey rather than Date City.

53:33Yes, that's my message.

53:36And motion and

53:37did I hear a second? Second. And a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed like sign. Motion passed five zero.

53:46Okay. Yeah. Um