Ah, yes. Three weeks to election day and it's a struggle to find coverage of
the documents that the Charter Commission adopted on October 6 that inform how
the Commission plans to deal with the Advisory Committee built into the Charter
Amendment that's on the ballot on November 2.
This is not to fault Steve Brandt's most recent article in the Star Tribune or
the well-detailed article by Jake Weyer, both with October 11th datelines.
What gets overlooked to date is that the considered intent of the Charter
Commission is essentially to absorb the membership of a 9-member advisory
committee into a larger working body named the Redistricting Group.
The membership of this ad hoc committee of the whole will work in a very
public way throughout 2011. Advisory Committee members will have equal standing
with the Charter Commission members throughout the drafting process and bring
much needed diversity to the Redistricting Group.
Assuming the Charter Amendment passes - big assumption, given that 50% of all
who vote on November 2 will have to cast affimative votes - the 2011 calendar
year begins with a widely circulated notice to the interested public.
This itself is an timely improvement in that the population of our city has
become much more diverse over the past ten years with an ever-growing list of
service organizations dealing with cultural issues. These include race,
ethnicity, language, family structure and the like and across the board a need
to learn the vocabulary of our civic life. There are also generational
challenges for all our citizens - ranging from safe, secure, affordable life
for a growing number of seniors to equality of opportunity for persons in their
working years and to appropriate and sound educational environments for young
people all across the first two decades of their young life.
The Charter Commissioners will ask the public's help in framing the Advisory
Committee application form via public meetings in January and February, 2011.
This is a novel solution to both transparency and inclusivity issues. The
Charter Commission will evaluate and decide the final form of the application
in early March and the open appointments window will last from mid-March
through the end of April, 2011. May and June will be a time for evaluating the
applications and arriving at actual appointments to the Advisory Committee.
According to the tentative timeline spelled out on the Charter Commission
website, July and August, 2011 will see orientation sessions for the new
Redistricting Group, including briefings by the City Attorney and other City
staff and decisions will be made regarding funding and technical assistance.
Note that the intention of the Commission is to have all the public work of the
Redistricting Group conducted in the four languages the City currently uses
routinely - English, Hmong, Somali, and Spanish. IMHO, translation assets will
be a significant but necessary cost beyond provision for specialized
redistricting software and technicians familar with these now-standard means of
assessing geographic/demographic-based data.
July and August will also be a time for public outreach, public discussions
about proposed rules including a formal hearing for public comment, more
specific advice from the City Attorney, and a final draft and adoption of the
formal rules governing the subsequent activities of the Redistricting Group.
Assuming the State Legislature has completed its own redistricting
responsibilities (a statutory precursor to local redistricting and possibly
involving post-redistricting litigation), September and October, 2011 are meant
to be devoted to crafting a first draft of projected ward and park district
boundary changes.
There are a number of statutory requirements that shape redistricting choices,
whatever agency or group does the actual work and these are spelled out in the
Charter itself and in the procedures now adopted by the Charter Commission as
of October 6, 2010. So ... that first draft map will have some built-in
stipulations.
The Redistricting Group will hold a minimum of two hearings in October, 2011
showing off the first draft map and seeking public feedback. November will
bring closure concerning this first draft and the production of a proposed
final draft map. This second attempt will also be vetted at three city-wide
public hearings with 7-days' legal notice beforehand in a legal newspaper [and
on the City's website].
Presuming the Park District boundaries have also been tentatively established,
the Redistricting Group will send these along to the independent Minneapolis
Park Board for their review and comments.
The Legislature will need to finalize procedures governing the geography-based
School Districts within Minneapolis. For now, the Charter Commission is
necessarily silent on whatever will be the case for the four Minneapolis
geography-based School Districts.
In December, 2011, having reviewed public feedback about the second draft
redistricting map (aka "proposed" as opposed to "first draft"), the Charter
Commissioners themselves will adopt the final draft of the new Ward and Park
District map and file this completed work product with the City Clerk and the
Park Board in January, 2012.
Note that there is no provision for any actions by the Mayor or City Council or
any of the City's various agencies. This is strictly the business of the
Charter Commission as assisted by their Advisory Committee and with the
considerable benefit of several interactions with the general public over time.
This proposed deadline (January, 2012) leaves plenty of time for possible
litigation. By law, the process has to be complete before the opening day of
filings for ward-level office in the fall of 2013 and fourteen days before the
opening day of filings for park district-level office.
Bear in mind that with IRV voting in place there won't be any municipal-level
primary in August, 2013. Candidates will have between early July and the end of
October, 2013 to make their respective cases to the municipal electorate and in
November, 2013 we will choose the next batch of incumbents for our municipal
government.
Can't say I blame the two reporters I mentioned at the beginning of this
lengthy post for not having waded into these procedural details.
I do feel it necessary to be specific about the proposed timeline (also to be
found at the Charter Commission's website, but only as a "best estimate"
calendar) in order to rebut the notion that the Advisory Committee will somehow
be window dressing for actions taken by a group of unrepresentative insiders -
Steve Brandt quotes Charter Commission Chairman Barry Clegg as describing the
core group as "charter nerds".
And if the Amendment doesn't pass, we'll be back to the old Redistricting
Commission that both reporters have described and in that case, another
opportunity for political mischief will have prevailed.
I believe this new system is fairly foolproof. It is certainly the case that we
older folks need to make room for the young pups who will be 18 in 2010, 28 in
2020, and 38 in 2030. By then, I myself would be 92 years old and asleep much
of the time. My suggestion is that membership in the Advisory Committee will be
instructive to the diverse membership of that group, to the Charter Commission
itself, and to the general public as well.
Thanks to those list members who have stayed the course in this lengthy
statement and good luck to the reporters that I hope will somehow boil all this
down into a "Cliff Notes" version before November 2 is upon us.
Fred Markus
Phillips West