 Hello, my name is Lorraine Miller and I have the privilege of serving as the Chair of the 2020 Fort Worth Redistricting Task Force. I'd like to welcome all of you to our Redistricting 101 seminar. Our task force decided to begin our redistricting public outreach with a session that could provide information on redistricting and how it impacts our communities. We will also have three additional meetings that will allow for public comments. We will provide these details to you at the end of tonight's show. Now we realize that all of us, everyone doesn't necessarily understand what goes into the redistricting process. This is why we're trying to do this this evening. And we think that education on this important topic is the first step to getting involved. I also want to emphasize how seriously the redistricting task force takes the public involvement and input during this process. The residents of Fort Worth, you and I, are impacted by the redistricting and we really really want to hear your ideas on how we can improve the process that will take place in August of 2021. This evening I'm joined by the Assistant City Manager, Fernando Costa, this evening. And he will start us off with some redistricting information before we get to your questions. Fernando? Thank you very much, Ms. Miller. We appreciate your leadership of the redistricting task force and the service of all the task force members and appreciate the viewers joining us tonight for Redistricting 101. So what is redistricting? Well in simple terms, redistricting is a process by which we redraw the boundaries of electoral districts after every census to ensure that each district contains roughly the same population. It's basically a matter of fairness to ensure that everyone's vote counts the same. And it occurs at all levels of government, federal, state, and local. So later this year, after the Census Bureau releases population data from the 2020 Census, the Texas legislature will be redrawing boundaries of congressional districts as well as state, house, and senate districts. And at the same time, local governments, cities, counties, school districts will be redrawing their own electoral boundaries. And so Fort Worth is doing the same thing that other local and state governments will be doing throughout the country later this year. And so this evening we'd like to discuss several topics relating to redistricting. We'd like to start with a brief history of redistricting in Fort Worth and then proceed to talk about the membership in charge of the redistricting task force. Talk about why we're redistricting. Discuss some of the task force's recommended goals and practices to achieve those goals. At the draft criteria and procedures upon which we're asking residents to comment, talk about the schedule for redistricting activities, and finally take questions from the audience. So the purpose of discussing all these topics is to lay the groundwork upon which residents can pose good questions. And I know that we're going to get many good questions because some had been submitted in advance and I think they're right on target. So next slide, please. Well, most Fort Worth school children know that Fort Worth was founded in 1849 when Major Ripley Arnold, on behalf of the U.S. Army, established a camp which became Fort Worth on the banks of the Trinity River. But it wasn't until 1873 that Fort Worth was legally incorporated as a municipality and became the city of Fort Worth. Fort Worth didn't adopt the current council manager form of government until 1924 setting up the current system whereby the city council is the policy making body, the city manager runs the city on a day-to-day basis. And we proceeded with electing our city council members from the citizens of Fort Worth as did other cities around the country. In 1965, the U.S. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which is a major piece of legislation guaranteeing the right to vote for all citizens regardless of race and ethnicity and other characteristics. That was a major piece of legislation because before 1965, many states, particularly southern states had discriminated against African-Americans and other minorities in respect to voting rights. And so the Voting Rights Act was a major piece of legislation guaranteeing the right to vote for all citizens. In 1975, just 10 years later, Fort Worth changed its city charter to create single member districts from which citizens could be elected to the city council. That was a big deal because when all council members were elected at large, it was more difficult, not impossible, but more difficult for minorities to be elected. Single member districts made it possible for citizens and their interests to be represented better on the city council. And we've had single member districts ever since then, and after every census, starting with the 1980 census, we redistricted, we redrew the boundaries of those districts to ensure that the districts were properly balanced with respect to population, to ensure that each district encompassed roughly the same population as every other district. And so that has occurred after the 80 census, the 90 census, the 2000 census, and the 20 census. And now we're moving into the process following the 2020 census. Next slide, please. 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court in a major decision decided to invalidate certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, what are called the coverage provisions, whereby jurisdictions in certain southern states were required to get the pre-clearance from the Justice Department before adopting any new district plans. And so we're no longer required to go through that extra step of getting approval from the Justice Department. In 2016, in response to recommendations from a charter review task force, the voters of Fort Worth decided to amend the city charter so as to increase the number of single member districts from 8 to 10. And we'll talk a little more about that shortly. In 2018, the city council received final recommendations from the task force on race and culture, which had recommended that the council appoint a charter review task force that would study the desirability of amending the city charter for the purpose of creating an independent redistricting commission. So they didn't actually recommend that we create the commission, they recommended that we study it through a charter review task force. But the city council in 2019 decided instead to express support for the broad goal of creating districts that, when drawn, provide the best opportunities to elect city council members who reflect the diverse population of the city. So rather than appointing that charter review task force, it said we agree with the basic goal of ensuring that we create those opportunities to elect council members reflecting the diversity of our community. In 2020, of course, the country, the whole world was struck by the coronavirus, the COVID-19 disease, which caused a seven month delay in completion of the 2020 census. And so that will cause a delay in the release of the census results and a delay in the start of redistricting. We had expected to be starting redistricting around this time, but it's going to be delayed until sometime around August of this year, pending our receipt of block level population data from the Census Bureau. And in August of 2020, the city council appointed the redistricting task force. Next slide, please. And so this task force consists of 11 members chaired by Lorraine Miller, who has held many positions of authority throughout her distinguished career, not the least of which was serving as clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. So she knows redistricting backwards and forwards. And she's also joined by several other distinguished citizens of Fort Worth, whom you see listed on the slide, as well as support staff from several city departments, the city manager's office, the city secretary's office, the law department, planning and data analytics, IT solutions, communications and public engagement, and finally the diversity inclusion department. All of these departments are providing staff support for our redistricting task force. Next slide, please. The city council in August of 2020 adopted a resolution appointing the redistricting task force and charging the task force with the responsibility to advise the city council about redistricting criteria and procedures, not redrawing the maps, but simply recommending the criteria and procedures by which the city council would redraw the maps. And that resolution contemplated that the council itself, rather than an independent redistricting commission, would redraw the council district boundaries. Next slide, please. So why are we redistricting? Well, basically, to ensure that districts contain roughly equal populations, as required by federal law, and there is a famous Supreme Court decision, Baker v. Carr from 1962, which established the one person, one vote principle, which underlies redistricting. And another important reason that we are undertaking this redistricting process is to create two new districts, as required by the recently amended city charter, in view of our city's rapid growth. Fort Worth is growing very rapidly, and that's why the voters of Fort Worth approved the creation of these two new districts. Next slide, please. And you can see that on this slide, which shows population data from 2018, according to estimates from the Census Bureau in it, and those estimates found that Fort Worth had the third highest growth rate of any big city in the United States. The only two cities that ranked higher than Fort Worth in growth rate from 2010 to 2018 were Austin and Seattle. Believe it or not, Fort Worth is now the 13th largest city in the United States. We may still feel like a small town in many ways, and we want to preserve that sense of friendliness, but we are a rapidly growing city, a big city, even though our population ranks as 40th among the top 50 cities in respect to density. And so that rapid growth has provided grounds for adding those two council districts to the city council. Next slide. And we can expect that rapid growth to continue. According to the most recent population estimates from the Census Bureau, our population in 2019 was more than 900,000. And according to the North Central Texas Council of Governments projections, we can expect our population to pass the one million mark in the next few years, well before the next census of population. So we're growing very rapidly, and we can reasonably expect that growth to continue. Next slide, please. And so you can see how that growth has created an imbalance in the population of our city council districts. We want these districts to be roughly the same size, plus or minus 5% from the average. As of 2018, the most recent year for which we have data at the council district level, the average population of each council district was 106,000. But the population of District 7, which is, these numbers are actually reversed, the population of District 9 was 10% below average, and the population of District 7 was 16% above average. So you can see about a 26% differential between the lowest council district and the highest council district in population. We want that differential to be no more than 10%. And so the districts are already unbalanced. There'll be even more unbalanced after the 2020 results are available. And we want to be sure that they're properly balanced. In fact, we want the slow growing districts to be slightly above the average, the fast growing districts slightly below the average, because we know those fast growing districts are going to catch up and exceed the slow growing districts before the next census. So that's why we need to draw new boundaries for our council districts. Next slide, please. And so the task force has identified two broad goals that they want the city council to achieve through redistricting. One is to prevent gerrymandering. But what is gerrymandering? Gerrymandering is the process of drawing highly irregular district boundaries by manipulating those boundaries to favor one group over another. And historically the term is derived from a former governor of Massachusetts, Eldridge Gary. He was actually one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He became governor of Massachusetts. He actually opposed the practice of manipulating district boundaries. But when the Massachusetts legislature passed a map with those boundaries anyway, he signed it into law and he got stuck with the reputation for favoring the manipulation of boundaries, even though he actually did not. And eventually it became known as gerrymandering and eventually became gerrymandering. He eventually became vice president of the United States after the voters of Massachusetts voted him out of office for presumably manipulating the maps. President Madison asked him to be his vice president. Anyway, preventing gerrymandering, preventing the manipulation of district boundaries is one of the broad goals that the task force has set. The other broad goal is to provide the best opportunities to elect council members who reflect Fort Worth diverse population, exactly what the task force in race and culture and the city council had agreed that we should do. And that's important because Fort Worth not only has been growing very rapidly, but we've been changing rapidly in respect to the racial and ethnic composition of our population. Fort Worth is now a majority minority community in the sense that if you add up the Hispanic and African American other racial groups, they exceed the white population for Fort Worth as a whole. And we want to be sure that minorities are fairly represented, or at least had the opportunity to be fairly represented on the city council. Of course, voters can vote for whomever they wish, irrespective of race and ethnicity. But we want to be sure that nothing in the drawing of council district boundaries creates an unfair situation for any population groups. Next slide, please. And so to achieve those two broad goals, to prevent gerrymandering and to promote diversity, the task force has decided to recommend four practices that will make those goals possible. One, avoiding the packing of minority voters into individual districts. Second, avoiding the fragmentation or cracking, if you will, of minority communities. Third, creating what are known as minority opportunity districts. And fourth, promoting the creation of compact districts. And we'll talk about these four basic practices in a moment. Next slide, please. And so one principle is to have no packing or so-called cracking of minority communities. And so here's an example as depicted on the slide, whereby we have green people and purple people. In this example, purple people comprise 60% of the voters across five electoral districts. 60%, a clear majority. But it's possible to manipulate the boundaries, to gerrymander the districts in such a way that if voting patterns follow color lines, even then the purple people who represent a majority are likely to elect only two of the five representatives, less than a majority. Well, how does that happen? Well, what happens by a combination of packing and cracking? You can have, as you can see in the lower right, two packed districts, each of which has 90% purple people. So you compact, you compress, you concentrate those purple people into just two districts. And then you crack or fragment the remaining purple people across three other districts where they represent only 40% of each district. And so in effect, through that combination of packing and cracking, you take a majority of purple people and they're only able to elect a minority of the five representatives if they vote strictly along color lines. So that's an example of packing and cracking to result in a form of gerrymandering. Next slide, please. We also want to promote the creation of minority opportunity districts in proportion to the population of minorities in the community. So right now in Fort Worth under the current city council districts, we have eight council districts and five of them are minority opportunity districts because minorities represent 50% or more of the population. And two of the districts, districts two and nine, are majority Hispanic districts. So those are Hispanic opportunity districts as well. That's not to say that Hispanics necessarily will elect other Hispanics, but at least they'll have the opportunity to elect the council member of their choice. Next slide, please. And the last principle that we wanted to discuss is compactness, creating districts that are geographically compact. And there's actually a mathematical formula that measures compactness. It's called the Polesby-Poplar ratio and it happens to be four pi times the area of the district divided by the perimeter of the district squared. And so that means that a perfectly compact district, at least theoretically, is a perfect circle. A circle would have a compactness score of one. Other geometric shapes would have lower compactness scores. And you can see some of these hypothetical scores depicted on the slide. The task force is suggesting that the council should create districts with a compactness score that's at least .05 or greater. So .05 would be the minimum compactness of any district under this criteria. Now that would be a goal. That would not be an absolute requirement because Fort Worth has highly regular geographic boundaries. The city limits are highly jagged and run in many different directions. And so it's very hard to draw highly compact districts. Nevertheless, we want to strive toward compactness. Next slide, please. And if you look at our existing city council districts, you see that there are actually two districts, districts three on the west side of town and seven north west and north, which have very low compactness scores, less than that minimum of .05. So we want districts that are more compact than we currently have in respect to districts three and seven. In fact, district seven is the least compact of all the districts because it wraps around from the cultural district on the near west side of Fort Worth, all the way around Lake Worth, all the way up to Alliance, and areas actually east of I-35. So that is not by any means a compact district. As we move toward 10 council districts, I think it will be a little bit easier to draw districts that are compact, but it will still be a challenge, particularly because our city council, our city limits are so irregular on the perimeter of Fort Worth. Next slide, please. So here is a list of the 10 redistricting criteria being brought forward by the redistricting task force in draft form. This is not the final list, but this is a preliminary list that the task force is presenting for discussion purposes, and they divided the list into two categories, high priority criteria and lower priority criteria. The first of the high priority criteria is that the districts be of approximately equal size whereby the population, the largest district, will be not more than 10 percent greater than the population of the smallest district. As you recall, right now we don't meet that criterion because the largest district, District 7, is more than 25 percent greater in population than the smallest district, District 9. We also want to ensure, as a second criterion, full compliance with the U.S. Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, the Texas Constitution, and other applicable laws with no packing of minority voters, no fragmentation or cracking of minority communities, and no retrogression in the ability of minorities to participate in the electoral process. That was a requirement of the Voting Rights Act. It's no longer a federally mandated requirement, but it's a requirement that the task force, the redistricting task force, believes that we ought to retain and wants to recommend. The third criterion is to create minority opportunity districts in compliance with federal law to further reflect the growing diversity of our city. Third, we want to contain communities of interest within single council districts. And when we say communities of interest, we mean a local population with shared socioeconomic characteristics and political institutions that would benefit from unified representation. So if we have a group of folks with common interests who live close to each other, we ought to let them be part of the same city council district, all other factors being equal. And the fifth high priority criterion being suggested by the task force is that council districts represent contiguous territory that they ought to be in one piece not split into multiple pieces. And then there are the five lower priority criteria beginning with compactness. We want the districts to be compact with a goal of having districts with a Polesby-Popper ratio greater than or equal to .05 as we discussed earlier. Second, in the lower priority category, we want districts that have identifiable geographic boundaries, rivers, creeks, railroad tracks, highways, other boundaries that are readily identifiable. We want them to contain whole voting precincts. We don't want voting precincts to be split between multiple districts of the city council. We want to contain whole census blocks or block groups which represent the census data. And finally, we don't want to consider the place of residence of incumbents or potential candidates when we redraw the council districts. The purpose should not be to preserve incumbents. It ought to be to observe all the other criteria. And if incumbents stay in their current districts, that's fine. But that should not be one of the intended purposes of redistricting. Next slide, please. The task force also has issued some comments on redistricting procedures. They have said that we should continue to provide software training, for instance, residents, training on the software that the city council will be using to redraw the district boundaries. And that we should analyze the redistricting plan submitted by residents using that software and then brief the city council on our analysis of those redistricting plans. So that residents will have a full and practical voice in the drawing of those boundaries. And finally, the task force has said that they want greater transparency in redistricting so that when these maps are submitted by the residents, the task force wants to see how the city council considers those maps. And when the city council decides to change district boundaries, they'll be able to explain to the public why they decided to change those boundaries. So they want more transparency in that process. Next slide, please. And so finally, we'd like to talk about the task force schedule. Here's what has already occurred. As we mentioned earlier, the task force was created back in August of 2020. They had meetings in September, October, and November. In September, they had informational briefings on various topics. In October, they actually interviewed representatives from Austin and San Antonio to hear about how they had done redistricting after the 2010 census, and they presented two very different models for our consideration. In November, they received additional demographic data and discussed preliminary findings and came up with the draft criteria that we're discussing tonight. And in December, the task force presented its interim report to the city council. The city council said, yes, you're on the right track. Please continue with your work. Next slide, please. And so tonight, we're holding this informational seminar and seeking to answer your questions. And then later this month, we'll have a series of three public hearings, beginning on Monday, January 11th at 6 o'clock, and then Tuesday, January 19th, we'll have a public hearing in Spanish for those who wish to communicate in that language. And the third public hearing will be on Thursday, January 21st. All of these hearings at 6 o'clock, and you'll be able to access them by a multitude of sources, which we'll describe at the end of this program. In February, the task force will meet again, February 4th. They'll consider all the comments from the public meetings and decide upon their final recommendations to the city council. So what we hear tonight in the way of questions, and more importantly, what we'll hear in the public hearings in the way of comments, will be instrumental in the task force recommendations to the city council. The task force will present their final report to the city council on March 2nd, and the council on March 16th will be able to consider a resolution to accept that final report from the redistricting task force. Next slide, please. So after the redistricting task force completes its work, we'll be able to move into the actual process of redistricting, of redrawing the council district maps. That will begin in April of this year, when we'll begin to provide training for residents on redistricting software. We can't do it yet because we don't yet have legal access to the software, but by April, we should have that legal access and can make it available to Fort Worth residents. In May, we'll have our next municipal election, so the current city council actually won't be redrawing the district boundaries. It'll be a new city council elected in May that will draw those boundaries. By the end of July 1st of August, we expect to receive the block-level population data from the U.S. Census Bureau, with which to redraw the boundaries. So until then, we can use some unofficial population estimates to draw some hypothetical district boundaries, but we won't actually be able to use the official population counts until they're available later next summer. But before the city council actually launches the process, they'll be meeting jointly with the redistricting task force for a work session to discuss the criteria that the redistricting task force is recommended for the city council to use. So that'll be in August, and then from August until December, at least December, we'll go through that redistricting process whereby the residents of Fort Worth will be able to participate by suggesting maps that conform to the criteria recommended by the task force and adopted by the city council. Now we hope that we'll have even more time because four months from August to December may seem like a long time, but it's really not, because that's a lot of work to be done redrawing these maps with public involvement. December may be important because that's when the Tarrant County voter registrar proposes to print the voter registration cards with information about new council districts. However, if Tarrant County is willing to reprint those cards with the city paying for those additional costs or if they're able to adjust the printing schedule, then we'll have more time to conduct the redistricting. By the summer of next year, 2022, we'll have the deadline for candidates to establish their residency within the new council districts so that they can run for office from those districts. So they have to establish their residency by mid-July of 2022. By mid-January to mid-February of 2023, candidates will be able to file for places on the 2023 municipal election ballot and then in May 2023, we'll conduct the municipal election using the new council districts. So that's a long process taking us from where we are today to May 2023 when the new council districts will actually go into effect. Next slide, please. And now the time has come to answer your questions. Great. Thank you, Fernanda. Ladies and gentlemen, you received a lot of information tonight. He basically took the redistricting process and capsulized it for you so you could actually see how this will work. One of the things I think the task force wanted to do this year is to make sure that, have you ever driven on the highway at night and you run across some construction and you see the yellow light that says, stay alert, stay alert. This is what I think our task force wants you to do, stay alert. So one of the things that we thought that doing the redistricting 101 so that you would have a real tutorial about what this process involves and then to get you to ask questions because that's how we hope to get the exchange. You ask questions, we provide an answer, you may ask more questions. So prior to tonight's broadcast, we had some questions submitted to the staff. I think we'll answer these questions that were already submitted first and then we will take some of your questions that gives you an opportunity to get your questions thought of and get them to us. You can email your question to www.fortworthtexas.gov and you can also text or call your question to 817-682-6039. Staff will give us the questions and we will do our best to answer it during this presentation. If we don't get to all of the questions, be assured that we will answer them at our public hearings starting on January 11th and we will have our task force members that will participate in it. So our first question we received is, why does redistricting have to wait until August 2021 to start? Well, redistricting will be done using the information that Mr. Costa has given us that is collected during the 2020 census. All of this is based on every ten years when we do the census, that's why it's important that you participate in the census. We will not receive that information until July 2021. Now, there are a lot of people who say we probably won't get it in July and it might not be August because of the delays that we've had and with our pandemic. We just don't know. But we can't start the redistricting any sooner because we will be using old population data and old demographic information. Hope that answers that one. Next question, how can residents get involved in the redistricting process? Key. One, you got to stay alert. But the first step is to participate in the public hearings that will take place over the next few weeks. We have kind of dedicated the month of January, the task force, to hear from you. We will also have these additional hearings, January 11, January 19, January 21 at 6 o'clock in the evening. These additional meetings, once the actual redistricting will occur, these will include information sessions and opportunities to actually draw maps using the special software. The software will also be available online. It will be available online so that residents can create and submit maps to the city council. The goal is to make all of this information online so that the process is transparent. But you've got to be involved in it. You've got to pay attention. You've got to learn the process and then participate. And we're, as a task force, hoping to make sure that the maps you draw will be included in our report that will be considered by the city council. So this is not exercise and futility. This is an exercise in your being able to influence what your council does. Next question. Why are we adding city council members? Well, in 2016, the residents of Fort Worth voted to increase the number of council members in a charter election. The primary reason cited at the time was the growing population. Ladies and gentlemen, by 2030, we're going to be more than a million people. There are so many things that are happening in Fort Worth that are going to be impacted by this growing population. And so this is our effort to not compact people into tiny little districts, but an effort to give you the opportunity for greater representation. There was a desire to have each council member represent an equal number of residents and in a smaller geographic area for each district so that you get greater representation when you call your council member, it means something. When you write your council member, it means something. There was also a goal to have more diversity on the council and to use the new census data to improve our representation for all the residents of Fort Worth. Next question. Why want the city council allow an independent group consisting of Fort Worth residents to draw the redistricting lines? The city council resolution appointing the redistricting task force contemplates that the city council itself will redraw its district boundaries relying upon advice from interested residents. This is the approach that Fort Worth and most cities across the country have always used to withdraw district boundaries. Opponents of this approach tend to say that it promotes accountability and democracy because citizens elect their council members to make these kinds of decisions and can hold their elected officials accountable for making such decisions responsibly. These proponents might argue against an independent commission therefore on the grounds that such a commission will not be demographically as a democracy elected and will not be directly accountable to the voters. Nevertheless, some residents have spoken at a task force meetings in favor of creating an independent redistricting commission and have presented some reasonable arguments for that approach. Residents who favor creating an independent commission should feel free to communicate their views directly to the city council. Let me make a personal note on this. If you remember when the country was going through its deliberations about the Voting Rights Act and I remember clearly I wasn't there but reading about and seeing the pictures of President Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King and Dr. King was imploring the president you know Mr. President you've got to do this once we get this bill done you've got to sign it and what was Johnson's response to him make me sign it Dr. King go to the public get the Congress on your side residents if the independent commission is what you want you've got to voice that choice it's not going to happen automatically you've seen that the council has chosen not to do that but you have to implore them that this is something that the majority of people want. They don't even have to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge to do it. They don't have to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge to do it exactly but it is it's the principle make me sign it you have to do the work that has to be done the organizing and the convincing of the council that this is an approach now there are people who tell me that one of the problems with these independent councils commissions they start out with one perspective in the public interest and they dissolve either to the left or to the right and what you initially start out with you don't wind up with and then you've got to get rid of it but that is something that the citizens you the residents of Fort Worth have to be the determining factor. Our next question how was the redistricting task force selected was there a public notice for anyone to apply who was interested in serving. Ladies and gentlemen each of the eight district council members nominated one person to serve on the task force and the mayor nominated three persons to ensure racial ethnic and gender balance the city council had previously announced its intent to appoint redistricting task force in August of 2020 so I received the call from the mayor asking me if I would help and I am sure each of the council members did the same for the people they selected I'm not aware that there was a application process for this. Not a formal process no the council members made it known that they intended to appoint a task force and then some folks expressed interest in other cases the council members reached out to folks who had previously expressed interest in boards and commissions. So that's how it came about. The next question in redistricting will there be any at large districts council members representing just one district don't always consider what is best for the whole city there needs to be several at large council members who represent the whole city not just one district. Now the city charter as amended most recently in 2016 provides for 10 single member districts if you remember Mr. Costa says at some point the city went through and developed single member districts in order to bring about more diversity and representation that's why we have our single member districts now and one at large seat for the mayor. Mr. Costa do you want to amplify that at all I think you covered it well okay great our next question the majority of Fort Worth residents are not aware that the city will redraw district maps more transparency is needed will the city council schedule future meetings for the public for the public to give additional input into the redistricting process maybe after the mayor elections the the mayor elections. Let me just add this is one of the task force major points when we started deliberating as a task force one of the things that I think was unanimous among us that we wanted people to know that this was going on and that you needed to stay alert and follow the process and participate so all task force meetings are widely publicized and open to the public the task force is recommending that the city council emphasize public engagement and transparency throughout the redistricting process we are there with you the task force is with you on this the city council will begin that process later this year after the may election and after we receive block level population data from the U.S. Census Bureau in August you have to stay alert and follow the process. Our next question how can the public get access to the map drawing software and current city demographic data and how can citizens get trained on the software. The city will provide interested residents with training on the redistricting software starting in April using unofficial population estimates until the official population counts are available later in the year so we will be able to have you if you're interested in this this gets into the nitty gritty this is the basics of what redistricting is about and so if you're interested in that two things coalition building you need to work with other groups understand the likeness of your community and the compatibility with others and then figure out how you would like to see your community drawn in the city council because they're going to be to see so it's gotta some of this has got to be different some lines are going to change some council districts are are going to be larger and we're going to try to make sure they're as equal as possible but this won't happen without your participation okay our next question when will public generated maps be accepted for review what is the process for reviewing the maps we will begin accepting resident generated maps in august remember we got you've got to learn how to use the software and then we've got to get the numbers so after the census bureau releases block level population data then the city staff will analyze the resident generated maps and provide the city council with the results of that analysis along with copies of the maps that residents had produced so one of the things that we learned when the austin and san antonio folks visited with the task force there were small areas that people had been trying to get into the redistricting process for a particular council seat for a number of years but until the residents said to the councils and to the council people drew the maps to demonstrate what they were talking it wasn't but two blocks but it made a big difference and those folks were better represented so we're going to now go to questions from michelle you got michelle good is the communications director for the city of Fort Worth and she may be off camera but she's willing the big stick what do we have miss good okay the first question we have the idea of no packing and minority opportunity district seem an opposition to one another can you explain more about what these mean and how they don't conflict that's a very good question yeah happy to give a shot yeah and i i'll follow you can add uh your own view on the face of it yes they do appear to conflict uh minority opportunity districts you want to maximize the percentage of minorities packing is you don't want to have too many yeah so uh how do you draw the line well usually by packing we mean uh an over concentration for the purpose of isolating minority populations typically 90 percent or greater uh population uh in a particular district is what we mean by packing it's a very high percentage an artificially high percentage intended to isolate that group now by minority opportunity districts we normally mean at least 50 percent minority population but in practice more than 50 percent typically 60 or 70 percent would make it uh more likely that minorities will be able to rep to elect uh someone who represents their interests uh on the city council bear in mind that in addition to considering uh the percentage of population we should also consider voting age population because some minority groups Hispanics for example uh tend to have uh a relatively large percentage of the population who are below voting age yeah so uh even if it's let's say 60 Hispanic it'll be less than 60 percent voting age population we also have to consider how many people are registered to vote and finally we have to consider how many people actually do vote the percentage of Fort Worth citizens who actually vote is somewhere around 10 percent it's very very low if people will simply register and then vote that's the most important thing you can do yes to gain representation on the city council yes no matter how many minority opportunity districts yeah we create those opportunities don't matter unless you actually seize those opportunities by registering and voting yeah so if there's one message that we want to convey tonight if you're not registered registered if you're not voting vote absolutely and one of the things that I like about the opportunity districts because the the housing patterns in Fort Worth have changed when I grew up there there were certain distinct areas now people live wherever that's because of the new housing laws and so the opportunity districts are are the areas where you can influence I I think of uh I live in the historic south side and we have we're an opportunity district because we can if we band together vote together and if we in coalition with other community groups and residents that we find that it's culturally economic we're compatible we can elect someone that reflects our values and that's the the beauty of it compactness you're just putting us all it's like all your eggs in one basket and then they get crushed will there be an opportunity to participate in person during the upcoming meetings well we're doing all of this virtually because of the pandemic um so we we discussed that um because we had initially as a task force had envisioned having in person um public hearings all over the city where people could come in and voice their choices I I'd like to put it um but we're going to have to do this virtually because this this pandemic and what's going on with the virus doesn't want to allow us to do that I know that this question was answered but maybe we could just um repeat it um residents will be trained in the software correct and they will be able to draw and submit maps yes and more importantly we will take those maps put them hopefully in our report submit them to the council so the council members will see that you have participated in this process and you got an opinion is there concern about undercounting of minorities in the 2020 census there's always that has always been an issue with the census that's why I mentioned earlier you have to participate in the census because that determines how the resources from the state in the city and the county are allocated for your community so if you don't participate in the census you don't vote you can't expect to reap the benefits of what we're going to do with redistricting and how can your council members effectively represent you what sort of information and feedback would be helpful for participants to share at the public hearings what do you see that you want done in your neighborhood how will this process the redrawing of the lines affect you and the kind of representation you want for your neighborhood what are some of the characteristics the task force is recommending be looked at ethnicity education socioeconomic yes all of that we have our task force we are a deliberative body I must say that which is great these are great people with great minds and we got into we delved into the demographics of what Fort Worth is like because we didn't I don't think there was one person beside Mr. Costa that could actually tell you how many people were living where and what their ethnicity was what their economic background was so it we've included all of that the demographics is a very key factor in our deliberations and and what we're offering what is ensuring that council will actually adhere to these recommendations is there anything or anyone holding them accountable you are the residents of Fort Worth will be holding them accountable and the the ultimate test is your vote duh if you don't they won't what is the definition of a minority opportunity district and will the creation of these opportunity districts decrease the number of safe minority districts in the most basic terms of minority opportunity district is one in which minorities represent 5% or more of the population typically a safe district is one that has an even higher percentage that will practically guarantee that if people vote along racial and ethnic lines then they will elect somebody of their choice and so creating minority opportunity districts would be part of the process of creating some districts that would be described as safe some might be more marginal but still constitute minority opportunity districts well aren't minority opportunity districts kind of created out of the housing patterns that people yes where you live yes we'll determine if this an opportunity district and so it's not something that you just go in and say oh we're going to create a minority opportunity district you create them as a resident by where you choose to live and the point that miss miller made earlier may be worth reinforcing there was a time a generation ago when most African Americans in Fort Worth lived in certain neighborhoods four neighborhoods there you go homo stop six north side south side far greater north side right and Hispanics were concentrated in certain neighborhoods mainly north side diamond hill and a handful of others today that's no longer true no today you can live wherever you can afford to live we don't have the same degree of segregation that we once had and so it's actually a little harder to say here's how we're going to create a minority opportunity district and that's why I think coalition building is one of the keys to this folks we we we have to talk we can't live in silos and we can't vote in silos and so we have to work in coalition that's that's the way we're going to get the best kind of representation that I think residents of Fort Worth want miss good you have more questions I do are there any concerns with the census enumeration efficacy that may create redistricting errors or challenges since census data are never perfect now obviously but the census bureau uh has uh professionals who will produce the the best data that uh we possibly can and I I'm confident that the census data will be adequate for purposes of redistricting and I co-heartedly concur simply because um the data that the census bureau makes a concerted effort I mean if you you've got people going door to door asking you residents of Fort Worth how many people live in the household with you and what is your basic income level so they make a concerted effort so what it's not if it's garbage in garbage out but they make an effort to make sure that the data we will receive is very accurate and it gets used by all governmental entities uh uh in the in our country so it's it's it's reliable will the current council districts serve as the baseline for the new districts and if not what will be used as the baseline I'm not sure because this task force is not drawing the lines but if they are I think our council is the logical more logical um politicians and they'll start with what they have and try to figure out how they carve out two more districts so I would think logically they would start there our neighborhood alliance brings together representatives from 14 neighborhood associations that are continued to that are close together these neighborhoods are currently split across three council districts over the past few years while our neighborhoods are diverse racially ethnically and economically we have learned how to work together to have our combined interest represented will there be any consideration of these kinds of natural alliances in redistricting so neighborhood association well that was when we thought about there's a task force uh the public being involved the first thing that came to my mind was the neighborhood associations I belong to my neighborhood association the historic south side neighborhood association and as as hundreds and thousands of other Fort Worth residents so yes they were factored in um early on in our deliberation of how we were going to reach out to the public and what one of the draft criteria is to preserve communities of interest to keep communities of interest in single city council districts yes there was conversation initially about council members being inside loop 820 and outside instead of council members each taking a piece of downtown is will that still be part of the conversation with the 10 council districts the task force the redistricting task force had extensive discussion about the very question yeah and decided not to include a specific criterion along those lines now that criterion did exist after the 2010 census but I think the task force concluded that with 10 instead of eight single member districts to draw and with the population of Fort Worth growing as rapidly as it has during the past 10 years that it's going to be increasingly difficult to create 10 districts that fan out from the center of Fort Worth uh and the spoke wheel the wheel spoke system that that we've had historically now the argument for having each district to the extent possible have territory inside the loop and outside the loop the argument is that by doing so you minimize the likelihood that you'll have an us versus them relationship between the central city and the periphery yeah and that argument made some sense in the past however that's going to be more difficult to do with the city of 900 thousand and and 10 districts that's going to put more of a burden on the mayor and city council to make decisions in a collegial way and not to pit one part of the city against another yes we have a lot with so many apartments replacing homes will redistricting make a difference yes I think it's absolutely well um how you're represented just the mere fact that there are apartments how do those apartments get in those districts without your council person's input um yes it'll make a difference big difference and if they vote in those apartments when the maps are drawn will we also include where business areas are in each district in order to make the determination that's not an explicit criterion no it's not it again we want to preserve communities of interest so if neighborhoods happen to have a very close association with a business district then it might make sense to keep them in one uh city council district but otherwise uh it's based purely on the population but that's a good question because if that is something one of the things I think this task force really wants to do is reflect the opinion and the concerns of the citizenry and if it's it's something that uh and we're recording all of this so we can go back as a task force and discuss it where can we find the information related to cities like Austin and San Antonio and what their recommendations are were to the city of Fort Worth um I can um say that we will have um all of the presentations that have been given to the redistricting task force will be on the city's website and it's at Fort Worth Texas dot gov and then back spot back slash redistricting and we will also have links to all of the meetings and the videos that we're doing for all the public meetings and hearings that are taking place right so the public will be able to to see what the task force has seen yes okay and our goal is to put everything on that site and um so that people if they weren't able to attend the meetings or watch it live they can see the recordings I believe most of the other questions are things that we've already covered but um we will compile a list of everybody's questions and the answers and we will also post that on the website with the answer so that people can see them and we can also cover them at our um upcoming public hearings great well we are nearing the end of our presentation tonight and I want to thank each of you for watching this is so important the task force really wants to hear from you so tonight is our first effort in the redistricting 101 but we've got three more opportunities um and hopefully um what you learned tonight about redistricting I used to teach high school and one of the things that delighted me was when you're trying to teach something and the light goes on goes off in somebody's head and in their eyes and you can see that ah that's what that's about so as I mentioned before this is the first of four public sessions we're having this month we will have all the meeting information on the screen after this presentation and you can find out information about the task force who our task force members are this is a an astute group of residents uh and the task force will and the work that we are doing uh on the city's website so it's Fort Worth Texas dot gov backslash redistricting ladies and gentlemen on behalf of mr. costa and I and uh the my colleagues on the redistricting task force I want to thank you again and again for joining us you gotta stay alert and we look forward to hearing from you this task force work will be for knocked if you don't participate January 11 January 19 and January 21 at six o'clock each evening tune in join us help us as residents of Fort Worth make this redistricting process something that you can be proud of because you invested your time to be a part of it thank you and we look forward to hearing from you in the coming months god bless