Tomorrow night at the Hickory City Council meeting the issue of Ward Realignment will be addressed. The issue was first discussed at the City Council Meeting of April 5, 2011 by Deborah Stagner of the Law Firm Tharrington Smith.
Summarizing: There is a constitutional requirement for one person one vote. Each electoral district (ward) must be substantially equal in population, so that each person's vote counts the same and therefore every 10 years after the official Federal census, governments are required to look at their districts and determine whether or not the lines need to be adjusted.
The City Council must look at whether the process can be completed before the third business day before the filing deadline for the upcoming election. She is looking to adopt a resolution sometime in June. The filing opens on July 25 this year in the City of Hickory, and the wards must be drawn up three business days before that filing date begins. That means that this plan has to be in place by July 19, 2011.
Each district does not have to be identical in size. Courts allow a reasonable variation amongst jurisdictions. The overall deviation between the smallest and largest districts should not be more than 10%. When looking at the current districts, the ideal number can be found by dividing the population of the city into the total number of districts. The population of the city of Hickory after the last census is 40,010 divided by six districts, which means that the ideal population for each district would be 6,668. In looking at the largest and the smallest districts in the city of Hickory, you see that there is more than 10% difference between the largest and smallest district. There's been a significant amount of growth in Ward 2 and a significant decrease in Ward 5. Ward 2 is 21% over the average and Ward 5 is 14% below the average. And adding this together, you see that there is a 35% deviation, which is far above 10% desired deviation.
Equity in Government: During the last City Council Meeting of May 3, 2011, the Catawba County Democratic Party's spoke about their vison and in those statements they stated that they want to work together to build a community which respects diversity and they look to "hold government 1eaders accountable for their political actions and policies by insisting upon openness" in government.They believe that the poor and minority community in Hickory has no effective voice in city government due to a lack of representation on the City Council. They have respectfully requested the Hickory City Council to seek and implement ways to show greater sensitivity for the legitimate concerns of under-represented minorities in this community.
In their goal to Support the creation of a Minority-Majority Ward, the Democrat Party mentions that until 1970, city elections were ward based. In that year, Hickory instituted the modified at-large system for electing City Council members. They believe that this change has created an electoral system which eventually led to the under-representation of poor and minority citizens in elected positions and the modified at-large electoral system now in place essentially denies that possibility and thus insures that representative democracy is diminished in our community;
THE HOUND: I cannot disagree with the summarization of the Democrat party on this issue. Under the guidelines expected to be passed tomorrow night, the public is supposed to have a voice in this decision making process, but if one looks back to what happened last year with the City's swimming pools in Ridgeview and West Hickory, they will remember that citizens were supposed to have a voice in that decision also; but in the end they had no voice, because city officials highjacked the process and swerved it towards their own personally desired conclusion.
In my opinion, under this current situation, the right question is not being addressed. Remember from Mrs. Stagner's own address of Council, she stated that the goal of the legislation is to have one person - one vote. To me, that opens up another question. By the term vote are we suggesting that we are trying to create equal populations in wards as a way to meet a State governmental statute or are we trying to truly empower representation of individuals in each of the six wards of Hickory?
I Honestly believe that the minimum will be done to meet the threshold of criteria set forth by North Carolina General Statutes. And the goal of creating a Minority-Majority ward would not address the issues either. I sat in a room two years ago at the Candidates Forum at the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce in which a gentleman insisted that Hickory needs to go back to Ward specific voting. At that time, I disagreed with him and for the most part it was for selfish reasons. I had a personal interest in seeing Harry Hipps win Ward 6 and I knew that he could not defeat the incumbent if it came to a pure ward vote. I counted on the other wards' votes and for the most part those other wards did not show up. In the end my personal selfish interests showed the true dilemma that Hickory faces. In the end I was wrong.
What Hickory needs to see is Ward specific elections. Ward 6 should not be determining the person or interests that represent Ward 1 through 5 and Ward 1 should not be determining who represents Ward 2 through 6. The only general election should be for the Mayorship. Why? Because we have seen races in the past 40 years where the Ward has a primary in which one candidate wins the primary and then when they go to the general election they get blown out because of the heavy weighted turnout from another ward. That means that the specific ward isn't being represented by the person of their choice. They are being represented by the choice of another Ward. This has happened multiple times to Larry Pope in Ward 4 and it happened to Gary Ewing in Ward 2.
We don't need to see multiple elections. We have a hard enough time getting turnout for one election. In the Ward 4 race two years ago, you had over 300 people show up for the primary and 77 people show up for the general election. If you have 1, 2, 3, or 4 candidates it should not matter. You can say that the person has to win by 50%-plus or a plurality plus 10% and that would make for a fair election (or then there is a runoff of the top 2). What we see dilutes the effectiveness of Ward Representatives. The Ward Representative would do best by winning over the people within their own ward. As it stands now, you can theoretically not talk to a single person in your ward or represent a single issue of your ward; but you can still win by going and talking up the issues that face other wards even when those issues don't represent (work against) the interests of your own ward. Does that make sense?
What my opinion is is that what entails our current local municipal election process (and subsequently governance) is not working. I do believe that much of our populace is not being fairly represented. It isn't about being a sore loser. It is about fairness. This isn't a Race issue to me, because if one looks at Ridgeview much of the African-American population has been dispersed throughout the city. Ridgeview and its immediate area is becoming more racially diverse. What I see is more of a socio-economic issue where the poor people in the community are not being represented. Look at the make-up of Council. I believe the people on Council do not have a clue how the poor to middle class citizens lives in this community.
The people in Viewmont wouldn't want the people of the South Side of the tracks imposing their will or desires upon them and we know that the same can be said if the roles are reversed. This issue will not be settled by redrawing lines and adding a few residences here or there. In the last election only 2,300 people showed up to vote out of 27,000 registered. Would you consider that a success?
A healthy community wants people to vote. In the 2009 election, I believe that more than half of the voters came from 3 voting precincts in the City of Hickory. Those precincts represent the people who have most of their issues addressed by the Council. It is good that these people vote and they should not be ashamed or penalized for voicing their privilege and desires. But, what The City of Hickory needs to see is more people buy into the process of governance. Everyone in the city should be working together and looking out for each others interests. That cannot happen if we try and impose our will upon one another. That can only happen if the community meets at the table on an equal footing. Ward specific voting will not be perfect, but it will insure that the voices that represent the local neighborhoods (and their opinions) are listened to and understood and that is all that anyone should rightfully ask for.
6 comments:
I agree completely. Why do you have wards to begin with if all board members are elected at-large? If you say your trying to achieve voter parity among the districts, you're working and talking in a circle with at-large elections. One person/one vote is meant to give each person a voice in our representative democracy. But that notion falls into the void when your representative comes not from your neighborhood, district, or ward, but the other side of the tracks and has interests other than or at odds with your area; even within a city as small as Hickory. This concept of at-large elections exploits a loophole to maintain control by the few and to ensure a certain select agenda is adhered to. Is it racially driven or motivated? Well, you tell me. At-large in Hickory came six years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and when you look at the social strife that was rampant during that same time frame...well. I'm sure that someone has a perfectly rational answer as to why at-large was adopted the Hickory City Council in 1970. I'd also posit that the real reason and the stated reason wouldn't recognize each other tied up in a paper sack and left alone.
I agree that it probably was racially motivated in 1970, but as the minority population has dispersed it is more related to a socio-economic issue at this point in time.
If the Council and Powers That Be think they are doing themselves a favor by maintaining the staus quo on this issue, then they are fooling themselves. The hispanic population now comprises around 14% of the population and that is more than the African-American population. Wait til the Hispanic population decide to come to the table. That is going to change the ballgame drastically.
They can come, just as the African Americans came. They were appeased and control has been maintained. I don't see the operational plan changing with regard to who is sitting on the opposite side of the table. But there is something else as well. You and I discussing this is not going to bring about change, or even raise an eyebrow. Until others take notice, here we are talking about what isn't. And as much as we see what's wrong, nothing changes...or will.
I believe we will see change whether we act or not. Hickory will change for the better or for the worse as time moves along. I know that i take action to the greatest extent I can. maybe it isn't enough, but it is more than many others are willing to step forth with presently.
There are things happening behind the scenes currently. These actions don't happen over night, but processes and actions are being put in place. The reason that these actions did not take place before is because the terrible state of our local economy has pulled back the veil.
I didn't care until a few years ago. I didn't want to get involved. I was happy being a blissful dupe and in many ways I miss those days. People are waking up, but it isn't going to happen over night. People know that things aren't working.
We are following the Kubler-Ross model to a T. For a long time we were in denial and did not recognize any problems existed until around 2006-2007. Every year was going to be our year. We blamed everyone and everything under the sun for our communities problems except ourselves. Things were going to turn around. Then there has been an underlying anger in the community related to the Industry and Job losses. Then there has been a bargaining phase relate to weathering the storm - this won't last forever. Now we are in a depression phase where people are settling for less expectations, because they don't think things are going to get better. Finally we will see an acceptance that this community has played a major role in the problems it faces. Then we will see a renaissance.
Now this model isn't perfect because there are people in this community that refuse to act no matter what mistakes have been made. There are plenty of people who hate accountability. They do not want to be judged. Those people can't be helped and they need to be pushed out of the way.
I am optimistic. I think we are headed towards that direction.
Certainly, change is inevitiable. And also true, that change can either be good or bad, but change it will. As I've stated before, I certainly hope you're correct in your assessments. In that regard, I did read something today that I found to be promising. Apparently the folks from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice in Durham representing the Unifour One Stop Collaborative holds the same views on at-large elections, for many of the same reasons. While no commentary was quoted addressing this specific concern, further study is required, according to Bruce Meisner and the Mayor. So maybe there is hope for Hickory after all. Time will tell, as you diligently observe.
That Union Square is surely becoming a popular place. They might have to start writing down who wants to use it on a calendar somewhere.
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