RIGHT HERE IN RIVER CITY

We know a lot of you are all exercised about the State and Federal Redistricting. So you will not be surprised that the fancy footwork and downright crooked activity has sifted down to the Berkeley County Council Redistricting Plan.

We are certain all of you received notice of the Council Redistricting meetings, right? Well, you may be surprised that they have been going on for over a year now. And, after a thorough check, GE&P learned that at least 4 of the present members of County Council were not notified of these meetings either. Anybody care to guess which 4 members that could be?

As usual, we will give you a little background on the process. First, the number of citizens in the county is established by the census. We are working with the 2010 census in this case. Since there are 8 Council Districts in BC, the total number of the population is divided by 8 and each District is supposed to have pretty close to that number of population. These individual numbers are broken down by total District count, then, by race, and then by voting age folks. Each District is supposed to be contiguous. In other words, all parts of the District have to be connected in some manner.

The Proposed Plan which, by the way, has a large bold note saying "NOT FOR PUBLICATION", is very interesting. For this post, we decided to confine our comments primarily to District 7. We will get to the others later.

Following the number gathered from the 2010 census, each Council District should have a population of 22,230. This goal would be achieved if the county was divided exactly evenly into 8 parts. Since this hardly ever happens, the proposal always has a "deviation percentage" included. This deviation can be either plus or minus. In a perfect world, this percentage should be very small. In a crooked world, not so much.

According to this new Plan, (and remember, we don't know who formulated this Plan) District 7 only has a population of 21,430. This number leaves District 7 800 short of its fair share. Even with the shortfall, District 7 has 48.37% white people of voting age and 47.10% black people of voting age. But, Mr. Pinckney isn't worried about these numbers since he represents all the people.

Now that we have the proposed numbers established, let's get to the map of District 7. Most District maps are drawn with natural boundaries such as rivers, roads, or communities. District 7 doesn't quite meet these guidelines.

District 7 touches three other Districts, 6, 8, and 4. In order to pick up the deficit of 800, District 7 would have to take some folks from one of these other Districts. We can discount District 8 because Mr. Steve Davis is not going to relinquish one of his voters because he, too, already has a deficit of 632. (Do we notice a pattern here?) District 4, also, has a deficit but of only 245, so that's out. That leaves District 6 with its surplus of 410. Oh my goodness, would you look at where District 7 meets District 6.

We have a nice neat boundary along Hwy. 6. Mr. Pinckney gets the left side of the road and Mr. Schurlknight gets the right side. We have the same scenario in the middle section where the two Districts intersect, Mr. Pinckney to the left side of the road and Mr. Schurlknight to the right. But, then we come to the area where the two Districts meet along Hwy 176. District 7 follows an imaginary line just northwest of Cane Bay. This puts Cane Bay into Mr. Schurlknight's District.

Now let's look at this issue from a purely non-political point of view. If District 6 has a surplus of 410 and District 7 has a deficit of 800, wouldn't it make good common sense to shift the 410 from District 6 to District 7? Wouldn't that be more e-qui-ta-ble?

If you are interested in the issue of County Council Redistricting you may want to attend the workshop to be held in the Supervisor's conference room on Tuesday July 26th at 6 PM. The meeting will not be open for public comment but you might find it informative none the less.