With the first public hearing on Evanston’s redistricting proposal slated for next Monday, some residents and Northwestern students are concerned that the proposed changes were created without adequate community input.
After the 2000 census revealed that Evanston’s voting population was spread disproportionately across its nine wards, the Evanston City Council’s Rules Committee — comprising all nine aldermen — began the process of redistributing voters to meet legal requirements.
“It’s just so obvious that there is some gerrymandering in this process, chomping on voting rights of students and minorities,” Evanston resident Judy Jager said.
Jager, who participated in the redistricting process in 1992, called the current proposal “reprehensible.”
“It looks like a blatant attempt to take several blocks of the Second Ward that are almost entirely black and replace them with students,” Jager said.
Under the proposed plan, only the Third, Sixth and Eighth wards would maintain their current boundaries. The other wards would have their boundaries shifted to maintain a population between 6,000 and 7,000 voters per ward.
Currently NU’s Evanston Campus is split between two wards, but the city’s proposal would divide the campus into three wards — the First, Second and Seventh wards.
About 2,000 students housed on campus would be moved from the First Ward to the Second Ward.
“Students are also residents,” Weinberg junior Jane Lee said. “The timing was unfortunate because students aren’t there and we are largely the ones being affected.”
Lee, the Associated Student Government external relations committee chairwoman, said she has spent the summer trying to work with others in the community to unify concerns in time for the first public hearing.
“We are not going to be silent on the issue,” Lee said. “We will make our stand. I don’t feel like this is just a student issue — it’s a community issue.”
Spreading NU students across three wards could potentially dilute students’ political power.
“I’ve always had concerns that increasing the number of aldermen who represent the students and the university potentially diffuse the students’ and the university’s influence,” said Eugene Sunshine, vice president for business and finance.
But some aldermen insist that NU students will not lose any political clout despite the shift in population.
“I dislike the fact I’m losing some of my constituents, but other than that I don’t view it as a problem,” Ald. Elizabeth Tisdahl (7th) said. “I do believe students’ views will be adequately expressed.”
Likewise, residents are concerned that the historically black Second Ward would potentially lose its black majority. Black voters current make up 52 percent of the ward — but if the proposal were adopted, they would make up only 38 percent.
Ald. Edmund Moran (6th) said certain demographic groups are accorded fair representation by what are referred to as “dilution” principles, which give some minority groups a majority in a ward or district.
“Election law cases tend to say that cities should make a good faith effort to give fair representation to minorities,” Moran said.
George Mitchell, president of Evanston’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he was hesitant to adopt a proposal that could dilute black voting power.
“It’s obvious that redistricting must occur,” Mitchell said. “We just want to make sure it’s done right.”
But Ald. Lionel Jean-Baptiste (2nd) said it is too early in the game to predict what the change in racial balance will mean for his ward.
“People want to maintain a diverse council,” Jean-Baptiste said. “And that value could dictate how we present the final proposal.”
He added that the proposal before the Rules Committee is still in draft stages and could still go through a lot of changes before it is set in stone.
However, for some residents, the process itself must come under scrutiny because it was largely developed without much community input, and several Evanston leaders are calling for more options.
“The focus is on this one proposal, and I don’t think that’s right,” Mitchell said. “Multiple proposals need to be considered.”
In previous years, the city clerk and the city staff had been responsible for creating redistricting proposals for the council to review. But in 1992, residents like Jager and aldermen were responsible for the current ward map.
“This (proposal) has been produced by a group of alderman,” Evanston resident Bruce Baumberger said. “The process they’ve gone through has not involved any input from the community.”
Baumberger said he hopes a number of community members will lobby for an enhanced process, including an independent citizen committee that could come up with alternative maps.
“One concern is to come up with a fair and equitable map that will be sound and workable for the next 10 years,” Baumberger said.
With the public hearing set for Monday, Baumberger said he hopes all interested parties will use the opportunity to provide input. But he added that one single night might not be enough to let aldermen understand all perspectives.
“The aldermen should understand that there are many people with skills that were willing to get involved in the process so they don’t have to take this on their shoulder alone,” Baumberger said.
For Moran — whose ward is unaffected by the proposal — his first concern was that many aldermen had not seen the map prior to the June 2 Rules Committee meeting when the map was made public.
“I was anxious that it would be widely distributed so that the community has an opportunity to comment on it,” Moran said, adding that there was a strong initial push to rush the complex process.
“It made a lot more sense to go at a reasonably deliberate pace,” Moran said. “It’s a citywide issue, not just a ward issue.”
Moran said he hopes the committee will hold several more public meetings before they settle on a proposal.
Originally the committee was supposed to hold the first public hearing July 7, but some aldermen wanted to extend the date to August to give them enough time to discuss the proposal with their constituents.
ASG passed a resolution May 28 asking the council to consider holding a second public hearing after Sept. 24, when students return to school. But some aldermen were hesitant to further postpone the hearings after spending two years on the proposal.
Federal law requires redistricting to be done at least 30 days before candidates can file for the next aldermanic election. In Evanston, that would make the decision due in August 2004.
The Rules Committee will meet on Aug. 4 at 7 p.m. at the Evanston Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave.
