Coalition Works to Expand Public Participation in Seattle’s Redistricting Process | South Seattle Emerald

by Ben Adlin

As officers start redrawing the boundaries of Seattle’s seven Metropolis Council districts, neighborhood teams are working to extend public participation within the course of, warning that how the strains are drawn will form illustration in Metropolis Corridor for years to return.

Overseeing the redistricting course of is the Seattle Redistricting Fee, made up of 5 appointed commissioners. Two had been chosen by final yr’s Metropolis Council and two extra had been picked by former Mayor Jenny Durkan. These 4 then chosen a fifth member of the group.

“Districts had been created to extend illustration for underserved communities,” Nirae Petty, advocacy program supervisor on the City League of Metropolitan Seattle, instructed the Emerald, explaining that districts might help unite communities with shared experiences behind candidates or coverage targets. “Utilizing the redistricting course of to extend the illustration and voting energy for our communities is basically vital.”

Petty is a part of a coalition of advocates and community-based organizations making an attempt to interact Communities of Shade round redistricting, a sophisticated and typically tedious course of that may however have large affect. District boundaries can affect which candidates are elected, what legal guidelines are handed, and the way public cash is spent.

“We have to guarantee that districts are made for the neighborhood to elect their very own representatives and that politicians aren’t simply utilizing the districting course of for their very own reelection,” Petty stated, “as a result of then we find yourself underserved and underheard.”

Of explicit curiosity to organizers are District 2 (South Seattle and Chinatown-Worldwide District) and District 3 (Central Seattle), that are residence to lots of the metropolis’s Communities of Shade, Indigenous teams, immigrants, refugees, and low-income populations. District 2, notably, is the town’s solely majority-minority district.

Seattle’s inhabitants has grown by greater than 21% prior to now decade, based on the 2020 U.S. Census, and a few areas have grown sooner than others. Which means adjusting current boundaries with a view to guarantee every new district incorporates a roughly equal variety of individuals (simply over 105,000). The Metropolis Council itself consists of 9 members — one from every of the seven districts plus two elected by voters citywide.

Guidelines governing Seattle’s redistricting course of say the brand new districts needs to be “compact and contiguous” and never gerrymandered. Commissioners are supposed to think about quite a lot of elements, together with current district boundaries, waterways, and different geographic boundaries, in addition to the town’s communities and neighborhoods.

These elements already put marginalized communities at a drawback, organizers say, declaring that boundaries equivalent to main streets or highways typically run proper by historic Communities of Shade, actually because these developments had been designed with out enter from these residents. Utilizing such options to attract district boundaries, they word, can find yourself dividing cohesive communities and diluting their collective voting energy.

Marginalized voices have additionally had little sway traditionally over how boundary strains are drawn — or whether or not to have districts in any respect. The 2013 poll query that initially cut up Seattle into seven separate districts, for instance, was backed primarily by conservative white businesswoman Faye Garneau. Whereas some variety advocates supported the proposal as a potential strategy to enhance illustration, many had been turned off by Garneau’s assertion on the time that “There’s just one race, and that’s the human race.”

“It was a political determination,” Jude Ahmed, civic engagement organizer for the City League, stated of the transfer to make Seattle into districts, including that Individuals of Shade additionally lacked significant enter into the place preliminary boundaries had been set. “It has made us much more cautious about how vital it’s to essentially get the voices of Communities of Shade into the room this time.”

Each neighborhood advocates and the commissioners themselves say the method can solely occur with public participation. The City League, as a part of the coalition Redistricting Justice for Seattle (RJS) — a subgroup of the statewide group Redistricting Justice for Washington (RJW) — has participated in varied outreach occasions and listening periods. RJS has additionally held public mapping conferences to debate priorities for the way the districts are drawn.

Commissioners, in the meantime, just lately kicked off a collection of public boards to reply questions and collect enter earlier than releasing a ultimate proposal, due in November. Accessible on-line and in-person, the District 1 discussion board was held Could 15 at Excessive Level Department Public Library in West Seattle, and the District 2 occasion befell Could 19 at El Centro de la Raza’s Centilia Cultural Heart on Beacon Hill.

The District 3 public discussion board is scheduled for the night of Thursday, June 2, each on-line and in-person at Garfield Neighborhood Heart.

Different teams are placing on applications of their very own, equivalent to Rainier Avenue Radio (RAR), which hosted a neighborhood assembly on the night of Tuesday, Could 24, designed to unfold the phrase about redistricting and encourage wider involvement.

“This isn’t the sexiest factor to speak about, however it’s critically, critically vital,” RAR’s Tony B. stated on the occasion, held on the group’s new residence, the Columbia Metropolis Theater.

Some on the Columbia Metropolis occasion stated they’d solely simply discovered in regards to the redistricting course of, with one attendee merely strolling in after seeing an announcement on the road. Others had been upset at the concept that a handful of appointed commissioners could be drawing boundaries able to probably dividing communities that share a standard cultural bond.

“We’ve acquired individuals from outdoors the district making selections for individuals who dwell within the district,” stated one commenter, recognized by RAR as Blaine Parrott, who added that he didn’t learn about redistricting till getting an electronic mail in regards to the occasion. “We needs to be making these selections for ourselves.”

Commissioners, for his or her half, say they’re longing for public enter on how to attract district strains, and plenty of have expressed a dedication to fairness and inclusion. 

“We’re keen to listen to your hopes, goals, and aspirations for the brand new council districts that now we have been charged to create. We additionally acknowledge that we’re situated on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish Individuals, particularly the Duwamish, Suquamish, Stillaguamish, and Muckleshoot tribes which can be nonetheless right here and proceed to honor their heritage,” Fee Chair Eliseo “EJ” Juárez, who can also be the director of fairness and environmental justice for the Washington Division of Pure Sources, stated initially of final week’s District 2 public discussion board.

The fee’s web site lists a handful of the way for individuals to weigh in, equivalent to by filling out a survey, drawing and submitting their very own maps by way of a web based device, or attending one of many public boards that run by July.

To make the method extra accessible, the fee has additionally offered quite a lot of demographic information in addition to translations of some supplies and interpretation providers.

Whereas all feedback are useful, commissioners stated, they’re most all for particular boundary ideas. “Nonetheless you wish to draw or talk your map or boundaries to us, we’ll gladly settle for,” Juárez stated, “even when it’s a crayon on paper.”

The objective is for the fee to listen to instantly from neighborhood members on the way in which to crafting new district boundaries. It’s residents themselves, commissioners stated, who’ve the very best sense of what displays their communities.

Many who spoke throughout public remark at boards held thus far stated they supported retaining Communities of Shade collectively basically however felt there had been too little time to assessment the redistricting course of or present significant enter. Furthermore, as a result of the conferences are organized so as from Could by July, beginning with District 1 and ending in District 7, districts farther south in Seattle, the place extra Individuals of Shade dwell, had far much less time to arrange.

Whereas there will probably be yet another alternative for public remark after the fee releases its ultimate proposal map this fall, organizers say the method dangers shutting out the very enter that commissioners declare to be searching for.

Andrew Hong, statewide coordinator for RJW and a lead organizer of the RJS offshoot, instructed the Emerald that along with scheduling extra public conferences with communities this summer time, he’d prefer to see the fee schedule not less than three totally different public boards after the ultimate map comes out with a view to accommodate individuals’s totally different schedules and the sheer variety of potential feedback. A single remark session, Hong stated, “doesn’t give the general public sufficient time or sufficient alternative to voice their issues to the fee.”

RJS and its members are nonetheless doing their very own outreach to the neighborhood to find out what areas to prioritize, however Hong and others stated they’ve three most important geographic areas of focus for this redistricting spherical.

First, they wish to be certain that the Chinatown-Worldwide District (CID) stays in a single district, District 2, which additionally contains most of Beacon Hill. Hong, a lifelong South Seattle resident, famous that many Asian People who work or personal companies within the CID both dwell or have kids in colleges in South Seattle.

“Lots of small enterprise house owners that I do know of have kids that attend colleges on Beacon Hill — Beacon Hill Elementary Faculty, Kimball Elementary Faculty,” he stated. “I do know a number of individuals who dwell within the south and have companies in Chinatown and Worldwide District.”

To protect that unity, Hong says, the brand new maps ought to be certain that District 1, in West Seattle, doesn’t prolong east of I-5 and reduce into Beacon Hill. Likewise, if District 1 expands northward, he doesn’t wish to see it prolong into the CID.

One other space neighborhood teams are watching intently is Yesler Terrace, a various neighborhood that’s at the moment cut up between Districts 2 and three. It additionally sits adjoining to District 7, which runs from Pioneer Sq. north to Magnolia.

Many advocates wish to see Yesler Terrace collectively in a single district, though teams just like the City League are nonetheless making an attempt to really feel out whether or not residents there relate extra with District 2, which incorporates most of South Seattle, or District 3, which encompasses the Central District, Leschi, and far of Capitol Hill.

The fee thus far has launched 4 draft maps ready in February by an out of doors mapping advisor. Whereas advocates have stated every would fail in its personal strategy to preserve communities of curiosity intact, commissioners have emphasised that the drafts had been meant solely as examples, primarily based on a lot of arbitrary elements equivalent to main arterial roads and unofficial neighborhood designations.

Hong, nevertheless, thinks it’s vital that commissioners hear the neighborhood’s damaging response to the instance maps. “These maps aren’t good, for my part,” he stated. “These maps are official fee maps which can be draft maps, not less than, that the fee determined to launch to kick off their course of.”

Hong stated that RJS and a lot of its constituent organizations are engaged on draft maps. He acknowledged the fee’s draw-your-own-map course of, which entails constructing a map utilizing on-line software program and balancing inhabitants ranges exactly, may very well be formidable to some individuals.

“When you can’t draw maps yourselves,” he stated, “being a voice — and particularly a voice amongst different voices who share your values and pursuits — will assist information the commissioners to picking a map proposal that makes positive that the priorities you’re voicing are mirrored.”

In an interview with the Emerald on Tuesday, Commissioner Rory O’Sullivan, a lawyer who helped writer the initiative behind Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program, stated the fee is already working to include neighborhood suggestions round how Districts 1, 2, and three could be drawn, pointing to discussions throughout a committee assembly earlier within the day.

“A few of the instance maps have District 1 acquiring the inhabitants numbers that it must acquire both by lopping off North Beacon Hill or lopping off South Beacon Hill, or in another manner carving up Beacon Hill,” O’Sullivan stated, “and there appears to be consensus among the many coalition members that we don’t wish to try this.”

Equally, there appears to be a consensus that Downtown Seattle, which some advocates have requested be included all inside a single district, will have to be cut up amongst not less than two districts, O’Sullivan stated. 

“However even when we make all these assumptions,” the commissioner continued, “how far north District 2 ought to go and what which means in regards to the east and northeast facet of District 2 are, I believe, open questions. These are going to be a few of the tougher questions.”

Requested how a lot he felt the fee ought to work to extend efficient illustration for Communities of Shade, O’Sullivan replied that the physique’s job is “positively to not be colorblind, however the regulation offers type of blended steering.”

“One the one hand, the regulation prohibits us from drawing strains solely primarily based on the race of the inhabitants,” he stated. “However, we’re additionally prohibited from making an attempt to dilute illustration for Communities of Shade.”

O’Sullivan added: “I believe there’s settlement among the many commissioners that we’re, — I believe within the context of the Metropolis of Seattle, it completely is smart to make sure that traditionally aligned communities, communities which have been impacted by redlining and gentrification and different structural racism, that these elements are taken into consideration after we guarantee acceptable illustration.”

He requested that when making ideas, members of the general public contemplate that as a result of regulation’s requirement that districts have almost equivalent inhabitants sizes, any motion of a boundary to incorporate extra individuals must be offset by adjustments some other place.

“The rationale why I’m encouraging individuals as a lot as potential to submit maps is as a result of in the event you don’t need the road to be close to you, the place do you suppose is an acceptable place for the road to be?” O’Sullivan stated. “If you would like X neighborhood and Y neighborhood to be collectively, that’s actually helpful data. However then what different issues does that create for Z neighborhood?”

One potential reform down the street, stated Hong at RJS, may very well be to easily set up extra districts total. That might assist forestall Communities of Shade from being lumped into districts that dilute their voices. Hong, who additionally works on the Washington Neighborhood Alliance, stated that’s a plan the group is “actively pushing for.”

“Increasing the membership of Metropolis Council,” he defined, “permits for Communities of Shade who’re within the minority in Seattle to have extra alternatives to elect a candidate of their alternative. Whereas proper now there’s just one majority-minority council district, underneath a system the place there are 11 or 15 council seats, there may very well be a number of councilmembers from majority-minority districts.”

Barring such a sweeping change, the boundaries put in place by Seattle’s present redistricting course of will probably be in place for the following 10 years, till after the following Census depend. And whereas organizers are working arduous to guarantee that strains are drawn in ways in which maximize illustration of Communities of Shade, some on the public boards acknowledged that redistricting can solely start to handle broader problems with displacement which have eroded Seattle’s historic communities.

“If race and racial fairness shouldn’t be included on this decision-making, then we’re in bother,” one commenter, who didn’t give his title, stated on the assembly hosted by RAR on Tuesday. However, he continued, “our downside is way larger than that.”

“The worth of homes is skyrocketing, and individuals who have been right here for 40 or 50 years, they can’t even afford to dwell in their very own homes,” the particular person stated. “I don’t know what’s to be performed in mild of these difficulties.”

Ben Adlin is a reporter and editor who grew up within the Pacific Northwest and at the moment lives on Capitol Hill. He’s coated politics and authorized affairs from Seattle and Los Angeles for the previous decade and has been an Emerald contributor since Could 2020, writing about neighborhood and municipal information. Discover him on Twitter at @badlin.

? Featured picture from King County.gov.

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