by SEAN BATURA
County residents who addressed the commissioners court at a public hearing on Monday appeared divided between support for two redistricting plans: one that would split much of Kyle between three precincts and another that proposes to include Dripping Springs and Wimberley in Precinct 4.
Because the Kyle area has grown so much over the last 10 years, commissioners must decrease Precinct 2’s population by about 13,000 people. Much of the redistricting debate thus far has been over what portions of Kyle should be included in the other precincts, notably Precinct 4. Every Kyle resident who addressed commissioners on Monday opposed putting large portions of Kyle in Precinct 4.
“Because if I’m put in [Precinct 4], you know damn good and well [Pct. 4 Commissioner] Ray Whisenant is going to represent Dripping Springs,” said Kyle resident John McDougall on Tuesday. “He’s not going to represent the 150 of us in Meadow Woods, or the people up in the county over here, his constituency is Dripping. People from Kyle don’t have anything in common with Dripping Springs.”
McDougall was among four Kyle residents who addressed commissioners at Monday’s redistricting hearing. The other Kyle residents were Esperanza Orosco, Lila Knight and Diane Hervol. Hervol is a Kyle city councilmember, and she alone expressed no preference for any of the handful of redistricting plans under consideration by the county’s redistricting committee.
San Marcos resident Sam Brannon, who addressed commissioners at Monday’s hearing, joined Orosco, Knight, and McDougall in saying the county is not conducting the redistricting process in a sufficiently transparent manner. Brannon and McDougal said it is not appropriate for the redistricting process to be guided by commissioners who stand to lose or gain from the outcome.
Hays County Pct. 1 Commissioner Debbie Ingalsbe, a San Marcos Democrat, and Hays County Pct. 3 Commissioner Will Conley, a Wimberley Republican, are on the county redistricting committee tasked with making a redistricting recommendation to the court. Also on the committee are Buda City Councilmember Sandra Tenorio and Hays County Republican Party Chair Bud Wymore.
Orosco and McDougall said the redistricting committee should have had its meetings open to the public.
Conley asked Knight and Kyle resident Mark LeMense to leave a redistricting committee meeting on June 30. At the committee’s third meeting LeMense again attempted to attend and was asked to leave.
“My experience has been when people don’t like the results and they don’t have a good response and rebuttal to those results, they cry ‘transparency,’” Conley said. “I think it’s just a tactic. This decision was made by the court to have a committee in this format and I think we worked well and had a fair process. You’re going to tell me that it’s not transparent to have two Democrats and two Republicans in a room, two females, two males, two minorities, two Caucasians? And that there’s something wrong going on? I just disagree with that.”
McDougall said he favors Redistricting Plan M1 as the “least offensive” choice, as it keeps more of Kyle together than most of the other plans. Plans M1 and M2 were created by and are preferred by Pct. 2 Commissioner Mark Jones, a Kyle Republican, and the plans differ from one another slightly in ways advantageous to either Conley or Ingalsbe.
Ingalsbe said she favors Plan N, though she said the court is unlikely to approve it. Ingalsbe said Plan N was created by a group of citizens including Kyle resident Bob Barton. Barton is majority owner of Barton Publications Inc. Conley said former Hays County Judge Eddy Etheridge participated in the creation of Plan N.
