An illustrative plan showing what three single-member districts could look like in Buda was given unanimous approval from city leaders March 20.
The move kicks off a series of public input meetings that will lead up to the first election of single-member districts in November.
The outline for the single-member districts is based on 2010 census blocks and uses an estimated population for 2018.
Some council members were concerned with using the older census numbers. However, city staff assured council that this is the most reliable data that could be used for this process. The next census will be conducted in 2020 and Buda can redistrict then, if necessary.
The 2018 population estimate was calculated by locating houses by utility accounts and then multiplying households by 2.92, which is the average single-family household size, according to illustrative plan documents.
Each district holds around 5,000 persons with District 1 representing the highest minority populations – 48.78 percent of the Hispanic population and 4.19 percent of the Black population.
Robert Heath, a consulting lawyer for the city with Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta LLC, presented the plan and said District 1 contained a majority of the minority populations in order to maintain areas of common community interest and avoid discrimination defined by the Voting Rights Act.
"We've tried to draw a district where there is a significant concentration of Hispanic population," Heath said during the meeting. "I don't know if there is racially polarized voting or not, we haven't done an analysis, but we've made an effort to avoid cracking or packing minorities."
Cracking refers to splitting strong voting groups in to many districts and packing refers to taking groups that have a strong vote in many districts and concentrating them in district/districts to have less voting power.
Heath said the district may look convoluted, but the city boundaries are convoluted, and so it is not going to be compact in that sense.
After seeing the interactive maps, Council Member Evan Ture was concerned about how certain neighborhoods were broken up between districts.
※That is the illustrative plan, which is kind of the first take and the first and best pass from the consultant. My initial take was that it was very good and covered a lot of the criteria, but quite a few neighborhoods were split, so I was making an attempt to try and combine neighborhoods so that it＊s easily explainable,§ Ture said. ※I felt like one of the criteria was missed with keeping it compact in keeping some of the neighborhoods together.§
Although Ture tried to adjust the lines of the district during the meeting, he found it difficult to keep the standard deviation for persons per district below the required 10 percent, while also keeping Hispanic voters together.
※Overall I think they＊ve done a great job of keeping all the criteria, districting the city well, and keeping us out of any legal potential pitfalls,§ Ture said.
The plans are now open for public comment which can be directed to the city clerk. Council will receive a report on the public comments on May 1 and by May 15, council will be considering possible revisions to the plans. Aug. 8 is the deadline for council to adopt the final plan before the elections on Nov. 6.
※I encourage all citizens to come up with their own plans as well,§ Ture said.
In the 2017 election, residents of Buda voted to transition three city council seats into single-member districts. In January, City Council Places 2, 4 and 6 were randomly drawn to be the first seats to make the switch.
Ron Fletcher, Buda＊s charter review committee chairman, told the Hays Free Press in 2017 that Buda residents were interested in voting for single-member districts to give better representation to all residents.
City council members are currently voted in at-large, where all residents in the city limits vote for all council seats.
