Public input opportunities on tap for City’s redistricting plan

Members of the public will have opportunities to weigh in on the City of Milwaukee’s redistricting process during two upcoming public meetings, according to Alderman Ashanti Hamilton.

The first opportunity will be during a virtual bilingual town hall meeting at 6 p.m. on Friday, November 19 hosted by Alderman Hamilton (attendee link information is here). During the special town hall meeting, the draft aldermanic district boundary map for the city will be revealed.

The second opportunity for public input will take place starting at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, November 22 during a public hearing on the district map during a special meeting of the Judiciary and Legislation Committee in room 301-B at City Hall, 200 E. Wells St. The meeting will also be bilingual, and the attendee link can be accessed here.

The special Judiciary and Legislation Committee meeting will be televised live on the City Channel (channel 25 on Spectrum Cable and channel 99 on AT&T U-Verse in the City of Milwaukee) and via streaming video on the city website at city.milwaukee.gov/Channel25.

Alderman Hamilton, chair of the Judiciary and Legislation Committee, said he is encouraging residents to engage in the redistricting process and hopes to see good attendance at the town hall meeting and the public hearing on November 22^nd. “I would not be surprised to see a few citizens or groups bring their own maps (to the public sessions),” he said. “That would be appropriate as we are committed to a transparent and public process where review, input, and feedback are the main ingredients.”

The full Common Council could complete its redistricting process when it meets on Tuesday, November 23 at 9 a.m. to review a district map plan.

The Legislative Reference Bureau has completed a draft election ward plan that is now under final review through November 15th, Alderman Hamilton said. The Common Council will hold a special meeting at noon on Wednesday, November 17th to approve the wards.

The Common Council has created a modified and updated webpage (city.milwaukee.gov/redistricting) featuring key information that the public can access regarding the redistricting process.

The United States conducts a census of the entire population every 10 years. This information is used for many purposes, including the distribution of federal and state revenues and the drawing of boundaries for election districts at the federal, state and local levels.

NOTE:

Counties are first required to develop a tentative supervisory district plan for their county boards. After that, municipalities are required to revise the boundaries of election wards and then their city council districts. Subsequently, school districts and the state Legislature are also required to update the boundaries of their election districts.

The usual timeline for local redistricting has been significantly altered by the delay of Census information.  Local redistricting started getting underway in late August, after the State of Wisconsin distributed Census data to its 72 counties.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.