At the meeting, Pam Jones said, "We need to be doing this for you rather than you trying to create a system for us, because we're the ones that best understand the details of our individual communities, and we're going to hear in a different way than you possibly could. You're either serving your second term and some of you going for a third term. There's a different kind of understanding that you have because you are the politician, but when you leave it to the citizens, when you leave it to the residents of a city. They're the ones that are going to come up with a system that makes sense. They're the ones that are going to look at the demographics throughout the city. They're the ones that are going to notice that when we are working on the Belle Haven area, we have to take into consideration the additional voters that we have in the high-end apartments on Haven Street, who have nothing… you know, they're nothing like the community I live in. They're very high-end, and when you add up all those bedrooms. We're talking about over a thousand new voters for the November '18 election. That's not something that the process we're now using is going to take into consideration, because they don't understand that level of detail."

The demographers are not stupid. What Ms. jones describes is illegal according the CVRA.

I was at the Council meeting and so heard Ms. Jones speak. While I'm not confirming that your quotes are correct, I want to point out that her remarks were all aimed toward making the case for an Independent Redistricting Commission. That type of Commission includes the most transparency and public input, and is least likely to consists of committee members who might have a vested interest in a particular outcome. In other words, an Independent Redistricting Commission is widely endorsed by highly respected "good governance" organizations, such as Common Cause and the League of Women Voters. To support her advocating for a Commission that represented the highest level of ethics, Ms. Jones mentioned some community nuances in Belle Haven that an outsider might not know about -- such as that the high-end apartments on Haven Street represent a more affluent community than the rest of Belle Haven. Her comments about the Belle Haven community pertained to the need to draw boundary lines to support "communities of interest." So I heard nothing objectionable in her remarks. Ms. Jones was also reacting to some information that had not been supplied beforehand, which puts speakers making public comments at a disadvantage because we have little time to formulate a cogent response. Again, her central point was that the people should draw the lines -- not politicians.

The compromise solution would be to have two commissions. The independent commission would be in charge of the 2020 districts. The advisory commission would be in charge of the 2018 districts.

The advisory commission would be on a deadline to finish by April.

The independent commission could be more carefully thought out with additional public participation opportunities.

If the plaintiff waives the right to force district election in 2018, then there's no need for the advisory commission. We could just skip using districts in 2018.

Pam/Lynne: Have you looked at home sales in Belle Haven? The three most recent, from public records:

1200 block of Hollyburne: $1,100,000
1100 block of Carlton: $1,120,000
100 block of Terminal: $955,000

That neighborhood is already a "luxury" district. One of those small apartments on Haven Ave is a discount, relatively! Maybe you should get out and meet some of your neighbors?