A skeptical crowd was loud enough to push county redistricting back several weeks at Monday”s meeting of the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors.
A vocal crowd of fewer than 40 questioned and criticized the plan put forward by the Golden Triangle Planning and Development District and endorsed by the supervisors. Unconvinced a plan which would create two minority districts within the county is impossible, the citizens picked on various points until the board agreed to wait until April to make a decision.
An information session between citizens and Toby Sanford, GTPDD geographic information system manager and one of the architects of the proposed redistricting, was hastily scheduled to be held at the county courthouse Monday at 5:30 p.m.
While demographic information regarding the county”s composition following the 2010 census was presented at the meeting, the information sessions will provide citizens with maps of the proposed redistricting and allow time for more questions.
Another public hearing on the matter will be scheduled, but District 3 Supervisor and Board President Marvell Howard said it likely won”t take place at the board”s April 4 meeting.
Howard said it”s unlikely the information sessions or the additional public hearing will give rise to any information the supervisors and GTPDD planners haven”t considered.
“I”d be really surprised if someone presents a process that”s different than what we have here,” he said.
Still, Howard and Sanford invited citizens to offer alternative plans in addition to asking questions.
Problems arose Monday night when Sanford explained that enough whites had moved to the county to naturally dilute black voting strength in District 5, the county”s one minority district, and District 2, which has the second highest minority population. Even after redrawing district lines to add as many black voters as possible to both districts, District 5 slipped from 62 percent black to 59 percent black while District 2 topped out at 38 percent black.
“We gave (District 2 Supervisor) Orlando (Trainer) almost every black voter in my district and his district is still majority white,” said Howard.
Citizens expressed doubt the county, which is 36 percent black, could not be redrawn with two minority districts. Sanford replied that the county”s black population is too spread out to add existing majority black areas to a district without also adding the majority white areas in between.
The supervisors lauded the proposal as the only legal and logical option, noting that it kept all candidates qualified for county elections in their current districts, although elections will be held using the existing lines and possibly again under the proposed lines. When skeptical citizens began to sense the supervisors had made their decisions, they began asking when the redistricting plan was due to be turned in to the Department of Justice, to which Howard answered the law states the plan must be submitted “in a timely manner.”
The public hearing was allotted 30 minutes on the meeting”s agenda but took nearly two hours to complete.
It took the supervisors a fraction of that time to table a resolution opposing the State House of Representatives” reapportionment plan, which would split Oktibbeha County into six congressional districts. Trainer said he didn”t see the need for the board to “get involved” in the matter and District 1 Supervisor Cliff Clardy and Howard quickly agreed. District 4 Supervisor Daniel Jackson expressed his willingness to publicly oppose the plan.
Circuit Clerk Angie McGinnis chided the board for avoiding the issue.
“This board should take the lead in opposing the plan,” she said.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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