City council members voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a new ward map, rejecting Mayor Keith Gaskin’s urging to first hold a public hearing on the changes.
Federal law requires the populations among wards to deviate by no more than 10%. The 2020 Census revealed the current ward lines create a greater deviation, which makes redistricting necessary before next year’s city election.
The new map, which the Oxford-based Bridge and Watson consulting firm prepared, has a top-to-bottom deviation of 8.7%. Ward 1 has the most people, with 4,168. The least-populated is Ward 4, with 3,817 citizens. The map includes slight changes from the one the firm first proposed in May.
A motion and second were on the floor before Gaskin had a chance to ask for a public hearing, something the Bridge and Watson firm recommended.
“You’re not obligated (legally) to hold a public hearing,” Gaskin said.
The council delayed approving the redistricting plan for months, with Vice Mayor and Ward 2 Councilman Joseph Mickens telling The Dispatch in August that members were waiting to see if the city could figure in a proposed annexation.
Litigation on the annexation plan will extend into next year, though, well past when city election qualifying begins in January. If annexation goes through, it will trigger another redistricting.
Lowndes County Circuit Clerk Teresa Barksdale’s office must input street data from the new map into a state address library system and notify voters of their potentially new wards, something Barksdale hoped to complete before Sept. 1, when the federal general election opened. Now, her office can’t deal with the city map until after the federal election closes in November.
That opens up an opportunity for a public hearing, Gaskin said, for citizens to comment on the redistricting plan.
“It would not hold her up any longer because we’ve waited so long that they’re not going to get to work with this until November,” Gaskin said, noting he had spoken to Barksdale earlier Tuesday. “… They can meet the (January) deadline.”
Ward 6 Councilwoman Jacqueline DiCicco seemed open to Gaskin’s recommendation, but also told the mayor, “I think we’ve all discussed it among ourselves.”
The unanimous vote to adopt the plan without a hearing went forward without further discussion.
New map
The boundaries of all six wards will change with the adopted map.
Ward 1 picks up territory south of Main Street, between the Tombigbee River and Sixth Street South, from Wards 4 and 5, as well as a handful of blocks between 19th and 23rd Street South that include Short Main Street from Ward 2.
Ward 2 is picking up territory in Northside, between Forrest Boulevard and Gaylane Drive, extending north to Spruce Street, from Ward 3. However, Ward 2 is losing the blocks between Brooks Road and Bishop Circle, extending east to Read Drive, to Ward 3.
Ward 3 also is ceding the area north of Hemlock Street, between Gardner Boulevard and North Browder Street, to Ward 4.
Ward 6 would lose a southern chunk of its current territory — south of Willowbrook Road to the east of Fifth Street North and south of Lincoln Road to the west of Fifth Street — to Ward 5, which would also pick up territory south of Brickyard Road between Bluecutt Road Extended and the 20th Street North.
Budget, Tennessee Williams grant
The council will hold a special-call meeting at 2:45 p.m. Monday in City Hall to approve the city’s budget for Fiscal Year 2025.
Gaskin told The Dispatch the council could have adopted the budget at Tuesday’s regular council meeting, but officials are still trying to “clarify some issues.” Specifically, they still must decide how to deal with $192,000 in additional requests for outside appropriations that will eat away about one-third of the planned surplus.
On Tuesday, the council also approved giving the Columbus Cultural Heritage Foundation $54,000 in matching funds for grants related to restoring the Tennessee Williams Home and Welcome Center downtown. The city will use American Rescue Plan Act money for the match and apply it to the Fiscal Year 2024 budget.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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