Vigorous Debate Over Proposed Redistricting Plan

Report On The Meeting Of The Amherst Town Council, October 18,2021 – Part I

This meeting was held on Zoom, was recorded, and can be viewed here. 

Present 
Councilors: Lynn Griesemer (President, District 2), Alisa Brewer, Mandi Jo Hanneke, Andy Steinberg (At large), Cathy Schoen (District 1), Pat DeAngelis (District 2), Dorothy Pam and George Ryan (District 3), Evan Ross and Steve Schreiber (District 4), Shalini Bahl-Milne and Darcy DuMont (District 5). Absent: Sarah Swartz (District 1)

Staff: Paul Bockelman (Town Manager), Athena O’Keeffe (Clerk of the Council)

Controversy Arises In Proposed Redistricting Plan
The council heard the first presentation of the District Advisory Board’s (DAB) proposal for redrawing voting precincts and districts in Amherst. That presentation can be viewed here.The DAB was to have nine voting members from all five districts, but ended up with only six members and none from District 4. Those members are Irene Dujovne (District 1, chair), Mahek Ghelani (District 1), Marilyn Blaustein (District 2), Tracy Zafian and Joseph Gordon (District 3), and Peggy Shannon (District 5). Town Clerk Sue Audette, Mike Warner of the IT staff, and Dee Shabazz of the Board of Registrars are non voting members. The finalized plan must be submitted to the state by October 28.

Dujovne pointed out the difficulty of arriving at precincts and districts meeting the state guidelines of not fewer than 3,740 and not more than 4,000 residents per precinct. They also attempted to create contiguous precincts, keep neighborhoods together, keep borders clear, and not dilute minority votes. Of Amherst’s current precincts, eight of the ten do not currently comply with the state guidelines.

South Amherst is relatively sparsely populated, but accounted for about 33% of votes cast in town elections.

In order to achieve the specified goals in the short time they had since receiving the preliminary census data in August, the group met frequently and reviewed over 30 different possible maps. Amherst’s population grew by 1,444 residents since 2010 to a total of 39,263. 

Keeping 10 precincts of less than 4,000 residents each was especially challenging. In Amherst, “41% of the population resides in on-campus housing at UMass, Amherst College, and Hampshire College, with such housing concentrated into just 2% of the town’s geographic area.  Few of those residents vote in local elections; whereas South Amherst is relatively sparsely populated, but accounted for about 33% of votes cast in town elections. To encourage public input in the process, the DAB offered public comment periods at the beginning and end of each meeting, recorded its meetings, and gave presentations at district meetings in Districts 3 and 5 (see here).

The final proposed map meets the state requirements for the number of voters in each precinct and district.The DAB stressed a balance that includes equity for voters. The current arrangement has the largest bloc of BIPOC voters — in the apartment complexes off East Hadley Road — voting with the least diverse area of Amherst  (Precinct 8), which means that their votes have less impact. By moving Precinct 7 to District 3 (with Precinct 4), the BIPOC vote would not be so diluted. In the final proposed map, 82% of voters remain in their same precinct and 61% in their same district. Of active voters, 78% are in the same precinct and 67% in the same district. 

Although for most towns, redistricting is done by the state, Amherst has made its own plan for many years. In fact, Dujovne said that at the beginning of the redistricting process, the state tried to create a model for a voting map. State officials were unable to formulate a 10-precinct map for Amherst that met all qualifications, so they provided the town with a map with 11 precincts, which would violate the town Charter requiring five districts. For the five districts to be even, there would need to be either 10 or 15 precincts. Increasing to 15 precincts would greatly increase the cost of elections in town.

The proposed map must be approved by the Town Council and then by the state Local Election District Review Commission. New precincts and districts will go into effect for the November 2022 elections, but according to the town attorney, town councilors would continue to represent their current constituents until the next town election, which is in November 2023.

Councilor Comments
Most councilors thanked the DAB for their hard work and clear report. Cathy Schoen (District 1) felt that the distribution of the student population was reasonable because, so few students vote in town elections, and it would give them much more control than other populations have. George Ryan (District 3) said he has talked to students by standing at meeting places on campus. He expressed concern that  his district is separated from downtown, but understands the extreme constraints placed on the committee.

Evan Ross (District 4) thanked the DAB for prioritizing equity and pulling the apartments on East Hadley Road away from Precinct 8 (South Amherst, including part of Amherst Woods), but he was troubled by the way students are discounted in using active voters to draw precincts. He said that this measure is not used at the state or federal level and that it is similar to Republican party argument to discount minority and immigrant voters because they don’t or can’t vote. He asked how we can reject this argument nationally, but embrace it locally when it comes to students, although he did not mention the unique nature of college towns. He said  the DAB plan “cracks” (divides) the student population rather than empowering them. He said he had hoped that one day there will be a student member of the council, but felt that this plan goes against it.

Mandi Jo Hanneke (at large) agreed with Ross. She said that the DAB has deliberately discriminated on the basis of age. The population of younger people is diluted in the proposed maps, which, she said “deliberately disempowers 41% of the population.” She said that age is a protected class so it might not even be legal She quoted the Home Rule Charter (Section 7.4):

The territory of Amherst shall be divided into 5 districts based on compact and contiguous territory, bounded insofar as possible by the center line of known streets or ways or by other well defined limits. Each of the 5 districts shall consist of as nearly an equal number of inhabitants as it is possible to achieve and shall, to the extent possible, cluster together centers of common interest or neighborhoods, considering, but not limited to, places where people live, congregate, recreate, worship, shop, and learn.

She pointed out that the DAB map separates the learning community of UMass, with the Southwest dorms split between Districts 3 and 4. She added that according to recent legal opinion, the town actually has until December 15 to submit its maps to the state, so there should be no rush to accept the board’s map. 

Dorothy Pam (District 3), however, was pleased that local historical districts were kept together. She pointed out that District 4 has a huge group of UMass students, and said she is not sure what others, i.e., Hanneke and Ross, are seeing when they assert that the student residents were distributed throughout town to dilute their vote. She also pointed out that students change addresses over the summer and from year to year, and are declared inactive if they are not registered at their exact address at the time of an election. Most do not update their registration upon returning to Amherst in the fall.

Andy Steinberg pointed out that on page 18 of the DAB presentation, District 3 has only 733 voters while District 5 has 3,358 voters.”. He suggested that there be early voting on campus in future elections to make it easier for students to vote. 

Ross noted that the East Amherst Village Center was split into three different districts, the downtown into two, and the Pomeroy Village Center into two. Schoen pointed out that the DAB had to follow the rules set by the state, even if they didn’t always make sense here. The DAB had data on race, but data on income level has yet to be released.

Public comment
Maria Kopicki referred to the DAB challenge as a “Gordian knot for which it did not wield the sword to cleave.” She said that only making all seats at-large or creating many small districts composed of residents with similar interests would create equal representation, but these solutions are not allowed by the Charter. The result is that four councilors were elected with a handful of votes and the town’s elections now are mostly uncontested.

Jennifer Taub, who is running for the Council in District 3, said her district contains lots of freshman dorms. The voter lists she was given by the town clerk did not include the current names, so she has no way to reach these students. Also, it is unlikely that many of them are registered to vote in Amherst. 

Pam said that for the first council election in 2018, she mailed first-class letters to students in District 3, but most were returned to her as “undeliverable.” Alisa Brewer (at large) said there were two students (Mahek Ghelani and Joseph Gordon) on the DAB, but they had significant attendance problems even though the meetings were all on Zoom. She said there are lots of reasons students don’t vote, and thinks that voting would be encouraged by voting sites on campus. 

The DAB Responds
To Ross and Hanneke’s objections to “basing” the voting maps on active voters, Dujovne said that the DAB constructed the maps based on total residents in the town’s 423 U.S. census tracts. Active voters were only considered at the end of the process. The board received input from its two student members. She maintained that the student population was not diluted, but was distributed over several districts. DAB student member Ghelani pointed out that most students do not live in the Southwest dorms for more than one year (their freshman year) and that many move off-campus after a year or two here. She said the committee did its best to stay within the guidelines.

DAB member Zafian noted that some census blocks on campus have populations that are over half the maximum allowed per precinct.. She said with some districts having challenges of getting candidates to run for office, the DAB did not want to make an entire precinct or district consisting only of dorms. Both of the student members of the board said that students in dorms do not vote in local elections. They don’t return the annual census and don’t update their addresses, so they become inactive voters. And many no longer live in Amherst at all, so basing maps on registered voters would not be more accurate than using active voters.

DAB member Peggy Shannon said that the 15,000 students living in college housing are a diverse population, not a monolithic block. When the DAB tried to keep most of Southwest together, it broke up the Lincoln neighborhood. She said the board tried to balance this tension between neighborhoods. In regard to village centers, Shannon said that Census blocks boundaries are often roadways that can divide up a neighborhood or village center, and that the precincts are required to be along these same lines.

Audette pointed out past difficulties in allowing voting on campus—the designated room was not available or not suitable or the wi-fi was inadequate. She said that there would need to be conversations with UMass to work out details, and she was unsure whether the town or the university would cover the cost.

The redistricting plan will be presented again at the October 25 council meeting. The committee added more detailed descriptions of each precinct to their final report and will relabel the precincts using letters to decrease confusion. Each district will have an A and B precinct, e.g. District 1A and 1B. 

In addition, Hanneke submitted two other maps as alternatives to the DAB’s final proposal. These maps had already been considered by the DAB and rejected.  One of the alternative maps would combine precinct 6 and 8 into one district, which would cover 59% of Amherst’s geographic area and put 40% of the active voters in that district.  The other alternative map, which keeps the precinct pairings for the districts the same as they are now, would result in District 5 having 38% of the town’s active voters