AIRC Update: Public hearings this week

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Yeah, yeah. I'm a day late with the schedule. I was busy, so sue me.

According to Steve Muratore, you didn't miss anything on Monday. The Arizona Eagletarian: Redistricting — Calm before the Storm?:

On Monday, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission met for the fourth time since the state Supreme Court reinstated Colleen Coyle Mathis to the chairmanship. The meeting, and discussions about the draft maps and proposed changes to them, were relatively uneventful.

That's not going to change anytime soon according to the Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) IRC maps on agenda for final OK – Arizona Capitol Times:

Agendas for the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission’s meetings for the week now include the possible approval of its new maps, and the final vote could come within the next few weeks.

* * *

IRC Chairwoman Colleen Mathis has said she wants to see final approval before Christmas so the U.S. Department of Justice has enough time to evaluate the maps.

But IRC Executive Director Ray Bladine said the Christmas deadline is a best-case scenario and doesn’t expect the commission to submit its maps to DOJ until January. He said there is no chance the IRC will approve its final maps today, and doesn’t expect the commission to approve the maps or any individual districts this week.

“Personally I think they have a long way to go,” Bladine said. “The goal is December before Christmas, but they’ve all acknowledged they may or may not be able to make that goal.”

It will take the IRC and its attorneys about a month at least to compile its submission to DOJ, which must pre-approve all voting and election law changes in Arizona. Bladine said the IRC may not even approve its final maps until next month.

* * *

Bladine said the IRC’s decision to include possible final approval of the districts will give the public notice that a final vote may be nearing, and will allow the commissioners to take action when they are ready. He said the preparation is similar to the procedure the IRC used for the approval of its preliminary maps in early October.

“We don’t know when they’re going to adopt it, so it provides an opportunity to let the public know it could happen anytime,” Bladine said.

With that in mind, here is the schedule of public hearings this week:

• Wednesday, 2:30pm at the Crowne Plaza Sky Harbor, 4300 E Washington, Phoenix
• Thursday, 11:00am, Crowne Plaza Sky Harbor
• Friday, 9:30am, Fiesta Resort, Broadway & Priest, Tempe.

Agenda Info

Steve Muratore reports that he got the mapping consultant to post change reports to the AIRC web site prior to scheduled public hearings so that information is available prior to the hearing:

I had asked for Strategic Telemetry to make the change reports available (on the IRC website) at the beginning of meetings at which the changes would be discussed and/or voted on. Today, ST made those changes reports available, along with "block equivalency" files. Those files, when fed into Maptitude, can be viewed while the deliberation is taking place. By request from Stertz, for Wednesday (the next meeting) Strategic Telemetry will post KMZ files (which open in Google Earth) so people can follow with the change reports and the proposed maps. ST will also post the maps in PDF files. But the PDFs will not provide the ability to zoom like the KMZ files.