City Council Redistricting Committee Asking for Input about Communities of Interest

May 12, 2022

The 2022 City Council Redistricting Committee will be holding their sixth meeting on Wednesday, May 18, 2022, at 5:30 PM on Zoom Webinar. The Committee is inviting members of the public to this meeting to share the details about their communities of interest. Communities of interest are a principal of redistricting and are defined as a group and/or area with shared characteristics, such as neighborhoods, language, history, economics, and/or lived experiences. The Redistricting Committee is looking for input about communities of interest, as they continue creating and reviewing concept maps.

Committee Members have asked residents of the City of Albuquerque to join their next meeting and participate in the public comment portion of the agenda to speak about their communities of interest. If members of the public are unable to attend, the Committee has asked the public to submit their description of their community of interest in written form on the project webpage at: www.cabq.gov/2022redistricting.

The Redistricting Committee has been working since early March and is asking Albuquerque community members to engage in this important process. All information on the Redistricting Committee is on their webpage and contains all past meeting information, including videos of the meetings, presentation materials, concept maps that have been presented thus far, and the ability for community members to submit written public comments that can include map suggestions and information about their communities of interest.

The Redistricting Committee is encouraging community members to participate in the redistricting process by using Districtr to draw maps and communities of interest using the tools on this website: https://districtr.org/tag/drawABQ, to draw your own plan, update existing concepts under committee consideration, or let the committee know about your community. Community members can create maps then submit them to the Committee by pasting the map link into the public comment webform on the project webpage.

Public comment can be taken on the project webpage at www.cabq.gov/2022redistricting and live at the meeting on Wednesday, May 18. Community members can join the Webinar at https://cabq.zoom.us/j/89144240074 and use the “Raise Hand” function during the public comment section of the agenda and they will be called on to provide comments to the Redistricting Committee.

Every 10 years, the City Charter requires that the Council appoint a committee composed of an equal number of representatives from each Council District to review and make recommendations regarding redistricting the Council Districts based on information from the Federal Census. The Committee is tasked with using the population data from the official 2020 U.S. Census along with any other pertinent information to make a report recommending changes in the Council District boundaries that the Committee decides are necessary based on constitutional principles governing voting rights, population, compactness, and other related factors.

The Committee is made up of 18 members - one voting member and one alternate member from each Council District. The Council is required, in appointing a committee that "as nearly as is practicable" be a fair and balanced representation of all geographical areas of the City in the redistricting process and provide a total membership that reflects the racial, ethnic and gender makeup of the City's population.

All meetings of the 2022 Redistricting Committee are subject to the State Open Meetings Act.

The 2022 Redistricting committee was established via R-21-226 and the members appointed via OC-22-1. Per R-21-226, the committee began meeting in March 2022, with recommendations due to City Council by July 1st, 2022.

WHAT: 2022 City Council Redistricting Committee Meeting

WHEN: Wednesday, May 18, 2022, at 5:30 PM

WHERE: Zoom Webinar ID: 891 4424 0074

            Zoom link: https://cabq.zoom.us/j/89144240074

            Live stream on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0BnlBvbfb4s