As Elk Grove’s redistricting proceeds, city council favors two proposed maps

As part of the decennial redistricting process, last night, the Elk Grove’s City Clerk made a report during the Elk Grove City Council meeting that presented several proposed maps for the city’s four city council districts. The redistricting process being led by City Clerk Jason Lindgren has included several public meetings and online tools where maps have been drawn. In his presentation, Lindgren showed several submitted maps that he believed met most of the legal requirements, such as equal distributions of population and keeping communities of interest together. As of yesterday, there have been 21 maps submitted and posted on the city clerk’s page. To assist city council members, Lindgren offered a pyramid ranking of the maps. The top four were maps three, four, 11, and 12. During their deliberations, the mayor and city council members agreed their favorite renderings were maps 11 and 12. Two people speaking during public comment said they favored map 21, noting that configuration would keep the Punjabi people, a community of interest, united.Lindgren noted the city’s contracted demographers would examine the maps to assure they meet federal and state requirements. Pending their audit, the maps could be presented to the city council for their approval. The final maps need to be adopted by the city council no later than their April 13 meeting for submission to Sacramento County by April 17. The new district boundaries will be effective for the November general election. Lindgren acknowledged the process has been done very quickly and noted more time would have been amenable.  “In all honesty, if I knew now what I didn’t know back then, I would have loved to start this process in September,” Lindgren said. “Instead, the process was started seeking assistance externally, it would have been nice to be doing this at the end of January.”