Here’s how you can participate in Fort Worth’s City Council redistricting process
Fort Worth’s City Council wants the public to know the redistricting process is not over.
The council voted 5-3 Tuesday to support a map combining proposals from council members Jared Williams, Chris Nettles and Cary Moon. District 2 council member Carlos Flores abstained from the vote saying he needed more time to evaluate the maps.
The process moves to a redistricting task force, which met Wednesday to review 18 maps submitted by residents as well as the one submitted by the council. It reviewed each map see how well they met the selection criteria set by the previous task force in March.
The council picked the combined map over one proposed by Moon that prioritized boundary lines defined by major streets and geographies.
District 9 council member Elizabeth Beck said the combined map appeared to do a better job keeping together communities of interest.
The city defines these groups as “a local population with shared socio-economic characteristics and political institutions that would benefit from unified representation.” Communities of interest had to register with the city by Sept. 15 in order to be considered in the map making process.
After the vote, Mayor Mattie Parker allowed Moon to submit his map to the task force as a citizen.
Vice Chair Bert Williams, a former City Council member, expressed his dismay at the council submitting maps at all. He questioned whether the council would accept the task force’s map after it selected one of its own.
“It’s a waste of time for us to be here,” Williams said.
Task force member Lucrecia Powell reminded the members the council is elected to represent the people and that its map shouldn’t be discounted.
“I take the council in good faith,” said task force chair Sal Espino, a former City Council member for District 2.
The task force will meet three times in December to evaluate the submitted maps.
After reviewing all the maps, the task force will meet at Dec. 2 at 3 p.m. at City Hall to whittle the submissions down to around 5. This will make it easier for outside legal council to evaluate whether the maps violate the Voting Rights Act or the U.S. Constitution.
The task force will have a public meeting at 6 p.m. Dec. 8 in the City Council chamber to get feedback from residents on the remaining map submissions. It will meet again two days later to select its initial map to present to the City Council at its Jan. 4 work session.
The council will then hold a public meetings on Jan. 11 and Jan. 18. This is where the council will discuss and vote on potential changes to the task force’s suggested map.
The process will conclude in February when the council is required to hold four public hearings around the city. It will vote on whether to accept that map at its Feb. 22 meeting at 10 a.m.
This story was originally published November 17, 2021 at 5:16 PM.
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