Charter committee drops 2025 redistricting, offers to continue working until October

Lane County’s Charter Review Committee unanimously agreed, no redistricting in 2025. On July 29:

Steve Cornacchia (Charter Review Committee, July 29): Steve Cornacchia, committee member… Throughout this document, there is this requirement that there’ll be a new redistricting in ‘25. And I think it’s eight different places in this…

[00:00:21] And there is sentiment out there that the last exercise was somehow tainted. And I’m just not, for one, I’m just not convinced that there was a bunch of nefarious stuff going on. I can’t look at the maps and say, ‘Hmm, this one just doesn’t make any sense to me.’ And so my recommendation is that we don’t support that idea. And the idea we do it in ’25 and then turn around and do it again in five more years to me seems a little bit, redundant, I guess, given how the census works. So, with all of that…

[00:01:02] You take away that urgency and then I think you take away a lot of the concerns of the Clerk’s office, for the resources that are necessary to do this extra work.

[00:01:13] John Q: County Clerk Dena Dawson told commissioners July 26, meeting all of the deadlines for a 2025 redistricting would ‘pose significant risks to the integrity of elections.’

[00:01:24] Steve Cornacchia (Charter Review Committee, July 29): So, I know that I’m probably not making a significant number of people happy with this recommendation, but I would recommend that we remove any consideration or discussion of a 2025 redistricting effort from this document and then move forward with that.

[00:01:48] Stefan Ostrach (Charter Review Committee, July 29): Stefan Ostrach, vice chair of the committee… I agree. And if that’s a motion, I would second the motion. I think all of the public testimony we’ve heard to date since we reconvened… everyone who addressed it objected to the mid-decade extra redistricting, and I concur, there’s no reason to do that.

[00:02:11] Morgan Munro (Charter Review Committee, July 29): I’m Morgan Munro. I’m the chair of this committee…

[00:02:14] All those in favor of the motion on the table, please indicate in the affirmative. (Aye) Great. I see unanimous approval of the committee.

[00:02:24] John Q: With 2025 out, the next redistricting committee will meet after the 2030 census. That allows time to craft language delegating authority to approve new district maps from commissioners to the redistricting committee.

[00:02:39] Morgan Munro (Charter Review Committee, July 29): If, as this proposal suggests, that authority is removed from the commissioners, it’s imperative that that process be really well done. And whether it lives in the charter, or whether it lives in code, or the committee’s own bylaws, to really put that responsibility on folks that we haven’t elected is going to mean that it has to be very well done both in structure, how it’s written on a piece of paper, and then how the people who are doing the work, carry it out.

[00:03:15] Commissioner David Loveall (July 30): I’ve been involved with the Charter Review Committee the last couple of meetings on Friday and yesterday, and I want to just express my sincere gratitude to those folks for the hard work and passionate input that they’re putting on this potentially and past controversial issue with the redistricting committees to make them more independent.

[00:03:34] It seemed many people came forward and were expressing hostilities and concerns and things that just were facts that maybe weren’t. I want to say this is what I’ve noticed about the Charter Review Committee, and I respect them greatly for this, is they took on the challenge of taking this information that had been sitting on the desks of our staff for four years, so now they had all the tools of which they could deal with to work the redistricting committee in a more independent fashion.

[00:03:59] And when people come together at the table and talk about their differences and dissect an idea and make it work for the good of everyone, that’s democracy. And I saw that in action in spades over the last two days. And they’ve also committed to have two more meetings. So they’re committing eight hours to this work in the short time period that the board has asked them to do this work.

[00:04:20] And I just want to commend them for their service, commend them for their time, and commend Chair Munro for just doing a great job on that committee. So thank you very much.

[00:04:28] John Q: Later in the meeting:

[00:04:32] Greg Rikhoff (Assistant County Administrator, July 30): This first item is an update on the Charter Review Committee.

[00:04:36] Because you will be discussing it next week and this was not noticed as such, there’s really no need to discuss, but just to think about, some of the questions that have come up here.

[00:04:47] I’m presenting this at the request of the committee chair, and they have provided the following update.

[00:04:54] As a reminder, the assignment of July 16 was for staff to bring back a board order on Aug. 6, 2024, including the CRC review with the items and statutes included in the Harrang Long proposal, along with the board suggestions for the formation of the redistricting committee standards which could be put before the public for a vote in time for the Nov. 5, 2024 general election.

[00:05:19] Since the July 16 board assignment, staff and the Charter Review Committee have been hard at work prioritizing this effort. The CRC has been convened and will be holding meetings for the third time today with a fourth meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning, meetings for two hours each time. Legal counsel has reviewed the Harrang Long proposal and gave the CRC their full legal analysis.

[00:05:42] To date, all seven committee members have engaged in robust discussions on many of the components of the Stan Long proposal. They’re having productive dialogue, asking good questions, recognizing merits of the Stan Long proposal, and are working to bring forth a revised charter amendment proposal for your direction.

[00:06:01] It’s crucial to note the hard work of this group, many of whom have full-time jobs, coming together to do what it takes to bring this back to the board. They want to put in the work knowing how impactful this is, yet this work takes time…

[00:06:15] It’s worth notice that there is a unanimous support among the CRC to not include the 2025 redistricting effort in the future proposal. Given that aspect, the committee also respectfully asks the board if the board could entertain them continuing to work on this for the duration of their term, slated to end October 2024, to allow them to be as thoughtful as possible.

[00:06:38] Regardless, staff plan to bring an update to the Aug. 6 meeting and are working hard as they can to turn around with a revised amendment board order with the attached ballot title, question, and summary.

[00:06:52] So again, not for discussion today, but just for consideration, I did want to flag Vice Chair (David) Loveall’s compliments for the work. It is diligent. It’s my understanding that Commissioner (Pat) Farr attended as well and had a chance to see for yourselves the diligence with which the team’s approaching that work.

[00:07:11] Commissioner Pat Farr (July 30): I’ll mention something that Mr. Rikhoff spoke about. Yesterday I did attend the meeting of the Charter Review Committee. And we talked a little bit about the extra time they’re putting in this week and these two weeks to get prepared for an Aug. 6 board meeting.

[00:07:23] But I just wanted to mention that Chair (Morgan) Munro, how remarkable of a job Chair Munro does with a diverse committee. It was split between people in person and online yesterday, and actually did a really good job of guiding through a pretty heavy agenda. I was very impressed with the entire process as the Charter Review Committee met for two hours yesterday, they have two more meetings coming up. And the process that they’re going through is very deliberative and very inclusive of conversation among the entire group.

[00:07:51] John Q: Often referred to as ‘the constitution of Lane County,’ the charter is reviewed every 10 years for proposed changes to put before the voters. The Charter Review Committee continues its work Wednesday to incorporate a proposal to remove commissioners and political players from any role in redistricting.