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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN 08.03.2011 CC-SThe City Council of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met in Regular Session on the above date with Mayor George Garver presiding. Council Present: Council Absent: Patty Eason, Danny Meigs, Bill Sattler, Pat All Council Present. Berryman, Tommy Gonzalez, Troy Hellmann, Rachael Jonrowe Staff Present: Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager; Jessica Brettle, City Secretary; Regular Session (Council may, at any time, recess the Regular Session to convene an Executive Session at the request of the Mayor, a Councilmember, or the City Manager for any purpose authorized by the Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551.) A Call to Order - SPECIAL SESSION TO BEGIN NO EARLIER THAN 5:30 PM B Discussion, review, and possible action on the 2011 redistricting plan -- Mayor George Garver Mayor called the meeting to order and said this is a special meeting to discuss the various redistricting plans up for review. He laid out the parameters of how the meeting will be run. He described the different plans that are up for consideration, including Plan A, Plan A Revised, Plan B and Plan B revised. He described what his responsibilities as Chair have been so far during this process. He said, after the July 26 meeting, he began to study the Plans further. He said it appeared to him that there may be another option which may merit discussion. He noted, on July 28 at 1 PM, he had a 50 minute telephone conversation with Cobby Caputo about his proposed plan. He said that the Mayor did not draw any lines and added he just introduced ideas for discussion He continued to describe the correspondence he had with Caputo and the law firm prior to creating this additional plan. He noted, in compliance with Texas law, the Mayor has only shared this map with one other Council member. He said he also shared the map with other people throughout the community. He noted the plan being submitted by the Mayor is not political. He said Caputo has done a fine job at capturing what was shared with him. Caputo showed the Council the new Plan, or Plan E. He said the charge from the Mayor was to build from Plan A and, in the Sun City area, to make a few changes to that part of town. He described how the firm came up with this version of the map. He said this plan ends up with a 9.92% deviation, which is just under the 10% limit. He said, in this version of the map, District 3 is small. He continued to describe this new Plan for the Council. He noted Districts 5, 2 and 6 are slightly oversized in this plan. He said he is not sure how Council would like to proceed at this point. He noted he can pull up some already existing plans and added he could also bring up a blank map of the City limits boundaries and start drawing. Mayor asked if there were other Council members who brought plans with them for discussion and consideration. Caputo took a look at the proposal brought forward by Council member Meigs and noted he is not sure if it would be possible but he will try it on the map and City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 1 of 4 Pages see if it would work. Meigs said this is just a draft brought forward by a constituent but noted he would like to see if it is a viable option. Sattler referred to draft Plan E and spoke about changing some of the lines in the Sun City area and to the West of 1-35. He described his proposal to Council and Caputo. There was much discussion regarding how lines could be drawn in that area. Sattler spoke about how important it is for one person to be the representative for the entire Williams Drive corridor area. He said Williams Drive is a very important piece and noted he does not want the area to start looking like Burnet Road in Austin, Texas. Meigs asked why Williams Drive needs one representative and added it seems that the more representation for that area, the better. Sattler said he would like to have one responsible and accountable person for that area. Sattler said accountability is the key word here and noted one person needs to be accountable for that area He added business owners and people in that area should have one person they should be able to go to. Meigs said he is still confused about that. He said, just looking at Plan E, it seems to him that the districts become more compact and are defined along boundaries. Hellmann said he is trying to understand Sattler's recommendation for the map. Sattler clarified his request and described his idea for Hellmann. Sattler spoke about the importance of separating Georgetown Village from the dominance of Sun City. Hellmann said he admires what Sattler is trying to do but noted there will be concern in the Village about splitting the neighborhood in two. Eason said she is confused. She noted she is hearing one argument that says having one representative from Williams Drive and then another regarding splitting Georgetown Village in two. She said, if she was in the Village, she would not want to be split up. She noted, what she see of Plan E, it is the most appealing to her. Caputo showed Council an interpretation of Sattler's suggestion and noted the deviation is significantly out at over 20%. Mayor asked about how two section of a district in this plan are connected and Caputo said it is connected by a highway. Berryman said, with this map, as District 5 she would object. She noted this plan ignores the fact that District 5 has a very large piece of land, which is a ranch in the area. She added, in the next 10 years, that is going to be a very large subdivision. She said she can see maximizing District 6 and District 2 because those do not have as much potential for future development. She said there is a subdivision the City is discussing going out Leander Road and noted there is a planned connection between Leander Road and University Avenue She noted the bottom line is District 5 is going to have a lot of growth before ten years is out She said she can not see how this new plan makes sense for that. She added one of the things Council is looking at during this process is trying to help the people who are under -represented. She noted this map puts the under -represented population back into Sun City. She spoke about Williams Drive and how it is important to have one representative for that area. She said what works in Old Town on the square may not work on a main thoroughfare in the City. She noted she has responded to no less than four people a year who have had issues in that area with their businesses She said she would like to see the Council make the Williams Drive area more of a priority. Jonrowe said she would like to thank Caputo for coming in today. She said there has been a lot of points made so far. She said, so far, looking at Plan E, she likes it. She noted, however, she agrees we should not break up the Village. She said she likes the balance she sees with this new version of the map. She said she thinks Williams Drive is going to have numerous representatives no matter how we draw the map. She noted, if that is the case, she thinks it is better to have the area evenly divided. She said, overall, she likes Plan E. Gonzalez said he would like to start with a couple of observations. He said, last time we were here, our attorney was reprimanded for taking information from Council or the dais and drawing up the map based on that information. He spoke about how at this meeting we are looking at a map that was drawn ahead of time as well, instead of drawing the lines from the dais. He noted the Council is getting a lot of misinformation. He described reasons why he would not support Plan E, including leaving the Village with Sun City and changing the current district lines too drastically. He said at this point it may be worth it to start the entire process all over and spoke about how far District 7 reaches out within the City. He noted, at the end, it is a political process and we all need to know and accept this. He said he hopes everyone can be consisted with the process and, at the end of the day, a group is going to end up unhappy. He added it is a political process and noted he would like to attempt to do what is best for most of the people in Georgetown Eason said she would like to ask Caputo or Mendez to remind the Council members why we are not supposed to be considering future development in planning this map. Berryman said that is exactly what we are doing when we are looking at under -sizing Sun City. Mendez said he thinks the 2010 Census data provides a small amount of leeway to under populate Council districts. He noted, when you look at the number of folks that the northwestern districts are under populated by, the number is insignificant. He noted that area doubled in size during the past decade. He said, when we are talking about under -populating by 600 people, there are probably enough people that have moved into that area since the data was collected to make up for it. He said the town is growing at such a fast pace, that the City Council just has to do their best with what they have. Caputo brought up Plan A-1 Revised. He said, generally, the east side of the highway is the same in all the plans. He described Plan A-1 Revised and how the West side was organized. Mayor said one of the concepts he used with building his plan is based on the fact that a number of neighborhoods would prefer not to be included in Sun City. He noted that is why the numbers up in Sun City were under -populated. Caputo described Districts 6 and 7 in Plan A-1 Revised. He said District 5 stays largely the same and he described the minor changes in that District. He described District 4 on Plan A-1 Revised. He City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 2 of 4 Pages continued to describe all of the districts on this plan. He described the Districts and how they are positioned in Plan B-1 Revised as well. He said, in Plan B-1 Revised, Williams Drive is used as a hard boundary. He continued to describe how the lines were drawn on the west side of 1-35. Sattler offered suggestions on how to draw and change lines on the west side of 1-35. Caputo said the issue is that there are too many people in the Village neighborhood to be able to separate them completely in some ways. There was much discussion regarding how to change and draw the lines on the west side of 1-35. There were many questions about if it would be possible to separate both Georgetown Village and River Ridge from Sun City on the same map. Sattler asked if it would be possible to go with three districts for Sun City. The group worked to try and figure out how to accomplish this goal. Gonzalez said he wonders if splitting Sun City into three district would affect their political power. He noted he does not want to get too much push back from that group either. The Council continued to analyze how the population is dispersed in the Northwest area of the City and entertained several possibilities on how to separate that area of town. Mayor said he would respectfully request that Council look very carefully at separating Sun City into three areas He said it is imperative that Council realize that there are a lot of folks out there that care a lot about the City. He added the Council needs to be very careful about how they draw lines up there Council asked and Caputo provided data on the population of each section of Sun City if it was split into three different districts. Mayor spoke about how that would reduce the political power of Sun City. Gonzalez said no matter what, a certain group of people are not going to be happy with the plans. Eason noted, even if the percentage of the Sun City population is lower in those districts, the voting percentage would be much higher than other parts of the City. Sattler said it is not okay with him to dilute the Sun City area by splitting it into three sections. Meigs said in order to avoid the appearance of gerrymandering, it is important to draw lines based on geographic boundaries. Berryman said it has been an education for the Council. Berryman noted the Council needs to stay in line with the criteria they approved at the beginning of this process. Berryman said she has had a problem with this redistricting process and the openness of the process. She spoke about her concerns. Meigs said it is a bad idea to go down the path of who has seen what and when Mayor reviewed the redistricting process and where the Council is at this point. Berryman said, at the end of the last meeting, the Council made a motion for this to be just a Workshop. She said this is not a venue where action can be taken. Gonzalez said the issue is if Council feels it needs more time to digest or if they are ready to move forward with these maps. Jonrowe said her preference is to keep looking at this and possibly have another public hearing. Berryman spoke about the maps that are currently under consideration by Council. She said, personally, she would like to stick with what Council has here. She noted she thinks this is great tonight. She said she had never been down to Bickerstaff and she had never moved lines so she feels this has been very helpful and educational to her. She said she would like to have some time to look at these and think about them. Sattler agreed and said he needs some more time to look at all of these options. He noted he would also like to find out what happened with the version of the plan he suggested that flipped some of the districts. Caputo brought up the map and flipped Districts 2 and 3. Berryman thanked the law firm for their work and asked when the Council could receive copies of the maps Brettle confirmed the maps could be sent out tomorrow afternoon. Meigs asked and Caputo confirmed there are three additional maps to be considered after this evening. Berryman said she would like to look at Plan A-1 Revised tonight to see how we could tweak it Sattler said his concern is that the revised versions of the maps are very important because of how Sun City is split. Berryman suggested that Council try to bolster some numbers in District 3 by going over and taking some numbers from District 1. Hellmann asked if there is a way to get the Village into District 5. Caputo said there may be a way to do that, but he would have to shift some lines around. Berryman asked and Caputo said he does have a map that shows the population density of the City. Caputo said he will send that out to Council so they can use that as a reference. Caputo tried Berryman's suggestion and noted there is too high of a minority population in District 1 to bring blocks into District 3. Berryman asked and Caputo said the Districts are split pretty much evenly in these maps, so it is difficult to move a lot of the population around. Mayor said it seems to Council that no action will be taken tonight Mayor spoke about needing an additional Workshop prior to the regular agenda item at the next meeting. Eason said this is a decision that is going to last for ten years and added she thinks this needs Council's full attention. She noted she thinks Council should hold as many public meetings as necessary to come up with a map that will be workable for the next 10 years. She said all future discussions about this should be done in a separate stand alone meeting. The Council discussed possible dates on which to hold a special redistricting meeting. Sattler suggested hold the meeting on Monday, August 8 at 6PM. Council agreed. Mayor asked and Hellmann said he feels that meeting should also be a Public Hearing and that Council should decide on the maps to be considered this evening. Jonrowe asked for a brief recess to soak in all of the information. Meeting recessed at 7:15 PM Meeting for a Public resumed at 7:30 PM said Mayor said Council has decided to hold a special redistricting meeting on August 8, 2011 at 6PM with an opportunity for a Public Hearing. Gonzalez said the Council needs to concentrate hard in the next couple of days City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 3 of 4 Pages to narrow down the maps to their preferences. He said he does not want to add any more options to this list. Hellmann said he wants to make sure Council turns over every stone tonight Sattler suggested that Caputo outline for Council all of the plans. Caputo said it seems the active plans are Plan A, A Revised and A-1 Revised, Plan B, B Revised and B-1 Revised, Plan E, Plan B-2 Revised, Plan F, a concept for a Plan G or H. He continued to review all of the maps under consideration. Eason said she has a questions regarding the different A and B plans. She noted it seems to her that the only difference between all of those is the way Sun City is split She said it is her understanding that Council is already past the idea of Plan A and A Revised and Plan B and B Revised. She noted her recommendation is to not have those around because the Al and B1 versions are compliant with the County's needs. Motion by Eason, second by Gonzalez to remove Plans A, A Revised, B and B Revised from consideration. Sattler asked and Chapman reviewed the rules for reconsideration. Meigs agreed that we could easily eliminate those but suggested the Council wait until the end of the evening on Monday. Berryman and Sattler agreed. Eason said she was just trying to simplify things. Vote on the Motion: Failed 5-1 (Jonrowe, Meigs, Hellmann, Berryman and Sattler opposed) Berryman thanked the law firm for doing such a great job on this tonight and for helping Council better understand this process. Jonrowe said she would like to remind Council to review and consider the eight criteria approved by the Council. Sattler asked and Caputo confirmed he will provide a map of the population density to the Council. C Adjourn Motion by Berryman, second by Jonrowe to adjourn. Meeting adjourned at 7:45 PM Adjournment City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 4 of 4 Pages The meeting was adjourned at 07:45 PM.