I don't know how many people have been bamboozled by the story justifying the need for new precinct maps, but I was certainly one of them !
If you read through yesterday's blog entry, "New Precincts And Proposed New Council Districts", you will see that the justification for reprecincting was that the State Legislature had created their new House and Senate districts by totally ignoring the precinct boundaries. Thus, new precincts had to be cobbled together to try to make the Legislative districts whole.
Well..... That storyline turns out to be fabrication.
The truth turns out to be that the House and Senate districts were defined by listing the precincts they include. You can read it for yourself, but I'll summarize it here:
IC 2-1-12 - lists 2011 House districts by precinct. Scroll down and you will find Marion County precincts included in districts 86-100. I can find no precinct that has been included in more than one House district.
IC 2-1-13 - lists 2011 Senate districts by precinct. Districts 28-36 contain Marion County precincts. Once again, I can find no precinct that has been included in more than one Senate district.
So - there was no need to create new precincts at this time. The impact I noted yesterday on creating split precincts from the redistricting of Township Board lines using the old precincts, still holds however. Bottom line, these new precincts will increase the confusion and expense of the Primary and General Elections in 2012.
If it were up to me, I'd revoke these precinct boundaries and honor the electorate with both the chance to weigh in on new Council districts and by telling them the truth.
[hat tip to fellow bloggers Paul Ogden and Gary Welsh for illuminating this corner for me]
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10 comments:
Of course, we could just eliminate Township government, while folks who still remember Kernan-Shepard are still alive, and the issue would be moot...
I don't get their argument that state legislative districts were drawn without consideration of precinct lines. As you point out, the redistricting bills specifically list precincts in them. They are not dividing precincts.
Now if you look at the Congressional district bill it appears that they went by census tracks maybe 10-12 times when they listed the territory that is District 7, the one that occupies most of Marion County. So maybe 10 precincts might need to be adjusted...if that.
Anon - Let the people decide if they want to eliminate their Township Government.
Paul - that assumes the census tracks are not inclusive of entire precincts. I noticed that the description of House district 91 just says "Decatur" Township, and does not list the precincts per se.
The trustee in Wayne Township is as corrupt as it gets.We need to get rid of Township government and the Cronyism that abounds in Wayne Township.
Someone needs to look at Wayne Townships cooked books
This fabrication is only costing us $250,000. This is a bargain by comparison to some other "Public/Private Partnerships" and other so called economic developments originated by this administration.
Anon 10:32 - Let's not pretend that cronyism and graft only find haven in Township Government. The public could use more enforcement of existing laws as well as better protections under the law for corrupt government at all levels - including the sacred school districts.
That bein said... If you believe what you say about Wayne Township, you can contact the State Board of Accounts regarding an audit of the books, and the press about corruption. There is a hotline set up in the City for reporting corruption, but I don't know what it is. I did have it at one time and I'll post it if/when I find it again.
Anon 11:04 - While I suspect irony is in play in your comment... The Parks department and / or the Libraries could have made better use of the money.
The Council originally estimated the cost at roughly $600K, by the way. The first installment in last year's budget went to pay for consultants on the sale of the water company, instead. The Ds hoped Vaughn would move this year's allotment into next year so they could spend it on their mapping 'expert'.
Meanwhile, Rokita said he could redistrict the entire State for $50K, and others say it should only cost a couple hundred to do our Council district maps.
I would point out that this redistricing matter has abosolutely nothing to do with redistricting. People need to focus on the issue you raised.
Sorry, I meant:
I would point out that this TOWNSHIP GOVERNMENT matter has absolutely nothing to do with redistricting. People need to focus on the issue you raised.
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