A divided Atlanta City Council signaled that compromises could be made to resolve issues around minority voter representation as the city draws new maps for its council districts. One councilman who would lose minority voters threatened to retain his own lawyer to fight the plan unless changes were made.
A version of the "Plan 2 Map," several months in the making, looks to be the most likely of three options to prevail. The City Council is scheduled to vote on a final map on Dec. 5. Then, the map will be submitted for review by the U.S. Department of Justice, most likely in the spring. The next City Council elections will be in November 2013.
Under the Plan 2 map, noticeable reshuffling of districts occurs in Midtown, downtown and East Atlanta. Kwanza Hall's district -- which includes Centennial Olympic Park, Sweet Auburn, Georgia Tech and Georgia State University, Atlantic Station and Inman Park -- would be redrawn to lose about 13,000 people because of the huge growth in the area's population over the last decade.
Ivory Lee Young Jr., who is African-American and would see the proportion of African-American voters in his district decline, threatened to hire an attorney to fight the plan. He would lose the Dixie Hills and Mozley Park neighborhoods as well as a portion of Grove Park, while gaining Georgia Tech and Atlantic Station.
The City Council considered three different maps. More information is available at http://citycouncil.atlantaga.gov/REDISTRICTING.htm.
But so far, the redistricting is going much more smoothly than 10 years ago, when one council member was found to be living outside his district.
Atlanta and cities across America redraw representative district boundary lines once every decade, based on the results of the U.S. census. Planners are trying to design maps with roughly 35,000 people in each of 12 City Council districts.
The maps tell a story of the racial makeup around Atlanta, and the massive variations in districts. In southwest Atlanta's District 11, currently represented by Keisha Lance Bottoms, 96.4 percent of residents would be African-American under Plan 2, according to documents distributed by the City Council. In District 8 in northwest Atlanta, represented by Yolanda Adrean, 7.8 percent of residents would be African-American.
District 5 in East Atlanta, represented by Natalyn Archibong, would be the most balanced, at 42 percent African-American and 53 percent white.
In Atlanta as a whole, 54 percent of residents are African-American, while 38.4 percent are white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Plan 2 map was approved by a vote of 10-5 on Monday. Voting in favor were Adrean, Michael Julian Bond, Bottoms, Hall, Howard Shook, Carla Smith, Alex Wan, Aaron Watson, H. Lamar Willis and Cleta Winslow. Voting against were Archibong, C.T. Martin, Felicia A. Moore, Joyce M. Sheperd and Young.
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