Posts by Geovani Bonilla

We are proposing this plan so it can be vetted by a wider audience, which wasn't possible with the other 2 plans, and because we believe this plan adheres to the expectations set down regarding redistricting, unlike those from the task force's executive committee or Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr.

This proposal consists of 5 ANCs, 2 more than the ward has currently, and one fewer than in the previous two plans. Here are this neighborhood-centered proposal's strengths:

It connects neighborhoods with strong common interests. The revised plan creates ANCs by grouping SMDs that share common characteristics and issues. Instead of the "long" ANC stretching from central DC to Maryland, one of the revised ANCs encompasses the southwest corner of Ward 5 and combines Truxton Circle, Stronghold, Hanover, Edgewood, Eckington, and Bloomingdale. These neighborhoods are physically close to one another, have similar populations, have similar housing stock, share similar issues and concerns, and often collaborate on projects and activities.

It equalizes voter strength. In this proposal, the disparity between the largest SMD (2,214) and the smallest (1,850) is about 360 people, not the 850-person disparity in the executive committee's plan.

These figures are reasonable when compared to the goal of "approximately 2,000" people per SMD. They are justifiable because they allow the neighborhoods that they are in to remain intact. For example, the large Trinidad district could be made smaller, but would slice off an edge of Trinidad and connect it to a district made up of the Langston and Carver Terrace neighborhoods.

It promotes cohesiveness. The revised map brings much of Woodridge back together into a single ANC. All Bloomingdale districts are in the same ANC (including McMillan). The revised ANCs maintain the social and historical integrity of the Trinidad and Carver-Langston neighborhoods.

It respects boundaries and barriers. The revised ANC in the southwest of the ward uses the Ward 1 line and the CSX railroad right of way as natural north-south boundaries. The ANC in the southeast corner of the Ward uses the huge Arboretum for a natural boundary.

It doesn't connect dissimilar neighborhoods. Instead of combining widely dissimilar communities, all of the Truxton Circle, Stronghold, Hanover-Bates, Edgewood, Eckington, and Bloomingdale neighborhoods are in the same ANC. The integrity of Trinidad and Carver-Langston is maintained. These neighborhoods have real overlapping interests and populations.

The residents of Ward 5 have a choice for our political, economic, and communal/societal futures. We can allow ourselves to be redistricted in a way that disrespects and divides us, or we can choose an approach that chooses people and neighborhoods as well as respecting the integrity of the numbers.

If you believe in the latter, then let Task Force Chair Ayawna Webster and Councilmember Harry Thomas know that you want them to support the neighborhood-centered proposal we describe here. We're not proposing this plan to be divisive or confrontational. Rather, we believe that the members of the community that were part of the task force didn't have all the tools (especially maps) available to them throughout the entire process that they should have, and we hope this helps rectify that problem.

If you're a Ward 5 resident, let the chair and councilmember hear your voice. Contact Mrs. Webster at 202-724-8028 or awebster@dccouncil.us, and Councilmember Thomas at 202-439-5103 or hthomas@dccouncil.us.

Thomas' plan. Click to enlarge.

DC's Home Rule Charter states that each SMD should contain approximately 2,000 people, recognizing that it's impossible to reach that number exactly. This plan has so many SMDs that aren't even close. Thomas' plan appears to reduce the SMD containing McMillan to about 30% below standard.

It's impossible to precisely quantify that population would be, because its lines split up a block, and the Census doesn't report population in more detail than an individual block. Therefore, potentially as few as 1,399 (and as many as over 2,200) live in the critical SMD where this development is proposed.

It also carves McMillan away from the rest of Bloomingdale (its home neighborhood), Eckington, Truxton Circle, and Hanover-Bates. This will dilute the ability of these residents to make their voices heard regarding the largest development project in their immediate area.

Perhaps it is a coincidence, but the clearest and most defined opposition to the proposed McMillan development has coalesced in these neighborhoods, which the latest Thomas plan now puts in a separate ANC.

The latest Thomas plan moves the McMillan Sand Filtration Site into an ANC consisting in large part of the Armed Forces Retirement Home and the Catholic University of America. That is, McMillan will be in an ANC that is less-densely populated, with much of its population in essentially gated, private communities that lie relatively far geographically from the McMillan site and that will likely have less concern for the direct effects of what happens at McMillan.

Single member district size is another critical shortcoming in this plan. There are 38 SMDs in the plan, and more than half of them (20) have populations more than 10% above or below the ideal size of 2,000 people. The largest, in Carver Langston, is nearly 40% larger, with a population of 2,796. Meanwhile, the smallest, containing the Armed Forces Retirement Home, has a population nearly 55% smaller (917 people). These numbers make it impossible for an individual's vote to carry equal weight in the political process as every other vote in the ward.

Both Thomas' and the task force's plans fail to link communities with common goals and interests and distort voter power. Tomorrow, we'll present a neighborhood-centered alternative.

Meanwhile, if you want to weigh in on redistricting, the Bloomingdale Civic Association is holding a meeting on the issue tonight, November 1, 7:00 pm at St. George's Episcopal Church, 2nd & U Streets NW.

Charlie Richman of the Office of Planning sent us a clarification:

We think it's important for your readers to understand that redistricting plans aren't considered by the DC Office of Planning at all. That is for Council to do. Our role in this is purely technical. We review proposed legislative language provided by the Task Forces (or Council) and verify that the lines on the maps we use reflect that language accurately. Often we discover that this can't be done because the language isn't clear or consistent, and we work with the authors of that language to help make it clear and consistent. Once the lines are drawn, we report to Council on how many residents would be included in each proposed SMD and ANC. Ultimately final SMD and ANC boundaries are the Council's decision. OP's role is to provide technical support to Council in arriving at whatever decisions they deem best.

Since then, and without the approval of the Task Force, Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr.'s office released another plan in an email response to a constituent's questions.

The DC Council should reject both plans. Instead, they should adopt a more neighborhood-centered plan, such as one we will propose in part 3 of this series.

Any redistricting effort should build from two bedrock principles:

1. Equalize voter strength. Ensure that an individual's vote carries as much weight in the political process as every other vote. The District Home Rule Charter states that each SMD should contain "approximately 2,000" people.

"Approximately" recognizes that 2,000 people is an ideal that may be difficult to reach exactly, and that numbers are not the only criteria that a redistricting plan should consider.

2. Bring related neighborhoods together. Create political subdivisions (ANCs and SMDs) that strengthen neighborhoods and bring together neighbors with related issues. Do this by promoting neighborhood cohesiveness, respecting natural boundaries and barriers, grouping neighborhoods that have common concerns and would be able to communicate easily with one another, etc.

The task force empowered its executive committee to "create ANCs that maintain neighborhood cohesiveness, respect natural boundaries and barriers, and combine neighborhoods that have common characteristics and interests." Yet the plan presented on October 6th (and the subsequent revision) violates the basic goals of redistricting and the task force's criteria.

It connects disconnected neighborhoods. The plan from the executive committee ignored the principle that ANCs should span areas which share common characteristics and issues. One proposed ANC is over 3.3 miles long, stretching from New Jersey Avenue, NW to the Maryland border.

The neighborhoods at either end of this proposed commission—Woodridge and Hanover-Bates—are as different a pair of neighborhoods as you could put together in Ward 5. Woodridge consists of detached, single family homes with more in common with their Mt. Rainier, Maryland, neighbors than with the dense, row house, central-city neighborhood of Hanover-Bates.

It disconnects connected neighborhoods. The plan separates communities with clear commonalities and concerns. If passed, Truxton Circle, Edgewood, Stronghold, Bloomingdale, Eckington, and Hanover-Bates, neighborhoods that frequently collaborate, would be forced into separate ANCs.

It undermines neighborhood integrity. The plan does not respect neighborhood cohesiveness. It splits Bloomingdale, Carver-Langston, and Woodridge between two ANCs. Such splitting undermines neighborhood unity and efficient governance.

The revision of the plan maintains some of these splits. Bloomingdale is still divided between two ANCs, and Bloomingdale's McMillan Sand Filtration Site is shifted to an ANC that does not include the rest of Bloomingdale and other neighborhoods that the proposed development will most significantly affect.

It distorts voter power. The executive committee's plan dilutes voting strength by increasing the difference from the smallest to the largest Ward 5 SMD to about 850 people.

One of the more egregious changes was in Bloomingdale. 2 districts with nearly equal populations became 3 with populations of 2,061, 2,039, and 1,399. A change was necessary because the population grew, but while the first two districts are roughly proportional, the third is significantly smaller and about 33% short of the 2,000 resident target.

As indefensible as these numbers are, what is even more stunning is that the latest Thomas plan expands those disparities further. Its SMD populations range from approximately 900 to nearly 2,800. Because this plan can neither be reconciled with the law nor justified by any circumstances on the ground, the Office of Planning will have to reject it as not worthy of serious consideration.

It ignores natural boundaries and barriers. In the long, thin ANC (colored green on the map), a huge no-man's land separates the 4 districts in the western end from the 4 in the east: the CSX/Metro train tracks, the Brentwood rail yard, and the commercial area near the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station. Residents on one side of these barriers live very far from those on the other.

A similar problem exists in the proposed ANC is southeast Ward 5 (colored red on the map). There, the eastern half of the Carver-Langston neighborhood would share an ANC with neighborhoods like Fort Lincoln and Arboretum, ½ to 2 miles away and separated from by railroad tracks, a freeway, and the grounds of the National Arboretum.

For all these reasons, the executive committee's plan is fatally flawed. But the plan from Councilmember Thomas is even worse. Tomorrow, we'll look at that.