Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones wants the city to consider residents living in poverty as well as the influx of Hispanics and other minorities before it redraws voter-district boundaries to reflect population shifts from last year's census.
Jones told the City Council on Monday that he's appointing a committee to provide input into a redistricting process that could result in significant changes to district boundary lines. He said he wants the group to present a report by the end of May that would focus on redistricting in terms of residents living in poverty and the emergence of Hispanics and other racial and ethnic minority groups.
"We have basically looked at redistricting through a black-white lens [in the past]," Jones said, "but this census requires us to broaden our view and look at it through a multicultural, multiracial lens. Seventeen-thousand five-hundred people will be left out of the discussion if we do it that way."
Jones cited growth in the number of Hispanics, from about 5,000 in 2000 to about 12,800 in 2010.
A city committee, which includes Jones' policy adviser, David Hicks, is already working on redistricting for the council. Councilman Bruce W. Tyler said he wonders whether two committees are needed.
"I asked the question, won't this be confusing to the citizens? I believe it will be," he said.
Overall, the city's population increased from 197,790 to 204,214 from 2000 to 2010, with seven of the nine voter districts gaining residents. Population in the 2nd District, which includes the Fan District, grew by 20.5 percent. At the same time, the 3rd District lost about 9 percent of its residents, setting the stage for possibly major changes to equalize the number of residents among the districts.
In an interview, Jones said he doesn't necessarily expect his committee to offer a map showing proposed district boundaries. He said he's not sure to what degree it would be possible to disperse minorities and residents living in poverty among the nine districts.
About 65 percent of the city's Hispanics live in the 8th or 9th districts of South Richmond, according to a city analysis of census totals.
About one-fifth of the city's residents live in poverty, but they're concentrated in the eastern part of the city.
"The first step is to bring it to people's consciousness, that this is an issue," Jones said. "You know, we talk about it all the time. City Council suggests that something has to be done about poverty, and so we're factoring into everything we do the discussion of the reduction of poverty, and so redistricting can't be any different."
The new committee members are:
•Former state Del. Jean W. Cunningham
•Former state Sen. Benjamin J. Lambert III
•John Moeser, professor at University of Richmond
•Thad Williamson, professor at University of Richmond
•Okpil Kim
•Rupa Murthy
•Marilyn Olds, Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority
•Paul Fantl
•King Salim Khalfani, executive director of the Virginia State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
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