Loading...
RES 1456 08/14/2012 °r C'19 0 ro T£X ^s Ytitt/o Choice. . RESOLUTION NO. 1456 RESOLUTION ADOPTING CRITERIA FOR USE IN THE DISTRICTING PROCESS AND AUTHORIZING THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUGGESTED/DRAFT PLAN(S) FOR DISTRICTING OF CITY COUNCIL SINGLE MEMBER VOTING DISTRICTS. WHEREAS, the City Council of the City of Cibolo has certain responsibilities when creating single member voting districts under federal and state law including, but not limited to, Amendments 14 and 15 to the United States Constitution, U.S.C.A. (West 1987), and the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1973, et seq. (West 1987 and Supp. 1999); Article 5, Section 18 of the Texas Constitution (Vernon 1993 and Supp. 2000); and Tex. Gov't Code Ann. §§ 2058.001 and 2058.002 (Vernon 2008); and WHEREAS, on May 14, 2011 the Citizens of the City of Cibolo in election held for such purpose elected to create single member voting districts; and WHEREAS, it is the intent of the City to comply with the Voting Rights Act and with all other relevant law, including Shaw v. Reno jurisprudence; and WHEREAS, a set of established districting criteria will serve as a framework to guide the City in the consideration of districting plans; and WHEREAS, established criteria will provide the City a means by which to evaluate and measure proposed plans; and WHEREAS, districting criteria will assist the City in its efforts to comply with all applicable federal and state laws; NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED,by the City Council of the City of Cibolo that: A. The City in its adoption of a districting plan for single member voting districts will adhere to the following criteria: 1. Where possible, easily identifiable geographic boundaries should be followed. 2. Communities of interest should be maintained in a single district, where possible, and attempts should be made to avoid splitting neighborhoods. 3. Districts should be drawn in a way that permits the creation of practical voting districts and that ensures that adequate facilities for polling places exist in each voting district. 4. Consideration may be given to the preservation of incumbent-constituency relations by recognition of the residence of incumbents and their history inrepresenting certain areas. 5. Districts must be configured so that they are relatively equal in total population according to the 2010 federal census. In no event should the total deviation between the largest and the smallest district exceed ten percent. The City will attempt to achieve a deviation that is less than ten percent under the data released by the Census Bureau. 6. The districts should be compact and composed of contiguous territory. Compactness may contain a functional, as well as a geographical dimension. 7. The plan should be narrowly tailored to avoid retrogression in the position of racial minorities and language minorities as defined in the Voting Rights Act with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise. 8. The plan should not fragment a geographically compact minority community or pack minority voters in the presence of polarized voting so as to create liability under section 2of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973. B. The governmental body will review all plans in light of these criteria and will evaluate how well each plan conforms to the criteria. C. Any plan submitted to the governmental body by a citizen for its consideration should be a complete plan—i.e., it should show the full number of council member districts and should district the entire City. The governmental body may decline to consider any plan that is not a complete plan. D. City Council hereby authorizes the drafting of a plan consistent with these criteria. PASSED AND APPROVED, on this IV day of u ,2012. 1,2 CA Jennifer man,Mayor City of Cibolo,Texas ATTEST: Peggy Cimics, City Secretary City of Cibolo,Texas