After months of waiting and delays, residents of East Baton Rouge Parish this week will get their first look at the first draft of required maps of new districts for their elected representatives on the parish School Board.
Recently hired demographer Mike Hefner of Duson is scheduled to show his work so far at 5 p.m. Thursday at the School Board Office, 1050 S. Foster Drive. This will be the first of several such meetings with Hefner in the coming months. No votes are planned Thursday.
After getting dropped by its first consultant, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board has settled on someone new to redraw the boundaries of…
Hefner was selected by the board on Nov. 18 to draw new maps as required after the 2020 U.S. Census. Hefner took over the remapping job two weeks after the first consultant hired the board, Strategic Demographics, LLC, withdrew, citing lack of cooperation from three board members who failed to sit down for one-on-one meetings to discuss their ideas for their respective districts.
To be ready for Nov. 8, 2022, elections for School Board, the board must approve new maps by no later than June 21. But since the board is required by law to publish proposed maps well in advance of approval, the true deadline is May 24.
On Dec. 16, Hefner with six workshops and two public hearings, with a final vote on April 21. The board, however, , holding out hope it can move more quickly.
“I’d like to see us setting a goal of finishing up by March,†board member Mark Bellue said.
Hefner responded that it’s possible if the first meetings go well.
“Let’s get a couple of the workshops behind us, let’s see how the discussions are going,†Hefner said.
The faster the board finishes, the faster people interested in running for School Board can figure out which district to run in, whether to run and then to launch campaigns. .
The downside of moving too quickly is that it gives the public less time to digest and offer feedback on the proposed maps.
There are some thorny issues.
For instance, the racial makeup of the board going forward is unclear.
Currently, five board members are White and four are Black. In September, the board learned that over the past decade, two of those nine districts have become “toss-ups,†no longer majority Black or White. One is District 1 represented by Bellue, who is White. The other is District 5 represented by Evelyn Ware-Jackson, who is Black.
That leaves just four majority White and three majority Black districts.
The racial balance of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board could change depending on how its nine members redraw the boundaries of their r…
Also, the board has to decide whether to stay with nine members or whether it will add or subtract seats. Over the past 15 years, the board has reduced its size twice, first shrinking from 12 to 11 members and then shrinking again from 11 to nine members. Those reductions took effect in 2011 and 2015, respectively.
The shift to nine members, which was approved in July 2014, was controversial, and there are residents who would like it reversed. That reduction prompted an unsuccessful legal challenge by the local NAACP. It also was notable because it was not prompted by a census. And the approved maps did not have to go through the U.S. Justice Department first, a process known as pre-clearance.
The Supreme Court in 2013 struck down the section of the Voting Rights Act that previously required preclearance for communities like East Baton Rouge with histories of racial discrimination.
One source of delay cited by Strategic Demographics, trying to schedule individual meetings with board members, won’t be an issue this time. Hefner said he does all his map-making in public. He said one-on-one meetings can sow distrust among board members so he prefers to make changes in real time with all board members watching.
“By using a workshop format, I have found the development of a new election plan to be of higher quality, more trustworthy, and more efficient than just working in the traditional printed plan presentations,†Hefner .
Hefner also told the board on Dec. 16 that public map-making engenders more public trust.
“It allows a free flow of information between all the parties,†he said, “including the public, because this is the public’s plan.â€
