This week the Alaska Redistricting Board will try to wrap up its work of redrawing political boundaries across the state to even up the population of each of the 40 House seats. The board started its work in earnest after receiving final population numbers from the Census Bureau in mid-August. It has a Nov. 10 deadline. If necessary, the board will meet over the weekend, but the goal is to finish by Friday.
The public is invited to testify on Tuesday and Friday during the hours specified below. To date, most of the testimony has come from Democrat partisans.
Review all the maps under consideration at this link.
The meeting schedule for this week:
Tuesday, Nov. 2, 9 am: Full board meeting, at the Anchorage Legislative Information Offices
- Agenda is attached
- Location: Anchorage LIO, Denali Room (1500 W. Benson Blvd)
- Streamed at: www.akl.tv
- Testimony will be taken between 9:00-10:30am, in-person and via teleconference (please call in by 10am).
Teleconference: from Anchorage 563-9085; from Juneau 586-9085; from anywhere else: 844-586-9085 - Online Public Notice: http://notice.alaska.gov/204203
Wednesday, Nov. 3 and Thursday, Nov. 4: will be mapping work sessions at our office, starting at 9 am.
- No formal agenda – this will be a more fluid process for members to finalize the maps
- Location: Alaska Redistricting Board Office (3901 Old Seward Hwy, Ste. 141)
- The public is invited to observe, but there will not be public testimony taken at this meeting. Masks and social distancing will be required.
- The meeting will be streamed via Zoom, details below:
Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/9074062894?pwd=VWxjem42YUloTnBFcTlpVWZVS0wwZz09
Meeting ID: 907 406 2894
Passcode: MoreMaps
One tap mobile
+16699006833,,9074062894#,,,,*56615375# US (San Jose)
+12532158782,,9074062894#,,,,*56615375# US (Tacoma)
- Online Public Notices: http://notice.alaska.gov/204203; http://notice.alaska.gov/204262
Friday, Nov. 5, 9 am: Full board meeting at the Anchorage LIO
- The plan is to have another opportunity for public testimony, starting at 9 am, then finish out any agenda items held over from November 2, including adoption of the final redistricting plan.
- Location: Anchorage LIO, Denali Room (1500 W. Benson Blvd)
- Streamed at: www.akl.tv
- Testimony will be taken starting at 9 am, in-person and via teleconference
Teleconference: from Anchorage 563-9085; from Juneau 586-9085; from anywhere else: 844-586-9085 - Online Public Notice: http://notice.alaska.gov/204263
All public testimony received before 6 pm Monday will be in tomorrow’s board packet.
Hopefully this process will redistrict out some of the trash we currently have as legislators and they are replaced by new ones with respect for the citizens of the great State of Alaska as well as come with a set of morals and a habit of working at getting things done…
Nope. We have a two-Communist one-Rhino majority on the redistricting board. The deciding vote was installed by Bill Walker supporter Cathy Giessel
I admit to not following or really attempting to understand how the outcome of the redistricting will affect the political landscape of our state. It made me nervous to read that most of the testimony has come from “democrat partisans”. Does there exist a brief explanation of how the potential changes might look or affect any Republican strongholds?
JC – there are various maps at the akredistrict.org website. The changes could do things like put Haines and Skagway into a different Juneau-heavy district but would not likely change out that seat to a Republican seat. The changes will very likely force some sitting legislators to run against each other in a district. It’s probably going to change the district numbers for many Alaskans. It’s a tough task to try to even up the numbers of residents, keep it compact, contiguous and economically tied together. Study the maps and check it out – sd
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