Background/Summary:
By initiative of the people, a Charter provision requiring the establishment of six electoral districts was approved by the voters in 1989. Each district is represented by a councilmember elected by eligible voters within that respective district.
Pursuant to Federal Law and also City Charter, Article II, Section 2, the districts are required to be substantially equal in population and the City must have the district boundary lines redrawn following each decennial census. The City Charter further provides that redistricting shall occur following any mid-decennial census in which the City elects to participate.
On January 20, 2017 the Peoria City Council adopted Resolution 2017-07 establishing the legal basis for redistricting and the criteria against which all redistricting maps would be evaluated. To provide the public with information on redistricting and solicit their input, the staff Redistricting Committee created and maintained a Redistricting website, held 6 public open houses and leveraged traditional and social media. For the first time, the City also utilized an online mapping tool that allowed the electronic submission of proposed maps for consideration. Proposed maps and other public input were accepted through February 28, 2017.
The City received four (4) public input forms during this first round. In addition, 39 maps were submitted through the online mapping software. Three maps were of the existing districts or a duplicate map of another submission leaving 36 maps for the staff Redistricting Committee to evaluate against the City Council adopted criteria.
Of those 36 proposed maps, 19 were eliminated for (a) not being contiguous, (b) for having more than one age-restricted master planned community in the same district, or (c) removing the incumbent from the existing district impacting voter continuity.
Of the remaining 17 proposed maps, many were very similar in appearance.Thus, the staff Redistricting Committee determined their priority would be to recommend to City Council five finalist maps that contained variation in addition to meeting City Council adopted criteria.
A second round of public outreach was conducted to share the five finalist maps and solicit feedback on what was liked or disliked about each map. The staff Redistricting Committee again made all information available on the City's redistricting website, held 6 open houses and leveraged traditional and social media. Public input was accepted through April 21st and we received 11 public input forms that are attached to this communication along with summary pages of comments received.