The city councilmembers are in a bind this week as they have to scramble to complete their decennial redistricting process during the thick of the Mardi Gras season. If they don't finish by March 16, they forfeit the whole gambit to the university presidents and nobody wants that.
The council's website has information about the compressed timeline and links to an "engagement portal" where you can submit comments and even draw up your own maps if you want to get super geeky about it. You can watch their consultants run through a training on the software in this video. But hurry. The "draft" maps are supposed to be up and ready by the middle of this week. Presumably the debate from that point on will be about picking which of those to approve. (Although maybe not. This stuff can get super improvisational toward the deadline.)
Today, the T-P explains the preeminent issue in play. Basically, over the past 10 years District D (currently held by Eugene Green) has gained significant population while District C (Freddie King) has lost a lot. Like a whole lot of people, actually.
District C lost more than 3,000 residents, with about 70% of those losses coming in Algiers, while District D grew almost everywhere; St. Bernard, Filmore, Dillard and several other neighborhoods gained more than 1,000 residents.
Wow what has been going on in Algiers? When I first saw these census numbers, I thought they might be due to the hollowing out of Bywater and Marigny by short term rentals. But, no, people are getting the heck out of Algiers for some reason. Curious to know more about that.
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