Mapping tools for redrawing Lodi voting districts online soon

A variety of tools that will allow residents to propose Lodi City Council district boundaries should be available for use in the coming weeks, a consultant said Wednesday.

Sharice Tilton, a consultant with NDC Consulting, presented the second public hearing required in the redistricting process to the city council at its regular meeting.

There are six different mapping tools residents can use to redraw districts, including the “Simple Map Drawing Tool” which Tilton said was widely used in 2018 when boundaries were first created.

The tool is for those without Internet access or those who wish to simply draw boundaries on paper and submit their proposal manually. Submitting a map with this tool will only calculate populations, not demographic information, as area populations are displayed on the map.

The Simple Drawing Tool can be paired with an Excel supplement, which again allows residents to simply draw on a map. However, as one draws a district boundary on a map of Lodi, the Excel program calculates population for you.

Another “simple” tool is the map review, which is similar to Google Maps, but is used to review, analyze and compare maps, but not create them.

A “Story Map” tool is similar to PowerPoint, but is interactive and allows a user to view demographics and other data when drawing boundaries, not just population.

Tilton said DistrictR is a new program that includes a feature like Microsoft Paint, where residents can paint proposed districts on a map. As one paints, the program calculates population.

While state census data was only released last week, Tilton said it is estimated that each of Lodi’s five districts should be about 13,118 residents.

Final census data is expected to be available by October.

“The census was released in a ‘legacy’ format,” she said. “And ‘legacy’ has

come to be known as an ‘IKEA format.’ We all know when you buy something at IKEA, you get a box and you have to assemble the contents. So our census data came in a box, and now the state is currently all that data together.”

After the final census data is released in late October, Tilton said there is a mandatory three-week waiting period to give the public time to review the information.

The city will hold two draft map hearings on March 2 and April 6, and the final map should be adopted by April 17.