Redo of map for wards on NLR agenda
Western zone seen as losing most from new boundaries
The North Little Rock City Council is scheduled to vote on a new ward map at a meeting tonight, undertaking the decennial task of redistricting.
Unlike statehouse or congressional redistricting, where politicians draw maps that favor one political party over another, the City Council is likely to pass the new map without much pushback.
The council was set to approve the new ward boundaries at its last meeting on March 28, voting to suspend all readings of the ordinance to quickly push it through. But Council Member Debi Ross of Ward 1 suggested the council hold off on voting on the new map, to give residents more time to weigh in.
North Little Rock’s population is 64,591 and the city, under state law, is required to redistrict so its four wards have close to equal populations.
Ward 3, on the city’s western edge, has the highest population with 18,551 residents, also meaning it will lose the most from redistricting.
Part of North Little Rock’s Levy neighborhood will be moved from Ward 3 to Ward 1.
Ross hosted a meeting with Neighbors United for Levy to discuss the new map with little reaction from residents who attended the meeting, according to Doug McDowall, who leads the neighborhood association.
When explaining some of the changes to the council, Shawn Spencer, who led the redistricting process as the city’s planning director, said often he was left with few options in how to redraw the ward boundaries.
“That was pretty much the only area that could go to Ward 2 from Ward 3,” Spencer said. “Everything to the south of that, there’s not much population there.”
Spencer explained during the March 28 meeting the Planning Department was driven by two goals: to make the wards close to equal in population and to make as few changes as possible to existing wards.
The Planning Department’s aim was to have close to 16,148 residents in each ward, Spencer said. The racial demographics of each ward will remain roughly the same, Spencer said.
Not knowing the precise boundaries of the city’s wards is not limited to just residents as borders between wards can confuse even members of the City Council.
“The people that they’re bringing into Ward 2, we already thought they were in Ward 2,” said Council Member Linda Robinson of Ward 2. “So we’ve been taking care of them because we thought they were in the ward and they thought they were in the ward. So now it’s official.”
Like Levy, the Baring Cross neighborhood has been split into two wards, with many residents assuming the neighborhood belonged in Ward 2. If approved by the council, 816 residents from Ward 3 — some of whom live in Baring Cross — will move to Ward 2.
In Arkansas, redistricting at the local level is approved by the city council as is the case with North Little Rock. For municipalities with a city manager, the county election commission has the
responsibility for approving new ward maps.
What has been contentious among council members is the lack of growth the city had from 2010 to 2020, adding only 1,687 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Mayor Terry Hartwick said the city’s population was undercounted, saying the covid-19 pandemic suppressed the count by the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Personally I don’t think we got a good count, but it is what it is,” said Hartwick.
Hartwick said the bad data could hurt the city’s redistricting process if map-makers were working with bad numbers. Ross, who also questioned the U.S. Census Bureau’s data, did say when it came to the new map, “well, you can’t gerrymander it.”
If approved, the changes include:
■ In Ward 3,728 people who live between West 51st Street and West 47th Street will move to Ward 1. An additional 816 residents south of Scenic Drive between Pike Avenue and John Ashley Drive will move from Ward 3 to Ward 2. Between West 47th Street and MacArthur Drive, 881 residents will shift from Ward 3 to Ward 1.
■ Between Camp Robinson Road, Velvet Ridge Drive and West 47th Street, 687 residents will move from Ward 4 to Ward 1.