City explores redistricting options before next election

Brookhaven is drawing new district lines ahead of the next election season, and city leaders are seeking public feedback on five potential options.

The city hired FLO Ana- lytics, a consulting firm, to redraw Brookhaven’s four City Council districts. Drafts of the maps were unveiled last week, and the city held a virtual town hall Tuesday to collect resident feedback.

John Mckenzie, a senior analyst with FLO Analytics, said the five maps are prelim- inary and will change after the public has a chance to comment.

“We will end up making some revisions to these sce- narios, so none of these sce- narios are really intended to be a final map,” he said during an April 13 work session.

The city is redrawing the maps without the latest U.S. Census data, because it won’t be released until September due to the COVID-19 pan- demic. City leaders said the districts need to be updated by mid-august, since that is the cutoff for candidates to qualify to run for city office in November.

“This presents a conun- drum for cities that do not control the Census or the elections,” City Manager Christian Sigman said in a previous news release. “In order for residents to know what district they live in, whether to run for an office or whom to support for office, they need to know where the district lines are.”

Chamblee recently under- took a similar endeavor using the state Legislature to add a fourth City Council district in place of a former at-large district.

Brookhaven has not had its districts reevaluated since 2012, when the city was founded. Since then, there have been seven annexations east of I-85 in addition to typical population changes and shifts. The most recent available data has Brookhaven’s population at roughly 53,000.

Mckenzie said FLO Analytics, which entered into a $33,670 contract with the city Feb. 23, is using data from the 2010 and 2020 census blocks to create the maps in addition to other sources. At the moment, Mckenzie said Districts 3 and 4 are each about 28% of the city’s population, while the other two districts are about 22%. The goal is to get as close to an even distribution as possible.

FLO Analytics should have the final maps completed by May 4, and the City Council will vote on the new maps at the end of June.