I must have missed this item in the local newspaper, but I was alerted to a proposed redistricting plan put out by Salisbury Mayor Jim Ireton – a proposal that actually three plans.
Plan 1 and Plan 2 both split the city into five separate districts, with two of them being majority-minority districts which Ireton claims more fairly represents the minority population in Salisbury. The major difference between the two is that Plan 2 adds two at-large seats to City Council, making the city of Salisbury reflective of Wicomico County insofar as its legislative branch is concerned.
Conversely, Plan 3 simply tweaks the current system and makes District 1 geographically larger so it continues to represent about 20 percent of the city’s population. That area includes most of the minority-populated portions of the city.
Before I continue, though, I want to reference a little bit of personal history.
I moved to Salisbury in 2004, so my first election here was the 2005 Salisbury election as I was living in the city at the time. (This was the election where Debbie Campbell and Shanie Shields first won office, and Barrie Parsons Tilghman won her last term.) So I voted for the District 2 seat and mayor’s race, and all was fine.
What got me to scratching my head, though, was finding out I had not one but four representatives on Salisbury City Council because the districts are unbalanced. And it was entirely possible for all four who represented me on Council to live in the same part of town, the same neighborhood, or even the same apartment complex. Something just wasn’t right about that, and the feeling is reinforced given the current composition of City Council. As it stands now, we essentially have four Council members elected at-large, with the minority community allowed their own leader from the plantation.
While the districts in Ireton’s plan may not be the optimum insofar as keeping neighborhoods or various portions of the city in one district, that feat is a little difficult when the maximum district size is about 6,000 residents. Still, I think going to five districts is the proper way of balancing out the city even though it may cost someone in Council leadership her job. However I don’t completely agree with our mayor because I don’t think we need the two at-large members at this time. Perhaps if the city reaches a population of about 50,000 at some future time the expansion of members to seven may be justified, but as it stands now five is plenty.
Unfortunately, and perhaps only because Mayor Ireton had to present it as an alternative that he knew could be adopted, we also have the status quo plan which keeps the same idiotic four-person at-large district and the plantation. As the Daily Times notes, though, this plan happens to benefit the Council majority so it will likely pass by a 3-2 margin. To me, such a vote could be really close to a case of misfeasance (a basis for recall) based on the fact such districts accrue to their advantage at the expense of honest, taxpaying citizens of other portions of the city. Smarter legal minds than mine would be the judge of such a case, though.
So we have a choice to be made. Does the Salisbury City Council majority continue on their raw pursuit of political power in the here and now to make a statement, or does it think in a rational, forward-looking manner to adopt a redistricting plan which would better benefit all city residents? The choice is theirs, but in my opinion the best option is the first.
Unlike Wicomico County, which shouldn’t need to revamp its districts all that much, the city of Salisbury is in dire need of reform. Let’s make the city into five single-member districts.
Your overlooking another alternative – 3 districts and two at-large. Ireton’s plans 1 and 2 balkanize the city.
Have you ever looked at how many people actually vote in some of his proposed districts? It’s a hand full. Most of the city’s voters come from the relatively few stable neighborhoods left in the city. Yet, Ireton wants to disenfranchise them by placing them in two “ghetto” districts. Rather than Jews, it’s the people who really care about their city.
It wasn’t among the plans presented, so I only ‘overlooked’ it because the alternative wasn’t offered.