Muscogee school board redraws map redistricting commission proposed

The Muscogee County school board spent much of its Thursday meeting on redistricting waiting for two of its members to divide southeast Columbus between them.

“Ladies, are we getting anywhere?” board chairwoman Cathy Williams asked occasionally as District 1 representative Pat Hugley-Green and District 4 board member Naomi Buckner huddled over computer-generated maps and traded neighborhoods and schools.

They were redrawing a map submitted by a 17-member redistricting commission that offered a proposal it conceived with the priorities of keeping incumbents’ homes in the districts they currently represent, evening the population of each board district, maintaining minority voting strength as mandated by the federal Voting Rights Act, and drawing compact districts bordered by major roadways, creeks and other clearcut boundaries.

Whether certain schools were in certain school board districts was not a consideration to the commission, but it was to the school board.

District 6 representative Mark Cantrell thought each board member should have a high school in his or her district. “That’s what we do, is represent schools,” he said, noting that district representatives participate in handing out diplomas during high school graduations.

That doesn’t mean the graduates care, noted District 5 representative Rob Varner. “The reality is they don’t give a damn who their representative is,” he said.

As Buckner and Hugley-Green continued to negotiate, Varner told them, “We don’t represent schools. We represent citizens.”

Said Buckner: “Our focus is what we want it to be.”

As the remapping dragged on, Williams became frustrated with the slow progress. “From what I’ve seen, we’re going to be here all night,” she said.

But after about 90 minutes, the board finally decided on a tentative plan that still must be reviewed for compliance with the Voting Rights Act.

The ideal district population is 22,740, with an acceptable variance of 5 percent or 1,137 residents.

Here’s how the breakdown stood at the meeting’s end: District 1 (Hugley-Green) had 22,643; District 2 (John Wells) had 22,130; District 3 (James Walker) had 22,650; District 4 (Buckner) had 22,885; District 5 (Varner) had 23,475; District 6 (Cantrell) had 22,746; District 7 (Noreen Marvets) had 22,757; and District 8 (Beth Harris) had 22,716. Harris did not attend the meeting.

This story was originally published October 6, 2011 at 10:36 PM with the headline "Muscogee school board redraws map redistricting commission proposed."