A public hearing to discuss proposed City voting district changes is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 2, at the Enterprise City Council meeting at City Hall.
Boundary changes in all five City Council Districts are included in the Redistricting Plan, which is available to review at Enterprise City Hall and on the City’s official website, www.enterpriseal.gov.
Every 10 years after the release of the decennial U.S. Census data, the City of Enterprise examines its City Council district boundaries to assess the need for changes. The districts are reviewed to assess the appropriateness of the updated population figures with required objectives for fair voting districts.
Southeast Alabama Regional Planning and Development Commission has been called upon by the City to use its GIS software for analyzing and developing the updated district plans.
The district plan analysis began through comparing the 2020 U.S. Census population with the existing districts in order to assess if the district populations remained within the accepted population deviation. The most important component of redistricting is “one person – one vote”, which was prevalently instituted after the Baker v. Carr 1962 Supreme Court decision that disallowed districts with substantially varying populations. Subsequent court cases have allowed local government redistricting plans to have a deviation of up to 10 percent between the highest and lowest populated districts.
Required changes included adding a minimum of 336 people to District 1, adding a minimum of 70 people to District 4, and subtracting a minimum of 630 people from District 5 to get within accepted target deviation, said officials from SEARPDC. This was achieved by shifting district boundaries, prioritizing the use of identifiable boundaries such as streets or creeks.
The proposed plan must go through a public participation process and be adopted by the City Council according to statutory guidance in the Code of Alabama.
Outcomes of the proposed Plan 1 include changing the districts from a current 26.82-percent population deviation to a 7.68-percent population deviation, maintaining District 1 as a strong majority-minority district, and maintaining compact and contiguous districts.
(City of Enterprise press release)