Council says proposal doesn’t satisfy redistricting guidelines

A proposed redistricting map developed by the NAACP is not legally viable in its current form, attorneys for the city reported Wednesday.

The map’s problems arise mostly from the fact that it uses dirt roads, private roads, drainage ditches and other such features to make up the borough boundaries, which is not permissible under Virginia state code. Deputy City Attorney William Hutchings gave the report during a City Council work session Wednesday afternoon.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People developed the map with local chapter members and national redistricting experts.

Lue Ward, president of the Nansemond-Suffolk chapter of the NAACP, said he was insulted by the suggestion that the map is, as he called it, “illegal.”

“I’m going to bet on our map against your map,” he said in comments during Wednesday’s regular meeting.

The NAACP map also splits several neighborhoods into different boroughs. East Suffolk Gardens, a predominantly black neighborhood off East Washington Street, would lie in three different boroughs.

“The plan itself meets the principle of one person, one vote,” Hutchings said. “The plan does provide for three majority-minority boroughs and one coalition borough.”

Hutchings later said that the map appears to meet the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, but it also must meet Code of Virginia requirements.

State code (section 24.2-305) requires election districts and precincts to have “clearly observable boundaries” such as named roads or rivers, streams or drainage features shown on the U.S. Census Bureau’s maps.

Hutchings attributed some of the improper boundaries in the NAACP’s map to errors in the Census Bureau’s maps.

“It appears the Census Bureau made some assumptions that certain streets went all the way through,” he said. For example, many “extended” streets that were used are actually just dirt paths at the end of a paved road.

The same errors do not occur in the city map because Suffolk officials used the city’s Geographic Information System maps, rather than the Census Bureau’s. The city did, however, use Census Bureau population information.

During the regular meeting, City Council members voted unanimously to have city staff revise the boundaries in the city’s working map to what Councilman Robert Barclay called a “better alignment,” particularly in the downtown area.

A separate vote, also unanimous, directed city staff to perform an analysis on a map developed by a professor at Norfolk State University at the behest of Councilman Leroy Bennett.

Under the city’s proposed plan, Bennett would be moved out of the Nansemond Borough, which he currently represents. That plan also would move School Board members Thelma Hinton and Diane Foster out of their boroughs.

All three representatives have chafed at the city’s proposed plan.