A plan to balance the population between Gary’s six common council districts is expected to be considered at the next meeting of the Gary Common Council.
Redistricting is a state requirement that occurs every 10 years after new population numbers are realized in the decennial U.S. Census.
Council Vice President Tai Adkins, chair of the redistricting committee, said the redistricting last occurred in 2012 and in 2002. This year’s redistricting is based in the 2020 U.S. Census.
“There are no real changes,” Adkins said.
The proposal calls for moving precinct G4-28 from the fourth district and G6-07 from the sixth district into the fifth district in an effort to more evenly balance the population while keeping the districts compact and contiguous.
Council President William Godwin, D-1st, said council members first started talking about the redistricting process over a year ago. Population has been declining in the 5th District for some time and the efforts by the council would help.
Currently, District 1 has 12,437 residents; District 2 has 12,153; District 3 has 12,009; District 4 has 11,607; District 5 has 9,651; and District 6 has 11,250.
Under the proposal to be considered by the council, Districts 1, 2 and 3 would remain unchanged. The updated District 4 would be reduced by 70 to 11,537 residents while the updated District 6 would be reduced by 994 to 10,256. The updated District 5 would increase by 994 to 10,715 residents.
Christopher Harris, a participant in several Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission sessions, who provided input about the redistricting plan to Adkins, said he was concerned there was no public input into the process.
“My only concern is the transparency of this process could have been improved,” Harris said.
He said members of the public who may not agree with the map as presented and approved by the council have the opportunity to submit their own map to the state for consideration at https://districtr.org/indiana.
Adkins said while the council knew redistricting had to occur, it did not receive the information it needed from the Lake County Board of Elections until recently. She said they had little time to develop a plan that would meet state requirements for balancing districts and keeping them compact.
“We had less than a month to try to utilize the tool,” Adkins said.
