.~"~ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ol'N/~ "' {{{ / `~ COMMISSIONERS' COURT WORKSHOP DRAFT ILLUSTRATIVE PLAN OF REDISTRICTING COMMISSIONERS' COURTROOM KERR COUNTY COURTHOUSE ~~C~~°-1 June 20, 2001 10:07 a.m. to 10:39 a.m. GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 s C C n z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A P P E A R A N C E S COUNTY JUDGE -- Fred Henneke COMMISSIONER, PRECINCT 2 -- William "Bill" Williams Ms. Penny Redington BICKERSTAFF, HEATH, SMILEY, POLLAN, KEVER & McDANIEL, L.L.P. 816 Congress Avenue Suite 1700 Austin, Texas 78701-2443 Phone: (512) 472-8021 GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ZO 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 (Open court.) THE COURT: Good morning. Let me call this workshop to order. We have a presentation by Penny Redington from Bickerstaff, Heath law firm in Austin regarding a draft illustrative plan for redistricting. I sent to each of you in the mail a copy of -- a small copy of the plan. Penny has brought some larger copies where we can actually see something, and she will tell us the changes that have been made since the first plan and also respond to any questions and talk about any concerns that their firm may have regarding the potential for redistricting here in Kerr County. So Penny Redington. MS. REDINGTON: Thank you, Judge. Good morning. Good morning, Commissioner Williams. It's nice to see you here today. COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good morning, Penny. MS. REDINGTON: And, ladies and gentlemen, it's wonderful to have this kind of turnout. So often this sort of thing just passes somewhat unnoticed as hard as we try to involve the community. Sometimes it's difficult to do that, and I'm very pleased to see the level of participation GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 here in Kerr County, and in large part that's due to the efforts of the Judge, the commissioners, and their staff, and we're happy to have that. I have come today with a draft plan, an illustrative plan, we call it, to present to the commissioners' court and to the members of the community as an example of a plan that would help to correct the imbalance in population in the various commissioners' precincts and that we feel would comply with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. If you were here several months ago when we made our first presentation to the county, when we came down here with our assessment of your current situation and the population in your current -- the current population in your precincts, you remember that Kerr County was somewhat out of balance. You have had growth in your county, and just by way of a refresher, Judge, if you don't mind, I'd like to just bring -- go over that and sort of bring everyone up to date on this. In your county, as I look at the map of your current commissioners' court precincts, you have seen considerable growth, and you have now a total population, according to the 2000 census, of GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 43,653 people. That means that your ideal precinct size would be 10,913 people in each precinct. That would be your ideal precinct size. So if you -- if you could be perfect, you would have exactly that number of people in each precinct. Well, that's very difficult to do when you have a lot of other considerations. So you can't reach that level of perfection, but we -- we will strive to do that, and that's what we attempted to do as we developed this illustrative plan for the commissioners' court to consider. Now, with the population that you have, it was not evenly divided or distributed among your precincts. In fact, the deviation from the ideal precinct size between your largest precinct and your smallest precinct had reached 17,43 percent. You were definitely out of balance, and that needed to be addressed, and so as we began to work on a map to bring your commissioner precincts back into equal population, we tried a number of different things. We had input from the Judge and from the commissioners, and, in fact, one of the commissioners came and worked with us one day on our computers to address some of the issues concerning his precinct, and we -- after several rough starts, GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 we came up with this illustrative plan 1 to present to you today, and it's fairly large scale. I think -- I hope that you can see from where you are or you can see on one of the copies that's -- sort of a mid-size copy that's floating around out here, but it's -- it's a plan that does, in fact, bring your precincts into balance. Judge, is that big enough for you all to see, what you have there? THE COURT: Uh-huh. Yes. That helps. MS. REDINGTON: Okay. I would just, I guess, begin by calling your attention to the areas of change. One of our basic criteria adopted by the Court at our last meeting was that we would attempt to use existing lines wherever possible. The changes should be minimal wherever possible, and we did, in fact, start with your existing plan. We didn't just toss everything and start from scratch. We -- we looked at the lines as they are, and we attempted to make most of our changes within your population center. We're fortunate because your precincts do come into the City of Kerrville, and that gives us a little bit more flexibility, and so we -- and when GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 7 r^ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ZO lI 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 you change lines within the city for county commissioners' precincts, it doesn't affect things like the number of county road miles that a commissioner might have or something like that, and it does not affect as many -- well, it may affect as many constituents, but it doesn't have the same impact as moving a line out here. Like you would have to move this line a long way to pick up enough people to make much difference, and you could move a line in the city very minimally and have a much larger change in the population. So we worked, first of all, with your existing voting boxes, election boxes. We call them VTDs, voting tabulation districts because that's the terminology that the Census Bureau uses when they create the census geography that we have to work with, and it's all in computerized format. We worked with your voting boxes wherever we could, but in places we had to qo down to the census block level, and as I explained last time, the census block in the city may be a city block, but a census block out in the county may be much larger and very irregular in shape, having maybe one or two or sometimes no people living in them, and you had a little -- I wouldn't call it a problem, but you had GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 8 ,,,~ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ,,,` 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 a situation that is not uncommon in that you had some census blocks that were actually split by lines that were being used, and so we tried to correct those split census blocks wherever we could, and that's something that will stand the county in good stead in the future. It will be easier to make changes in the future because we are using the census geography lines. So let's just -- I'm trying to think where we might start. Perhaps -- perhaps with precinct 1 which is a precinct which comes through the county in a sense, and the largest change, I believe, for precinct -- well, there are actually two for precinct 1 that I would want to point out to you, and you can see it best. It's this inset 1, and you can see it best up here. The current line -- the existing line is shown in sort of a bluish purple color. You see it here? Okay. We had tc -- Precinct 1 -- let me just get my notes here. Precinct 1 was underpopulated just a little bit at -- it was -2.5 below the ideal precinct size, and Precinct 4 was overpopulated by seven percent. Precinct 3 was underpopulated by 10 percent. Precinct 2 was overpopulated by 5.5 percent. So there had to be some trading. We had GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 to do some trading, and we actually gave up some -- excuse me. We gave up some of Precinct 4, because it was overpopulated by four percent, and added it to Precinct 1 in this area here bounded by Doris, West Crest, Mountain Laurel and Glen. That population was moved out of Precinct 4 and into Precinct 2. COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One. MS. REDTNGTON: Excuse me, into Precinct 1. That's one of the first major changes that I would point out to you. So the line moved from what was Mockingbird and Warbler. It moved to the northwest to become Doris, West Crest, Mountain Laurel and Glen. This line remained the same along Crestwood and Junction. That was not changed, but in the city additional population was given to Precinct 1 to bring it up a little bit. Yes, sir? JUDGE ELLIOTT: I notice on your -- THE COURT: Excuse me. We're taking this down, so would you all please identify yourselves when you have a question. JUDGE ELLIOTT: I'm Vance Elliott, JP 1, Precinct 1. I notice in the inset proposal it GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 looks like the existing line in the navy blue was the old line, but the new line is shaded pink and does not go up into the courthouse where the old line was, and since my office is here at the courthouse, I believe I need to be in Precinct 1. MS. REDINGTON: Well, now what we are showing is a draft plan for the commissioners' precincts, to get the commissioners in balance. JUDGE ELLIOTT: Uh-huh. MS. REDINGTON: And that's our starting point. If we need to make adjustments -- if the Court wishes to make adjustments to justice precinct lines, that will be another step, and it's just -- and I recognize that this could be -- could be a problem for certain justice precincts. The incumbents would not be living in them. We attempted, where we could, to run checks and to be sure that your residence was within the precinct, but your office -- JUDGE ELLIOTT: The office and I use the courtrooms here at the courthouse. All I'm pointing out is, you see that the little inset there by Sidney Baker, the old line, it came across Junction Highway. What that does is come right into the front of the courthouse to accommodate Precinct GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 I1 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1 Justice of the Peace to be in the courthouse. MS. REDINGTON: Judge, I don't know where Sidney Baker is. JUDGE ELLIOTT: Counselor, would you like for me to show you? MS. REDINGTON: Oh, here it is. COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: At the bottom right corner, right there. MS. REDINGTON: If you would not mind, Judge, letting me just sort of work around through this -- JUDGE ELLIOTT: That's fine. MS. REDINGTON: -- and then we can talk about this -- JUDGE ELLIOTT: I just wanted to point that out. MS. REDINGTON: -- in general. That's fine, and Z appreciate that, and we -- we certainly -- the Court is -- this is only an illustrative plan. The Court may want to make adjustments for various reasons as we go along, but we first of all have to get the commissioners' precincts in balance. As I said, last time when I was here, the justice precincts do come under the Voting Rights Act, but they are not under the GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830j 537-4223 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 I6 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 constitutional one person, one vote. JUDGE ELLIOTT: I understand. MS. REDINGTON: Okay. So -- so what we were doing was looking at commissioners' precincts first of all. So as I said, to add some population to Precinct 1, this is one of the changes that was made. I think that the other lines on Precinct 1 remain the same except for an area right over here. Coltress Hollow, I believe there's one line, and then Denlu would be a -- is that a street? Denlu is a road? COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Uh-huh. MS. REDTNGTON: There was a -- I think that was a split census block in that area, and so we just brought that into conformity with the census geography right in that area. Then working on around Precinct 1 coming down from the north on Interstate 10, there were no changes in that area until we got into town and the -- the old line was Pershing to -- I don't know this street here, but you see where Lincoln is and Water and then I -- I'm assuming that's the curve of a creek that's not labeled -- to Sidney Baker, and then the change that was mentioned by the Judge. The old line is here, and then population GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 was actually taken out of that precinct to be placed in Precinct 3, which is as I said earlier, was underpopulated by about 10 percent. So there is a change right here of several blocks. Then I think the remaining lines are the same until we get to this area of Inset 1, and this is this blowup right up here. This comes from this point. There is a change here to follow what I believe is the line of the river; is that right? And then -- to eliminate that gap right there, and then in this area we followed Ranchero Road from the Medina Aighway over to Calcote and then Nixon and Codrington. Is that Codrington? Yes. Okay. So those are -- that's just the boundaries of Precinct 1 and as that impacted 4 or 2 or 3, you could tell as we went through there, because the changes that we made from one really had an effect on the others. There was an additional change to the boundary between Precinct 2 and 3 which involved some population in this area. I believe there was a split census block here, a split census block near Wilson Creek in this area, and then there was a split census block here. We ran into an interesting situation down GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 in this area where Commissioner Letz lives, and he lives in an a area that was split, and this was done probably 10 years ago or 20 years ago, and when we -- when we tried to unsplit that and put that census block back together, we drew him out of his precinct, which was really a shock to him when he saw the first draft of this, so we got that straightened out. He was a good sport about it, but that kind of thing can happen, because while you know the population total in a census block, you don't know where each house is in a census block, and so when we allocated block to Precinct 2, he ended up not being in his precinct. So we got that straightened out, and, in fact, there was very little population in this area, and it was suggested that we simply bring a line down in here, and this looks funny because that is a census block that just sticks out like that. We like to make all these clean and neat, but we have to work with the census blocks. That's the lowest Level we can work with, and so that line is not as pretty as we would like for it to be, but it is a split census block in there. So with this plan we were able to get up GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ZO 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the population deviation between the largest and the smallest precincts -- our deviation £rom the ideal down to 3.18, which I think is a very -- very good figure, and it leaves us a little bit of room if we need to make some adjustments. There is a chart that is connected to each one of these maps, which you might want to look at, which really breaks down the population figuring under a plan like this. We have Precinct 1 now with 10,694 people, and remember the ideal precinct size would be 10,913. So 10,694 in Precinct 1. The deviation is -2.01. The population in Precinct 2, 11,041 means that that deviation is 1.17, very close also to zero, and then even better in Precincts 3 and 4 with 10,972 people in Precinct 3. That's a deviation of .54 percent. That's less than one percent deviation, and even closer to zero in Precinct 4 with 10,946, the deviation is .30 percent. So your total deviation is 3,000 -- 3.18 percent, and that's -- there are no prizes for getting all the way down to zero, as I told a couple of the commissioners and the Judge. They don't award prizes for that, but it gives you a little bit of room if you need to adjust certain lines, and as the Judge pointed out, we may GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 want to do some adjustment to accommodate offices and other needs that the county might have. But I'm happy to answer questions, Judge, about any of this and -- COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Penny, let me ask you one question with respect to the residents of Justice of the Peace 2. Judge Wright, can you tell us with certainty that you are still within Precinct 2 by looking at this map? JUDGE WRIGHT: Yes. Yes, I'm still there. COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Just wanted to be sure. JUDGE WRIGHT: And my office is too. COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just one of the things we needed to make certain about. MS. REDINGTON: It is not unusual to have a little bit of a disconnect between the justice residences and when you're trying to get the commissioners' lines in balance, so we -- we just work through that as we -- COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good. Thank you. MS. REDINGTON: Just want everyone to make -- just check their own residence, make sure GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ZO 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 they know which precinct they're in at this point. THE COURT: Does anyone have any questions or comments or -- yes, sir? Identify yourself, please, for the record, if you would. MR. TENANT: My name is Bill Tenant. I live in Precinct 1, but my question is, what's the next step? What's the process now? MS. REDINGTON: Well, the commissioners' court will take some time to look at this. They'll take some time to hear comments from the public, maybe written suggestions of other plans that they may want to consider. After that, when they are comfortable with this, if we need to make other adjustments, we can certainly do that for them, and then they will hold a public hearing, and after that public hearing, either at the same meeting or later, they will adopt the plan. At that time we will look at the impact on election precincts and the adjustments that we would need to make to election precinct boundaries to comport with this new plan, and then we would prepare a submission for the Justice Department in which we present to them the changes that were made. MR. TENANT: In Washington? MS. REDINGTON: In Washington, D.C., GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 2? 29 2° yes, and we explain to them the changes that were made and why they were made. We demonstrate that we have not violated the Voting Rights Act in any way, and we ask them to give us what is called preclearance to go forward and hold an election under this plan. MR. TENANT: Is there anything that is going on in Austin that will change this? MS. REDINGTON: Yes. We did discuss this last time, and that's a very good question and something that we need to be mindful of. Unfortunately, not enough went on in Austin during the regular session of the legislature. They did not -- did not adopt a plan for their own redistricting in their legislative boundaries or for congressional lines and State Board of Education lines, so we are -- we have a little bit of a vacuum there. We are not sure what they will do. Everything is now before the Legislative Redistricting Board. If they act, then we will -- and they decide that they will take a line through Kerr County, we will need to conform our election precincts to that line. In other words, we can't -- if one of their lines came through and cut through GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 2] 2i 2. 2~ 2. one of our election box precincts, we would need to split that because you cannot have -- MR. TENANT: Split. MS. REDINGTON: -- you cannot have one of those lines that we're talking about cutting through an election box so -- MR. TENANT: And if things go reasonably well, are we looking at September or something for final? MS. REDINGTON: No. We would hope to submit the request for preclearance to the Justice Department by the -- I would say the first of October, mid September to the first of October. They have 60 days automatically to consider our request for preclearance. Very often they will request additional information and that gives them another 60 days, so they have 120 days in which to consider this and then act. We hope to hear back from them in plenty of time, so that anyone wanting to file for any office in 2002 would have ample notice of their -- the new precinct lines. MR. TENANT: Thank you. MS. REDINGTON: Good questions. Any other questions. Yes, ma'am? MS. PIEPER: I'm Jannett Pieper, GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 2~ 29 2` County Clerk. If we don't get the preclearance approval by November 6th, do I go on with my normal election precinct lines? MS. REDINGTON: Yes, you do. That's another very good question. You need to go forward. Someone could attempt to enjoin the election, because we did not have preclearance, but we -- I don't anticipate a big problem, so -- but you just need to go forward. In fact, State law requires that the commissioners' court appoint election judges in July, and that state law doesn't fit very well with the Voting Rights Act requirements, and, you know -- but we -- we just attempt to do this the best we can. It' s not a perfect system. It doesn't always work logically, but if you have -- if you look at this and you have some ideas about how you want to change election precincts, we can work with you in the next few weeks to get some of that down on paper, and the Court then would have an idea of where they would maybe need to appoint different election judges or something. It's all sort of happening at the same time. Yes, ma'am? MS. BOLIN: I'm Diane Bolin, Deputy GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 29 2_ Voter Registrar. Down where you have 215 -- I'm sorry -- Precinct 1 and 4 together at Denlu, the little arch that comes up. MS. REDINGTON: Here? MS. BOLIN: Uh-huh. MS. REDINGTON: That's Denlu7 That's how you say it? MS. BOLIN: Yes. MS. REDINGTON: Okay. MS. BOLIN: The current line was drawn because those people have to go past three different polling places to get to Ingram to vote, so the ones that you have in blue now need to be put back in the red. MS. REDINGTON: Okay. I think that that is a -- I think that's a split census block. If you want to split a census block, we can do that. MS. BOLIN: Uh-huh. MS. REDINGTON: It's not a good idea. It's not considered good practice, good districting practice. We can do that, but we would have to go out and on the ground count everyone, figure out where the houses are located, get a head count of -- actually not -- not voting age population, but total population -- GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 22 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 29 2` MS. BOLIN: Right. MS. REDINGTON: -- and then draw that line sort of almost by hand. You can't do it on the computer, and allocate those people to one precinct or another. MS. BOLIN: Okay. The problem that we've had in the past with that is that with them living there, they have to go all the way around town into Ingram, which is about 40 miles for them, and they actually do pass three polling places, and that's why we moved them into that other precinct. MS. REDINGTON: Well, there -- that makes sense to me what you're saying. There are many ways to handle something like that. You could create a polling place for them. MS. BOLIN: Okay. How big -- how big would the census block maybe be in that area, because most of that is just ranch land. There's just a little division right there that probably has 35 to 40 people in it. MS. REDINGTON: I can't say with certainty, but I will tell you that if it is mostly ranchland or very rural and rugged country -- MS. BOLIN: Uh-huh. MS. REDINGTON: -- that census blocks GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 23 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 2] 22 2. 2~ 2` tend to be much bigger MS. BOLIN: Okay. MS. REDINGTON: -- and irregular. MS. BOLIN: Right. MS. REDINGTON: And so we can look at that. MS. BOLIN: Okay. MS. REDINGTON: And we'd be glad, if you want to come to the office or something and sit down with us and look at all of this on the computer, it would help you. MS. BOLIN: Right. MS. REDINGTON: We'd be glad to do that. MS. BOLIN: Okay. MS. RECTOR: I just wanted to make a comment on that. That was -- THE COURT: Paula, Paula. MS. RECTOR: I'm Paula Rector, the County Tax Assessor/Collector. Excuse me. That was one of the areas that we did apply to the Justice Department last census to have that changed. There was a lot of very unhappy people in that area, so that's something we probably want to look at again. MS. REDINGTON: Okay. We're happy to GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 24 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 2? 29 2` work with -- with the Court on that kind of thing. THE COURT: I think Diane has the practical solution is take a look at what it would be if we just took that whole census block into one. They're not talking about people, many people. The irregularity would make more sense. MS. REDINGTON: Yeah, because you may just take it all into one and it -- we have a little bit of room here -- THE COURT: We have some room there. MS. REDINGTON: -- we can add some people to one without having a problem, so that may be the very simplest and best, and the simple solutions are usually the best solutions. MS. BOLIN: Okay. MS. REDINGTON: I'll just make a note of that because -- THE COURT: Any other questions or comments? I'll remind everyone that the schedule that the Court adopted was to cut off plans by June the 30th. That is, if anyone out in the county wants to present a plan, they'd have to present it by June the 30th, and we'll have a public meeting, actually a public hearing in July, and we're targeting July 23rd at four o'clock in the afternoon GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 25 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 2] 2: 2~ 2~ 2. for that public hearing. At that public hearing we'll take official public testimony, and if there's no serious objections to the plan that's on the table and considered on July 23rd, we'll take action immediately thereafter and adopt that plan on behalf of the commissioners' court. We do intend to keep the JP and constable lines the same as the commissioners to avoid that disturbance among the voters, and then hopefully we'll been in the position to get the packet off to the Justice Department for preclearance for the commissioners' lines by early August. So that is the timeline that we're operating on, and then we'll go back and work on the voting precincts themselves. Jannett Pieper, our County Clerk, has talked to me about trying, if possible, not to increase the number of voting precincts because of the difficulties in getting judges and clerks for the various elections. I'll just throw that out in general. Does anyone have any comments or concerns about that issue. Diane? MS. BOLIN: The only concern I would have is that this is the mass mailout year in GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 26 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 it 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 2~ 2~ 2` December, and if we are going to change those, I would really like to change them before I do my mass mailout. I know that we've -- that some of the precinct boundaries, before we get preclearance, won't be able to change, but if we are actually going to change voting box numbers, I would like to get those done before I do the mass mailout to prevent mailing a second set of cards. THE COURT: Particularly out in the west -- Wayne and Jack, I mean, those are huge voting election precincts out there. Do you think they work fairly well the way they are, or do we need to look at those closer? MR. PARKS: I think they're working fairly well. MS. REDINGTON: Judge, there may be some situations where with these changes you can actually eliminate a voting box or two. That sometimes happens without it causing a lot of inconvenience, especially in the more urban areas. THE COURT: Justice Elliott? JUDGE ELLIOTT: Vance Elliott. I think that's -- just to echo your comment there about Jannett's problem with the voting precinct, that would be another argument why we would want to GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 27 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 2? 29 2. keep that block in Precinct 1 as opposed to -- I think, there was -- one of the solutions that you offered was it could be his own voting precinct in 4. Well, that would just create more problems and more precincts and voting ballots as opposed to just making that block into 1. THE COURT: Anyone else? Any questions or comments? A question I had for what you said, Penny, was about the state board of election lines. Are we not permitted to cross over state board of election lines or commissioners or voting election boxes? MS. REDINGTON: Your commissioners' lines can, but your voting box can't contain territory from more than one State Board of Education district or congressional district or state legislative district. THE COURT: Okay. Any other questions or comments? Well, thank you all for coming today. If -- as you study them and think about the materials, if you have any questions, I urge you to contact either myself or the commissioner in your precinct. We really are interested in working together to do this right. This is probably the most fundamental GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 28 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 thing that government does is to provide the opportunity to vote and vote equally, and if there are any questions or concerns, please bring them forward at your earliest opportunity so that we can do this once. As Diane and Paula had pointed out when they redistricted in '90 and '91, they set up the lines between 1 and 2 such that people out there had to drive 40 miles to vote, and then we had to go back subsequent to the initial preclearance and get additional preclearance to change those lines so that those people could exercise their franchise. That's the kind of practical solution that we're really relying on you all to bring to us so that we -- we do it right and do it right the first time. So I thank you again for coming out. We'll be in touch. Tentatively plan on July 23rd at four o'clock for the formal public hearing. If there are any plans that are presented by the public, we will get those reproduced and sent out to you all so you can have a chance to look at them and prepare anything at all possible, and we are adjourned. Thank you again. (Hearing concluded at 10:39 a.m.) GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223 29 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 STATE OF TEXAS X COUNTY OF KENDALL X I, Lisa C. Greenwalt, Deputy Official Court Reporter in and for the County Court of Kerr County, State of Texas, do hereby certify that the above and foregoing contains a true and correct transcription of all portions of evidence and other proceedings requested by counsel for the parties to be included in this volume of the Reporter's Record, in the above-styled and numbered cause, all of which occurred in open court or in chambers and were reported by me. I further certify that this Reporter's Record of the proceedings truly and correctly reflects the exhibits, if any, admitted by the respective parties. I further certify that the total cost for the preparation of this Reporter's Record i-sy-$ ~/'~ and was paid/ will b paid by n~ WITNESS MY OFFICIAL HAND this the ~ '~ day of Z~ , 2001. LISA C. GREENWALT, ;£~ ~~g7 `•,. •_ Expiration Date: ~~/~]./p/ ~1 ~_ ~* Greenwalt Court Reprsr~i~/ o P.O. Box 294191 ; ~' ." ' r Kerrville, Texas 7$,~2¢»}419.`° - (830) 537-4223 ,., ,...-- , GREENWALT COURT REPORTING (830) 537-4223