The Frederick City Council held a special workshop on December 3, 2024, to receive an update and presentation on the city's new Election Districting Project from the consulting firm Haystack LLC. The meeting began with the election of a new Council President and Vice President. Council members reviewed a racial bloc voting (RBV) analysis, examined two draft district maps, debated the public participation process, and adjusted the project timeline to allow for more community input. No final maps were adopted.
Racial Bloc Voting (RBV) Analysis: Haystack LLC presented the results of a racial bloc voting analysis, a standard step for Voting Rights Act compliance. Using the Thornburg v. Gingles test, the firm analyzed 19 statewide elections at the precinct level. The analysis found instances of racial polarized voting for Black voters in 2 of the 19 elections (the 2022 Democratic primary for Governor and the Attorney General race) and for Hispanic voters in 4 of the 19 elections. Regarding the third prong of the Gingles test, Haystack concluded that drawing a geographically compact and contiguous majority-minority district was not possible without extreme gerrymandering due to the dispersed nature of the city's minority populations. Council Member Ximchek confirmed that statewide elections were used because no city council district elections existed previously to analyze. The Council agreed that the draft maps should not consider incumbency or partisan breakdown.
Draft Maps and Public Process: Senior Analyst Zach Coombs presented two draft district maps (Map 1 and Map 2). The maps were drawn using the 2020 prisoner-adjusted census population (78,303 total, ideal district size 15,661) with a maximum population deviation of 10%. Map 1 had a total deviation of 5.34%. The maps prioritized compactness, major roads, natural boundaries, and keeping neighborhoods intact. Haystack noted a discrepancy between the city boundary provided by the clerk's office and the 2020 census boundary due to recent annexations, but confirmed these areas have negligible population for current districting purposes. The Council discussed the balance between encouraging public participation via the Dave's Redistricting App and managing an unwieldy number of submissions. Councilmember McShane cautioned against a "free-for-all" process, while Councilmember Kelly Russell and Vice President Shackelford expressed concern that the original timeline was too short to gather meaningful public input, especially from residents without reliable technology access.
Timeline Debate: The original timeline proposed final map adoption by January 20, 2025 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day). Councilmember Russell argued this was insufficient over the holiday season. Vice President Shackelford supported extending the comment period to ensure robust engagement. Councilmember McShane expressed comfort with the existing proposals and favored adopting one of the two maps unless a fundamental flaw was found. Council President Nash proposed a compromise, moving the target adoption date to the February 6 regular meeting.
I will. I just do this once. He did it twice. Did he? Yeah. Twenty four years. Stay tuned. Good evening, and welcome to the December third, twenty twenty-four special workshop meeting of the City Council of the City of Frederick. For the record, I'm Rachel Nesson, City Attorney, and I will be chairing just the very beginning of this meeting. Pursuant to the city's charter. Any member may make a motion, and no second is required. So I move for approval as Katie Nash as the president. Okay, we have a motion. Second to that motion. We have a motion by Councilmember Ximchek and a second by Councilmember McShane. We will now take a vote. All in favor. Okay. That is five zero. Um congratulations, Madam City Council President. This time I will happily turn the gavel over to you to conduct nominations for city council vice president. Congratulations. We will now take motions for the office of uh city council vice president. I have a motion to name my colleague Derek Shackelford as vice president of our council. Second. We have a motion and a second. Are there any other nominations? Okay. All those in favor? That's five zero. Thank you very much. Congratulations, ma'am. Council member. Thank you. Congratulations. I'm just gonna stay right down here in this chair where I've been for the last seven years. All right. Councilman, thank you very much. Thanks. For your editorial, as always. All right, so moving on. We have tonight an update and presentation on the election district project. Uh kicking us off is Guyan Sampson from the office of the mayor. Good evening, everyone, and good evening, council members, and congratulations to Council President Katie Nash and Council Vice President Derek Shackelford. I'm here today with Phyllis Hain, our city clerk. We are here with our folks from Hastack to talk about where we are with the um the district, and I did not introduce myself. My name is Guyan Sampson. I'm the mayor's chief of staff, and we're here to go through that. Phyllis, I'll turn it over to you. Good evening for the record, Phyllis Haynes, City Clerk.