Welcome to today's business session.

Our first item is approval of minutes for business session of December 2nd, 2021.

Is there a motion?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

All in favor of approving the minutes.

Aye.

All opposed.

The uh motion passes.

Um the request of our guests with redistricting will start on that topic since we'll have quite a I think a potentially extensive discussion.

I'll ask our redistricting task force, however, you would like to come on up and present.

It's okay.

All right, good afternoon, everyone.

I'll go ahead and get started as Melisa uh gets us all uh technologically uh scheduled.

My name is Stephen E.

Smith, and I have uh the privilege of being able to chair this redistricting um commission, in addition to serving as the first district at large uh representative.

And I'll start off my comments with um really gratitude.

Um gratitude to all who have participated, especially our neighbors that have shared their own personal accounts to our neighbors who have shared their um ideas, their dissents, their challenges, and their hopes for this map.

So thank um thank you to each of you for trusting us and being a part of and promoting and participating in this process.

Um I'd also like to acknowledge that what guided us as a commission in this process really stands on the shoulder of all the work and the advocacy and the commitment that this city has continuously um I guess deepened our commitment to of equity, realizing that different people need different things and wanting to recognize the voices of those who historically have not had their voices honored.

And so I really want to um recognize that this is what this work stands upon.

I'd also like to acknowledge uh that this uh process has been a process of compromise, uh and it has been driven by both qualitative and quantitative data, much of which will be able to um showcase in the midst of our presentations.

Um I'd also um just like to remind us that you know we believe um that this uh map provides an opportunity for the council to work together to evaluate and recognize the value of all parts of our city, that this map should inspire smart and strategic targeting of growth, redevelopment, and stabilization, and we we recognize that it would require um cooperation and collaboration across the city, as it should, as we're one Kansas City.

Um we also like to recognize that every district in this reconfiguration has potential for growth and renewal, and that was definitely part of the brain trust as we presented this.

And and with that, we recognize that all parts of the city, both urban and suburban, regardless of age, income, race, or resources contribute to the set success of Kansas City, which means that we cannot um overlook uh the voices of those that we historically have not um been able to pay attention to or chose not to pay attention to.

So we believe that all deserve representation that enables um those uh contributions to this map.

And so with that, I'd like to um recognize and you go ahead and go to the first um slide.

I'd like to recognize um who we recognize as part of being the this redistricting team, which has been the engaged public.

Thank you to the leaders that have invited the commissioners out to help tell the story and to uh bring um thoughts on the redistricting process.

I also like to thank every single commissioner who has dedicated um a lot of time um and brain trust to this.

The commissioners met every single week uh for uh for from four to six plus um hours, in addition to all of the work of meeting for um various um community meetings and home associations.

Um and then, of course, this work cannot happen without the dutiful work of the city staff, and so thank you again to the city staff.

And I'll also like to acknowledge to our council persons that having to represent uh whether it's 85,000 or our total of 58,000 is not easy.

So thank you all um for the work that you have been doing that guided this process.

So um, with that, we'll invite um Commissioner Rucker to come up.

We've been doing our work to make sure that we did demystify this process so that our community members understand what to expect, and so um he'll guide us in our guiding principles.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all for being here.

It's great to see a lot of you, um, or all of you, I should say.

Tell us how you really feel.

Um so this process is a process.

Yeah, I was talking about Dan just.

No, so this is a process that our city has to go through every 10 years when we get new census data.

It's a process that usually uh we get about nine months to do.

And due to the delay in the census data being returned to us due to COVID 19, we had about roughly nine to 13-ish weeks to complete this entire process.

And there are a couple of things that guide this process for us.

One of them being creating ideal districts, meaning that every every district is roughly the same size, in this instance being about 84,000.

There is a 10% rule that allows us to uh that will not allow us to create a district that is larger or smaller than 10% from the largest or smallest district.

So they all have to be relatively close in size.

Uh another one is the districts have to be compact and contiguous, so they have to be as compact as we can get them, and they cannot start in one place, jump over another district and pick themselves up again.

They must all sides of the district must touch.

Um then the the another one was making sure that we comply with the voting rights act, and that is giving uh minority groups an opportunity to elect representation of the minority party in the city, and not intentionally drawing them out of that opportunity for representation.

And another charge of this uh or something that was very conscientious of this group was to try to draw as compact of a district as we could to increase the Latinx representation on the city council as it has not had representation on this council in about two decades.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Rucker.

Um I'll invite uh Cal Elliott to join us and take us through a brief overview of our um the process of of redistricting.

Good afternoon, Kyle Elliott, City Planning Department.

Uh appreciate the opportunity to work on this project.

Uh most of the work done here was also with Brian Wise, who's behind me as well.

Uh if you go to the next slide, please.