Morgan City redistricting plan draws fire from residents

Morgan City must redistrict its voting districts by the end of May, but that the latest plan isn’t sitting too well with some residents of affected districts.

The city, which lost 299 people between the 2000 and 2010 U.S. Census, must complete the redistricting process before this fall, when Morgan City voters will go to the polls to elect a new mayor and five new city councilmen.

Mayor Tim Matte said District 3, the city’s majority-minority district, had a significant share of that loss. Many people either moved out or moved into other areas of the city, he said.

Matte said he noticed the problem earlier this year, as he began to prepare the city for this fall’s elections.

“Originally, when the 2010 census figures came out, I did not expect the loss would be to the point that the city would have to redistrict,” he said. “But when we pulled the maps, we also saw that District 5 was too big, and District 3, too small, so I knew we had to begin a redistricting process.”

Matte and the council met early in April with a demographer to propose a new redistricting plan that would keep the federal requirement of a one-man, one-vote rule but also keep a majority-minority district that in 2000 stood at 57 percent.

“It has been challenging,” the mayor said. “So far, this initial plan gets us to 55 percent, and what the Justice Department considers an 18-year-old plus voting percentage of 51.5 percent.”

Even though the plan is not written in stone, Matte and the city council introduced it as an ordinance at their meeting last Tuesday, creating the new voting districts.

He said a new voting district plan must be approved by the end of May so that the U.S. Justice Department may stamp its approval before Aug 2012, when election qualification begins. 

But at the city council meeting last Tuesday, residents fired concerns over the city’s proposed plan, which, among other things, moves one side of Bernice Street from District 3, and then takes a block of residents who live on Third Street, which is currently situated in District 2, and places them in District 3.

Herman Hartman, who is black, told the council that he believes some of the areas included in District 3 in the new plan have no African American residents.

“With this plan, looking at it overall, if we are going to be represented as a group and given the opportunity to be successful, it seems as though we should be given more than what you have presented,” Hartman said.

Morgan City Councilman the Rev. Ron Bias, the councilman for District 3, who is also black, assured Hartman that there are not any hidden motives in the plan that the city is pitching.

District 4 Councilman Luke Manfre agreed.

“This was really hard to get these numbers to change where we need them to be,” Manfre said. 

However, Hartman said if the process is rushed and people are still unhappy, it’s not good for Morgan City.

“It’s not the urgency that’s important to me. It’s being satisfied,” he said.

Bias relied, “We’re going to do everything we can to do that’s lawful.”

Jean Paul Bourg and Matt Glover, however, were also not satisfied.

Bourg presented a petition, from his block, with 10 signatures opposing the city’s proposed redistricting plan, which he said moves his block out of District 2, and into District 3.

“We all live around Lawrence Park, and we’re all concerned about what goes on and around there. If we move into District 3, how concerned is that District 3 councilman going to be concerned about our needs, particularly around the time of the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, when our streets are blocked?” Bourg asked. “I believe more of us with the same concerns would be heard more.”

Bias replied, “I think as city councilmen, we all work hard whether it’s one phone call or 100 phone calls. We work the same. It just doesn’t matter.”

Glover, who is black, said he is not concerned about who the councilman is for the area.

“It’s the group of people who live around the park who are there,” he said.

Glover also contested the demographer’s count on black voters who live in the district. “No way on those numbers. We do not have that many African American voters in our area, and I’ve been living there for 25 years.”

After last Tuesday’s city council meeting, the City decided to hold a meeting on Tuesday May 8 at 6 p.m., looking for new alternatives on how to grapple with keeping as close as possible to a 57 percent majority-minority district, in the wake of the city losing 238 persons.

The meeting will be held at the Walmsley United Methodist Church, 608 Freret St.

“I urge everyone to attend the meeting at Walmsley, to see for yourself,” Bias said.

Manfre concurred: “I hope we get some good ideas. It’s really tough when you look at the numbers.”