The Alaska Redistricting Board appears to be intent on supporting certain incumbents rather than striving for compact, contiguous districts, as required by state law, that fairly represent SE folks, including villages.
Due to population changes, SE will now have four equal districts.
These should be Districts 1, 2, 3, & 4 and Senate Seats A & B.
Sitka needs to remain whole. As many villages as possible should be combined with Sitka to give the villages in SE the best possible cohesive voice.
Haines should be joined with Skagway, can include part of North Juneau, and also include several rural communities that are geographically close to them in northern SE. Splitting Haines from Skagway is wrong.
Eliminating HD2 from SE and pairing Ketchikan (HD1) with either Kodiak or Cordova/Valdez as the new HD2 is wrong. Makes much more sense to pair Ketchikan with Sitka and the villages. And to pair Kodiak with Cordova/Valdez.
Also, it’s time for HD6 (interior Bush district) to become HD5 and be paired with the more logical choice of another rural interior Bush district to maintain a minority majority Senate District that revolves around Fairbanks and makes sense to the people in that region.
Kathleen Menke
Haines
Comments (4)
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can't completely agree with you. You state that it's wrong to split Sitka (I agree) and that Haines should not be split from Skagway. But then you say it's okay to split up Juneau?? That's not exactly fair either!
Juneau's already split. Actually, the two Juneau districts have
to expand, as do all districts due to increase in Alaska population.
Minority representation preservation appears to be intent
There is a fine balancing act being played out here. Southeast has two Native districts which are important to the U.S. Justice Department. While there may be some politics being played out here. Is this surprising to anyone? The effect of the reapportionment board's two proposals would be to help maintain Native representation.
The other proposals submitted, except for the one by the Alaska Bush Caucus, would submerge the Native represented districts. And while today it is inevitable that rural Alaska is losing representation, the board's proposals would lean towards preserving some of that representation.
Yes but,
Juneau may be split in two, but it's all still Juneau. To say, "Haines should be joined with Skagway, can include part of North Juneau" sounds like a whole different kind of split. Until I get more info on just how that would work, I can't support it.