A group of St. Louis residents and activists on Wednesday expressed concerns about the redistricting process less than two weeks after legislators released the first draft of a new ward map, which cuts the number of wards from 28 to 14.
About 20 people, representing a variety of groups and organizations, called on the Board of Aldermen’s legislative committee — in charge of drawing the new ward map — to make the process more publicly accessible and transparent, while allowing residents to participate in the drawing of the new wards to correct inequities and ensure fair representation.
They stood in front of the Board of Aldermen chambers next to a large sign with the first ward map draft, headshots of Aldermanic President Lewis Reed and Alderman Joe Vollmer and the phrase “No backroom deals. People over politics.”
“Today we are saying we want a fair, transparent and inclusive process for redrawing these wards because people deserve to pick their politicians and not the other way around.” —Marquis Govan, local activist
Reed attended the coalition’s media event and was subject to a host of criticism regarding how the redistricting process has transpired so far — including accusations that he has refused to meet with community leaders upon their request.
He later told reporters he believes the committee is working in a transparent and equitable way and said this bill has had more hours of public hearing than any he could recall in the last 20 years. He also was concerned the public was receiving misinformation from those who spoke at the event when it came to the process and the information available to residents.
Notable speakers included Jia Lian Yang, with Forward Through Ferguson; Kathleen Farrell, League of Women voters leader; Marquis Govan, a local activist; the Rev. Darryl Gray; and Wally Siewert, Director of Civic Engagement for FOCUS St. Louis and former UMSL professor of political theory.
“Today we are saying we want a fair, transparent and inclusive process for redrawing these wards because people deserve to pick their politicians and not the other way around,” Govan said.
Reed said he believes these activists are trying to discredit the process in order to give validity to Prop R, a charter amendment which will be voted on in a special election April 5 that would shift the redistricting task from the Board of Aldermen to an independent citizen redistricting commission.
The president has noted in the past he does not believe Prop R, if passed, would apply to this year’s redistricting because by law the board has to have a map passed by the end of the year, well before the election.
But the activists present at Wednesday’s event noted they weren’t all in support of Prop R but were there with concerns about the current process playing out.
“Right now, President Reed and the Board of Aldermen are writing history with their actions,” activist David Dwight IV said, noting that the quality of the process will either protect the “powerful few” or work to preserve residents’ rights.
The committee released an interactive draft of the new ward map Tuesday and planned to release another revision Thursday.
Tuesday’s version brought all 14 new wards within 5% of the 21,541 people per ward, a goal number set by the committee. Around seven of the wards in the first map draft had deviations larger than that 5%. Like the earlier version, though, seven words would be majority Black and seven wards would be majority white.
City voters passed the ward reduction in a 2012 election, which stipulated the new 14 wards would be redrawn after the 2020 census.
This ward reduction comes as census data supported what St. Louisans have known for a long time: the city’s population is in decline — with a population totaling 301,578 residents in 2020, down from 319,294 in 2010 and 348,189 in 2000. The redistricting process occurs every 10 years following the release of new census data.
The committee has two virtual public hearings scheduled, one at 10 a.m. Saturday and the other at 6 p.m. Monday. The committee plans to engage the public and revise the map through Nov. 16. At that point, the committee will make final revisions and present it for a second reading at the full Board of Aldermen meeting Nov. 19.
From there they plan to perfect the bill and vote on final passage by Dec. 3. Legally, the board has until Dec. 31 to finalize and pass a new ward map.
The public can access additional information and an interactive map of the current ward draft at stlouis-mo.gov/aldermen/redistricting.
