The voice of the people should be heard on this matter of the realignment of the City Council Districts due to annexations that took place last November. The Neighborhood Congress has responded. They have been a strong voice for all communities in Greensboro. Here is their letter to the Justice Department since Greensboro and North Carolina are under Section 5 of the Voting Right Act. It is my understanding that the City's legal department has not submitted the plan that was approved on at the February 5  council meeting to the U.S. Justice Dept. as of yet. No action can be taken by the Justice Dept. until they get the plans from the city.

My position is that there is an economic and wealth imbalance in the City. This has existed possible by design for a long time. Economic generators are needed in east Greensboro to spur on economic growth which would mean jobs and retail services coming directly into east Greensboro. District realignment Plan B would only move 3 precincts, but it would give the poorest district, District 1, the priming of its economic pump to promote the economic growth that is suppose to happen, but yet we still wait. There are those who believe some of the social ills that seem to plague some sections of Greensboro would decrease with more opportunities for jobs and services being made available where people live and can more easily access them along with paying a livable wage.

The biggest excuses for a lack of growth in east Greensboro are that we do not have adequate infrastructure, wealth to encourage investors to come and there are not enough households. Yet east Greensboro is more densely populated that other areas and east Greensboro is majority African American. In a 2006 report by NC Institute of Minority Economic Development on minority buying power in North Carolina, it says in North Carolina nationally based on size ranks 8th, market share 9th and growth rate 33rd, North Carolina is one of the nation's most important African American markets. In 2006, African American purchases accounted for 1 out of every 7 dollars that is spent in NC. The report further states that in 2006, African American buying power in Greensboro MSA approached $3.3 billion, by 2011 it is projected to be $4.2 billion and Greensboro is the 3rd largest MSA level African American consumer market in the state. My point is we do have people with money and needs. (www.ncimed.com)

By putting one precinct in District 1 that includes the Four Seasons part of High Point Rd,  it could mean close to over $500 million in economic boost to an area that should have retail services in it just like the abundance in west Greensboro. Plan B would also not move so many people and precincts including taking the Cardinal out of District 4 and taking more wealth from Districts 1 and 2 as well as moving a former city council member in District 5 to District 4. And there are some politically obvious reasons for plan Q that does this. Plan Q was never discussed with the entire council and especially District 1& 2. Yet based on the rush to move plan Q and vote not to support plan B, others on the council had a heads up.

We hear some members of council talking about transparency but they work under a cloud of secrecy, lack of respect and non inclusion. We need to talk more about equity; for Greensboro will never be greater than its weakest link whether it is a city district or the actions of the city council to keep power within a certain social, economic or ethnic group. Plan Q demonstrates this while plan B starts a new day in equity for the whole city. Greensboro will struggle with being the great city it wants to be in the 21st century if its leadership does not truly embrace change, equity and fairness.
Thanks for stepping up GNC.

March 12, 2008

Don Jacobsen
Voting Section
Civil Rights Division
Room 7254 - NWB
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC   20530

Re: City of Greensboro, NC Council Districts

Dear Mr. Jacobsen:

We are writing as Co-Chairs of the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress (GNC), at the direction of the GNC membership, to express the GNC’s strong displeasure concerning the City of Greensboro’s recently adopted City Council redistricting plan that is currently under review by you and other United States Department of Justice personnel. The GNC is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization comprised of neighborhood organizations representing neighborhoods located throughout Greensboro. We currently have 43 member neighborhood organizations that include more than 16,000 households. These neighborhoods are located throughout Greensboro’s five City Council districts, making the GNC one of the most socio-economically and racially diverse organizations in Greensboro. The mission of the GNC is to address issues of citywide concern to neighborhoods and to empower neighborhood leaders to address their specific neighborhoods’ own issues of concern. We focus on advocacy for the improvement of the quality of life in Greensboro neighborhoods and on the education of neighborhood leaders.

On February 19, 2008, our City Council voted to adopt what is known as redistricting “Plan Q” over other redistricting plans, including a “Plan B” that had been recommended by City staff. (We believe that you have been asked to review both the adopted “Plan Q” and the alternative “Plan B.”) At a meeting on March 8, the GNC membership in attendance voted unanimously to comment to the United States Department of Justice to protest the procedural deficiencies involved in the adoption of Plan Q, as well as the substantive deficiencies in Plan Q relative to Plan B. We are writing this letter to you in accord with that mandate.

The GNC membership is particularly dismayed with the manner in which Plan Q was adopted. Unlike Plan B and most of the other plans that were made available for public review and comment well ahead of the Council’s February 19 meeting, Plan Q was unleashed on the public for the first time during the Council’s meeting, by its sponsor, Council Member Zack Matheny, who is the District 3 representative. (In fact, The GNC has been informed that some of the Council Members themselves had only 24 hours or less to review Plan Q prior to the Council meeting.) The public had no opportunity to review any maps depicting the impact of Plan Q before (or even during) the Council’s meeting at which Plan Q was adopted. It is hard to imagine a decision more fundamental to our Country’s democratic processes than a redistricting that will deprive some voters of representation by the candidates they voted into office. For our Council to have made such a decision by adopting an alternative that the public was denied access to until after the fact is simply repugnant. We urge you to reject Plan Q for that reason alone.

We also want to make sure that you are aware of the substantive inferiority of Plan Q relative to Plan B. Plan Q results in 26 voting precincts being shifted from one district to another, whereas Plan B would have shifted 3 precincts. This means that, absent your intervention, voters residing in 26 of Greensboro’s precincts (about one third of the total precincts in the City) will find themselves represented on July 1, 2008 by a candidate whom they did not have the opportunity to vote for in the general election on November 6, 2007. To deprive this many voters of the opportunity for representation by a candidate they had the opportunity to vote for (or against) is a serious usurpation of democratic processes. Plan Q also will split 11 neighborhoods whereas Plan B would split only 5, and the current districting splits 6 neighborhoods. Plan B would therefore result in one less split neighborhood than the status quo, compared to Plan Q, which will double the number of split neighborhoods.

Moreover, Plan Q has a more insidious impact. Under the current districting, Districts 1 and 2 are “majority minority” and Districts 3 and 4 are “majority majority,” whereas District 5 is almost balanced with 47.5% minority population. What this means is that our City’s most likely opportunity to have a third district represented by a minority candidate is in District 5. But Plan Q would dilute the minority population in District 5 down to 41.3%, undermining the prospect of a minority candidate being elected in District 5, and making it unlikely that minority representation on our Council will have any prospect of increasing in the foreseeable future. This is a serious impact, and although some of it is inevitable given that the areas recently annexed by the City have a primarily white population in District 5, Plan Q’s magnification of that dilution relative to Plan B constitutes another serious substantive flaw in Plan Q.

Because Plan Q is flawed substantively compared to Plan B in so many respects, it renders  the procedural deficiencies attendant to Plan Q’s adoption all the more suspect, and begs the question of whether Plan Q’s conception and 11th hour unveiling was engineered by special interests. Plan Q has obvious political benefits for certain elected representatives and less obvious impacts for some business interests.

For the reasons set out above, the GNC strongly urges the United States Department of Justice to give Plan Q the strictest scrutiny, and to reject it in favor of Plan B.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Sullivan, Co-Chair                  
Art Davis, Co-Chair                      
Greensboro Neighborhood Congress           

c/o Greensboro Neighborhood Congress
1 Gwyn Lane
Greensboro, NC 27403
(336) 851-2748
bdnewt@yahoo.com