001[Music] Heat up here. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] People, [Music] thank you for coming and participating in our work session today. The public may view our board meeting with YouTube um for Edgecom County Public Schools. I will declare this meeting to come to order. Welcome everyone. Would you stand with us as we do our pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. We will try to follow our agenda for the evening. [Music] At this time, I would need to hear a motion to approval of for the approval of
002our agenda. Madam Chair, move for the approval of the agenda as printed. Second. Has been moved and properly second that we will approve. Our agenda is printed. Any other discussion? All in favor of the motion, let it be known by saying I. I the motion. Anyone disapprove? Hearing none. Our agenda is approved. And we are at item three, presentation of our draft option D for redistricting maps. Miss uh turn. Good evening, Madam Chair. Good evening, board members and superintendent. Um so just to set the scene and I don't Blake pull the presentation up. Um we have just a shortened version of the presentation to um show the briefly we'll go over the first three options that the board looked at last time and then the fourth option that the board requested that is based on
003the county commissioners maps. Um and so we will start um I'll turn it over to Blake um and I'll stand by to ask any answer any questions. Um, can you see that? And are you ready to go? I am. Can you all hear me? Yes, sir. Great. Okay. Well, as Deborah said, well, good evening. It's good to see you all. And as Deborah said, we're going to uh start with a review of some of the options that we've seen before. And actually the the very first slide is just a reminder about what the existing districts look like. And of course the reason we're doing this is that the the jurisdiction uh what did not used to be part of the jurisdiction here is now. So the the districts are all growing in size by about
00425%. I should say growing in population by 20% sorry 25%. Um and you'll see that um these slides look somewhat like the um additional the supplemental slides that I provided after the March 10th work session so that they have the map and the demographic information as well as total population deviation. Basically the the population statistics are on the slide uh with each of these drafts or each of these plans. Uh this is showing the first option that we have presented and again this is the option that was based on prioritizing a minimum change from the existing districts. So this uh option A was designed to have as little change keeping in mind that all the all the um all the districts had to add about 1,400 people. Um but this was designed to keep them
005as as similar to the existing districts as po possible. Uh draft option B2. This is the draft option where the criteria that was prioritized was compactness. Trying to keep the districts as compact as possible. And a reminder that it's called B2 because the first version of the unit I created actually I was not looking at where incumbents were located. But as it turned out, with very minor changes, I was able to uh move the district boundaries in such a way so that no two incumbents would be paired in the same district. Draft option C. This is the one that was focused on preserving communities of interest intact and was responsive to public input that the board received uh about communities of interest uh in Edgum County. And this was drawn to um keep those communities
006of interest intact and groups of communities or neighborhoods together to the extent possible. Um this was something that was uh brought up in the previous work session. So we wanted to include a slide showing the county commission districts. So this uh the the county commission has had districts for a number of years now also seven districts but the lines of these districts if if uh the board were to use these districts there would be two incumbents sorry two districts where each of which would have a pair of incumbents in them. So two districts where incumbents would be required to run against each other. So that takes us into draft option D. And the idea, this was something that was proposed in the last work session would be uh an additional option based on the county
007commission districts but um modified so as to prevent the pairing of incumbents in one district. So, uh, the changes made here were essentially to to prevent the pairing of schoolboard members, uh, being paired in the same district and then also making sure that the population equality uh, was in the threshold, the tolerance that's allowed. Uh I did want to note here and there's a note on the slide that the numbers of these districts were chosen to match the uh numbers of the current school board members districts. So the numbers do not match um the county commission district numbers except for district 2. Um, and this slide is similar. The the map is similar to what we've seen before, except the black outlines uh have the county commission district boundaries overlaid. So, this uh makes it
008more easy to see where the changes were made. And you can see that there was a change here, small change. Um so that uh the board member who is in district 5 would be uh outside of of this district. And then um changes between the orange and blue area here. so that the uh board member currently representing district three um would be um have their district uh connected to this district most of which is in Rocky Mount. Most of the population of which is in Rocky Mount and there'll be some zoomedin views on later slides that that show this area in more detail. Blake, are you Blake, are you sharing your screen? Because we've got the presentation up separately. And so if you're sharing your screen, I think we'll close out of this one so
009we can see what you're doing. I am sharing my screen. So um let me know. Thank you for for letting me know. There you go. [Music] Is it? Please let me know. I can see just a corner of the screen behind the desk there. So, I'm not sure if if it's what what you're able to see, but please let me know when I should proceed. Just a second. [Music] just Heat. Heat. Okay. Sorry about that. We're back up late. Um I just wanted to when you said you were pointing out things, we couldn't see that. Um so I just want to make sure we can see. So now we've got you. Thanks. Okay. And can you see the the pointer on the screen? Yes. Yes. Okay. So, um I will review a little bit of
010of what I was saying before. And these slides do have some explanatory text here, but uh this this slide shows draft option B, which uh has the colored shading and the the thinner outlines and overlaid on that in the black outlines are the county commission districts. So, um, when you see a black outline, a heavy black outline like this one here with two colors in it, that's showing where there's a departure from the, uh, from the county commission [Music] districts. And, um, the the three areas where there's the departures are, uh, here um along the boundary between district 5 and district 6. here in district. Uh what the um county commission district on the black outline is uh some of that is reassigned and some of the area in this county commission district is reassigned
011as well. But it's worth noting that I think that um of 1,760 blocks in the county only 33 and these are census blocks were reassigned. So, uh, more than 98% of the census blocks are still assigned to the same district that they are in the county commission plan. Uh, and in terms of population, uh, about 1,700 people out of a total of about 49,000 people were reassigned. So, more than 96 12% of the population would stay in the same district. when I say the same district, not the same as the school district in the same district as they are in the commission district. And again, the the the uh motivation for this that was proposed was that this um voters would not have to uh in most cases distinguish between the county commission district they're
012in and the school board district that they're in. [Music] Um, this map is very similar to the one we were just looking at. Uh, but in addition to the the features that were shown on that map, this shows the location of the school board members [Music] residences and those are the numbers in purple. And at any point I'm I'm happy to come back to to any of these slides. Um, as I mentioned, uh, we'll have some zoomed in slides and the red rectangle here is showing where we're going to zoom into because within that red rectangle are all the areas, uh, where, uh, census blocks were reassigned, where changes were made. Um, and here I've labeled uh where the changes were made and and sort of quantified the extent of the changes. So, this change
013here was able to be made only reassigning two census blocks. This change here uh although it's hundreds of of people uh only involved three census blocks and this one which is the largest one did involve 28 census blocks but a lot of those do not have um high population [Music] numbers. Um and just in terms of um some of the the features of this this while this is a departure from the county commission districts uh these reassigned blocks you see in blue here these three blocks are actually in the existing schoolboard district 7. So that would be consistent with uh the existing presence in in schoolboard district 7. Uh this line here while it departs from the county commission district boundaries actually a lot of this boundary is currently a boundary between existing school schoolboard
014districts and it follows Ki Road then Nobles Mill Pond Road then Howard Avenue then US 64. Um, as with draft option D, I'm sorry, as with all the previous maps, uh, I have provided for draft option D, um, this slide that has the same demographic information that was presented for the um the other drafts all as well as total population, deviation numbers, etc. Um I have just in the last hour or so updated the interactive map. Um so that the option D layer is on there. I have that available on my computer here if people have areas they want to zoom into or layers they want to compare. Um I've also added the county commission district outline so one can can look at those. Um the I've been told that the geo figure.com was not
015working in every situation. So I'm uh working on a fix for that. The QR code and the the other link that I've sent um should work. I also can share a shorter URL than that the the long one, but um we can do that in a moment as I said if if I've got the interactive map in another window that I can share. Um, and then I think it might be helpful as we go into the discussion, uh, and I'll pass it back to Deborah for this to talk about sort of what, um, what we might be expecting to come out of this work session with, what additional information um, and uh, where this this step fits in the process. So, with that, I will turn it back over to Deborah. Thank you, Blake. Um,
016so you have seen this slide before. It is um sort of our sample timeline or series of steps that the board may wish to take. The um the requirement or the last two to adopt a plan by resolution and then provide that to the board of elections. But in between, we've got some um some steps that we recommended and the board has has so far has been going through preparing a few alternate plans, setting up one or more public hearings, reviewing and revising the plans. And so really the next step um could go a few ways. the board and and we'll go back and allow some discussion about option D and the other options, but just be thinking about maybe at this point you've seen four plans certainly you could request something else but be
017thinking about whether you can sort of start narrowing down the options and I think that um you know everything has been available to the public. We've we've had one a couple of public meetings. Um we've had some information sessions. So um narrowing it down to two perhaps to present in a more formal setting. have. We talked about setting up large hard copy maps in different places, continuing to have the maps online so that the public can look at it, taking feedback from the public online and through um comment at hearings and board meetings. um you know, if you're in a position tonight or at your next board meeting to narrow down those options to two to go forward with the next step of having some more public input, um I think that might be um
018you know, might be a good option because we do have again the December filing deadline uh as our deadline to complete those last two steps of adopting a new plan. Um, I know it's only April, but time is going to go fast and we've got I know May will be busy for you all at the end of the school year. Um, summer can sometimes be difficult to get people together. So, um, just want to make sure that you all have in your minds the timeline and the deadlines that we have to complete the process. We've still got plenty of time. Don't want anyone to feel rushed, but you've seen four options. If there's something that you'd like to see outside of that, that's perfectly fine. We can do that. But if you feel like you've
019seen a good array of options and perhaps are positioned to narrow it down to two, I think that would be the next step. Chair and I just add to along to the stag comments, there was two board meetings ago made ready for session in February. We have a process outlined once you want to advertise what your options are for the public. That's already in place for us to move forward once. [Music] Okay. I think At this point, [Music] about six pages on deep. [Music] And if I may, um I do have the presentation from the previous work session or work sessions that had substantial detail. Uh for example, introducing the communities of interest that were considered an option C or um comparing side by side option A with the existing districts. So if if anyone
020would like to see some of the slides from a previous presentation, I've got those available. I just we didn't want to present, you know, 100 slides tonight. [Music] This this doesn't have anything about ABCD. This is a generic question. We we've talked about districts. What we have not talked about is how will the districts affect our students and how will it affect our busing? Because now a district 5 student has transportation to their school. If we have these new districts, is that going to affect This is just for election the board members. It won't have any impact on schools at all. Well, that was my question because I want to make sure before we decide it's not going to prevent a student okay because currently you know if you're out of your district like if
021I wanted to go to North Edge comes does not impact us. Okay. That's that was the most important thing besides who a a parent student representative might be on. Gotcha. But we did they would have transportation to where they're going to school currently. That will not change. Okay. Yeah. And and thank you, Miss Kent, for bringing that up again. I know I I've said it repeatedly in several different presentations, but it's always good to remind people because I know it gets you talk about redistricting and the public sometimes thinks it has to do with where students um will attend school. This has nothing to do with where students will attend school. It's only for electing board members. And it's required because you add more population added to the district and that puts your your districts
022out of balance for the the one person, one vote. And so that's why we're doing this again instead of after the census every 10 years that we normally do. And I've had a lot of questions in reference to and making the statement, well, I don't want my I don't want my children to go to uh the school in Tarbor Tarber. I I said the buildings that they are in, that's where they will be, not getting on a bus drive, you know. But that's that is what I get a lot and I just want to make sure that that that information is in the public because that's what people are concerned about. We are concerned about the voting district as much as they're concerned. You know, I'm sure the Rocky Mount group is because they've not
023been included in voting, but the rest of the county's concern was when you think about redistricting is moving people, children. And that's what people outside of the Rocky Mount District have been concerned about. I I think in one of the um early set of materials that we provided that was put on the website that's included in there, but you know, we can certainly pull out some of that language and highlight it so that when people go there, they'll they'll see it in front of way. I can just think we need to keep saying we tried we've tried to reiterate that on several occasions as well to to the public to make sure they understood it was not that we will continue to have that conversation. M uh Rick if you could help me Raymond Privet
024District 6 if you could pull up and show me my boundaries. Uh I I'm not sure uh and let me know where my boundaries are in the D U option what my boundary is [Music] there. Sorry I without hearing I was thinking I was muted. Let me let me work on that. So I will share my screen with the interactive map. I think that's the best way to highlight something like this in detail. [Music] And it just is taking a moment here. I have a number of windows open and it's just taking a moment for me to select the window I want to share with you. Here we go. [Music] Okay. So, right now it's showing option A. And this is just a a reminder the way um and please let me know if you
025uh can't see this window I'm sharing, but um I'm going to turn off option A and then hover over option D and go from the closed eye to the open eye. and district 6 is the 10 district. But we can even um if we go to here, one of the options is show only this district. So just to make it that much more clear um and then we can zoom in [Music] um on the district and the the road labels are showing. So, so this up here is um North North Main Street, US 64 alternate. Down here is 64. Um on the western side here is a creek. That's Let me put my glasses on. Uh Penders Mill Run. It looks like the western boundary here is uh Penders Mill Run. And then basically the
026eastern boundary is north main street uh and US64. Um the part that is different from the county commission district um is as I said this is this is counted as two census blocks here and this is the um Kensington Drive, Cambridge Drive, Essex Street, Pescat Street. I know in the um communities of interest this was identified as a as a subdivision. Uh but I don't have the name of that subdivision in front of me. Austin Pond. So that's Thank you. Yeah. And that's included. I'll turn on uh district five where I live. That's no one. Yeah. Yeah. Does that um answer your question? That's one question that's that answers one of them. Now the um the communities of interest are they left intact in this in in this in this option for the most part.
027Have we split any neighborhoods in here? I I um basically kept the boundaries the way that they were in the county commission districts. So, if the county commission districts uh boundaries are um dividing communities of interest that the public identified uh in in this this process that we've had this year, that would not change. I do know. Um let me see. It'll take me a moment, but I don't I I know you can't see what I'm doing, but I have some other documents in front of me. So, that Let me see. There was a group um Austin Pines, Brentwood, and the the community group requested that Austin Pines, Brentwood, and Just One moment. Um I think it's called mobile home estates is um I can check again this would be on in a previous slide
028show just one moment um this is in the Tarbor area they had yes group one was Brentwood they identified as a group, the Brentwood Mobile Home Estates and Austin Pines as a group. And so this um this plan would separate that group, Austin Pines being in one district and uh the other two I mentioned um Brentwood and Mobile Home Estates being in another district. Um, as far as in the Rocky Mount area, I did not make many changes. So, the the communities of interest would be handled in the same fashion as they are with the existing county commission districts and and I'll just jump in and remind so the um option C prioritize the communities of interest. The board at the last work session asked to look at the commissioner's map with as few changes
029as possible in order to accommodate the incumbents. So for option D, Blake was not looking again at communities of interest because the board wanted to prioritize keeping as the county commissioners map with as few changes as possible. So, um, you know, that's something I think we could go back and overlay and look and see where those, um, where option C and option D perhaps changed. And then you could point out because C did prioritize communities of interest. D prioritized the commissioner's map. So, you could overlay those two and get some sense of where the changes are. And that was my next ask to see if you could overlay that from C. [Music] Sure. [Music] Yeah. So, option C is drawing now. And I'm going to hide option D for a moment just to sort of
030uh remind us without the having that additional uh information there what option C looks like. So you can see um that option C has district 5 um sort of uh occupying this area and I believe that district five included uh includes Austin Pineswood and that mobile home estates. Um there's a um district two the green district here had a group which was called group three by um the the community um folks that identified groups in um in Tarbor and that group three had um let's see I think nine or 10 different neighborhoods and almost all of those uh and I'll I'll read through those. Um these would be Martin Middle area. So Forest Acres, East Charra, Martin Middle, Wendell Acres, Hope Lodge, Belvadier, uh Patilla School area, um and Polanola Heights. And um almost all
031of those are kept intact or all together in both CNV, but Belvadier um which is I'll show you. So, Belvadier is kind of in this area. And if we turn on option D again, so um and I'm going to show uh I I've forgotten there's a way to show all of these in one quick and [Music] um there we go. So you can see that the boundary uh [Music] between the pink and the green between five and two is East Northern Boulevard here in option D. But in option C, uh district 2 extends across East Northern Boulevard. But as as Deborah said, um this analysis about communities of interest is something I did after uh after making the changes to the county commission districts, not as part of the process. My process was to to
032um make the changes in as minimal a way as possible. Um minimizing the changes from the county commission districts while not having any two incumbents paired in the district. [Music] Is that Commissioner Thorn's district? Yes. [Music] And you can see that um both option C option C has uh district five stretches fairly long from from west to east from Rocky Mount uh into an area near the uh actually part of Carbra. Yes. Yeah. And in option D, uh option D also has a district that is sort of long and slim extending uh east from the Rocky Mountain area. like is there a way to show like with um perhaps a darker line to do an actual overlay of one map on the other or Yep. So we can draw both at the same time. Um,
033and I realize this can get uh a bit kind of cluttered, but if there's a specific area uh I may be able to that folks are interested in, I may be a I can I can turn some districts on and off to make the the changes clear. For example, if someone wanted to see the changes in district 5 um between two plans, I could just limit it to to district 5. [Music] I can also uh play with the transparency here. So [Music] that district five but with all the districts showing I find this gets sort of confusing and it's hard to know which is which. Yeah. I was wondering if you just could do like a black outline thing that darker outline. Just just like a like you did with the commissioner district overlaid on
034the new map just with a dark outline instead of the colors. Um, so would you like that for option C? Um, with it being shown with a dark outline and option D in color. Yes. Yes, I think that would be helpful. Okay. And just to be clear, what I'm doing, I'm what I'm showing now is the version that I I can edit. This is not um a feature that is available for [Music] the anyone using this on the web. Um but I will make this hollow. Um, and make the boundary a little wider. That's how Okay. So, Deborah, is is this this more what you had in mind? Right. Yes. So, um, what's showing now in the colored districts are the new option D. Overlaid on that are the boundaries of option C, which were
035the communities of interest. um [Music] conversion. Yeah. [Music] And just [Music] um I we have a a slide and I think you you got print outs of the slides, but if it's helpful also to to see [Music] um as Deborah mentioned, options C and option D were drawn using a a different process and a different starting point. And the starting point for [Music] um option D was these county commission districts and these are now in the interactive online map. Um so I will make that boundary a little bit wider as well. Um, so you can see for example, district 2, district 4, district 1, those are all still identical to what they were in the county commission plan, what they are in the county commission plan. Um, district 5 and district 6 very similar to
036those districts in the plan, in the county commission plan. And this is something you can or any any person using the interactive map can can use um [Music] online. I'm happy to go back to this if that was helpful. Is there any particular area you would like to zoom in on? [Music] I'm sorry. There was a response to Deborah's question. I did I I didn't catch it. No. While he's doing the overlays, does anyone else have a question around this table in reference to what? Similar to what Raymond just asked, you have a concern about your district because right now where he has everything is the time to answer that question cuz he doesn't need to click off that and then we can't find it again. So, if you got a question in reference to
037this issue, cuz I'm getting ready to move it now cuz we done seen enough ticking and packing [Music] cuz you can make your notes and we're going to be meeting again and uh and I know that the you know board members you all just got option D today before the meeting again like in the past we um didn't communicate ate this with anyone ahead of time. We wanted to make sure all board members had it received it at the same time before the board meeting. So, um it is a lot of information. I hope you've had a chance to go back through the first three options before now and be more familiar with those. But, um certainly if you need more time to decide whether you know which two um you would like to move
038forward or which one you have a preference for, that certainly understandable. Um, but if you have questions about option D or previous options, I think this is a good time to ask those questions and get your clarification. Um, and if you don't feel ready to make a decision tonight and again, you all can bring this back at another meeting. Um, but I think once you do narrow it down to two, that's a good time to then set up the public uh information sessions, public hearings like Dr. Brian mentioned. I'm not sure about anybody else, but I I I would need some more time to uh I'm just finding out where I am, where they are. I I I would need a little more time cuz yours comes up to mine and I need to know
039which part is that that I had that's going to you I need to know where they are. That's why I asked about the boundaries. Would you like to see the current um school board districts overlaid on option D? Would that be helpful? Yeah, that would be good. That would help. Got all the help I can get. And again, Blake can zoom into to look at a specific area as well. I got I just got one question, Madam Chair, while he's doing it. Who what commissioner is in U district one? Wiggins. Chair Wiggins. Okay. And again these [Music] um these are the current current board member districts. Yes. And so this this outline I'm tracing here is the current outline for district six. um including part sort of the part of the western part of Tara
040um and extending down here and then the uh shape of district six in option D is what's in the tan color here with the this [Music] label. Okay. And I can also if it's helpful to see where you live. I know where I live. I know. Port to where six lives if you will. To make sure I know where to make sure I know where. Okay. At least I didn't. That's a good thing. You might have trouble going back. I got your street. I got you. Hey, y'all clean enough now? Okay, we have one more item that we need. Complete item four. Dr. Brian, [Music] you have to share. No, ma'am. It's just a matter of if the board is finished with their discussion. Go ahead. Okay. So if if there no more questions from
041board members or you know certainly discussion I'm I'm free happy to answer any questions. Um if you're feeling comfortable with selecting some options to move forward with Blake can prepare the U files so that large maps can be printed. If you're not ready to do that um we can just wait and get further direction from you at a later time. No, I'm just thinking for Evelyn Wilson. We're not ready to make that decision right now because we got this pack too late. So all of us and I can go home and study and get yourself straight um when we come back. I agree. Okay. And in the past uh for the at the last work session the next day the the presentation um was posted online so the public can also look at it. So
042I assume that the board would like to do that as well. Oh yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And uh I will also share with staff the um the uh sorry um the shape files and the block equivalency files. Uh so that if members of the public want to do their own analysis, they've requested that those shape files be made available in the past. um and I will um make those available so those can be added to the website and then I'm also I'm going to share um my screen one more time as I mentioned earlier um there is a simple URL for the interactive map Um, [Music] and I apologize. This is just quite slow for me to be able to identify the the window that I have open uh on my screen to share.
043I'm waiting for its response. But here we go. [Music] Come [Music] on. I appreciate your patience. I know you're ready to move on to another item. I just wanted to make sure that for the interactive map um there there is uh a way for folks to see it that will work. So, um, in addition to geoigure.com, which I think, uh, seem to work most of the time, I've added this this. So, this is [Music] tinyurl.com/ecpsmap. So, um, I do apologize that the geoigure.com apparently has been a little finicky, but this is another option that will take you to the interactive map. again tinyurl.com/ecpsmap. But the the geo figure one I hope will be working for everyone um by the end of the day today or you know uh when everybody wakes up in the morning.
044Some of these things have to propagate through internet systems around the world. So um again thank you for your patience with that. I will stop sharing. Great. Um, William Ellis just wanted and I think you answered the question and you don't have to pull the map back up, but the uh Rocky Mountains their their neighborhoods stayed very closely to what C was as far as the neighborhoods not being split up in in option D. In option D, they stay very close to what the existing county commission districts are. So um and those uh those are different but I think the majority I I I believe the majority of those communities of interest that were identified are kept whole. Whether they're grouped together in the same way um as was requested in sort of groups of
045individual communities um I have not done that analysis but that's something that one could look at. I'm I'm happy to bring it up now if you'd like me to to um show those letters, but um or I can be prep prepared to to come to the next meeting with a a slide that actually shows you may remember uh in the March presentation, I I took uh a a layer from the city of Rocky Mount and had that in a slide and I could show where the boundaries um interact with those uh the where the boundaries in option D um how those interact with the communities of interest in Rocky Mountain. All right. Anybody else have a question for M? [Music] Okay. Thank you, Mr. Blake. Thank you all. Have a good evening as well, [Music]
046sir. If not, let me know if anything else to say. Okay. [Music] I need to hear a motion to adjourn this second. Has been moved and proper second that we will adjourn. I will second. Any other discussion on the motion? All in favor by saying I oppose the same sign. Motion is carried. Thank