Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 24, 2010,
Item 23
Now let's call back to order the voting session of the travis county commissioners court. We were on a deece eckstein lunch. The redistricting process to be used by the county in 2011.
>> judge biscoe, commissioners, deece eckstein from intergovernmental relations. This is nature of an early warning conversation with the court. As the members of the court know, one of the responsibilities that the court has and in fact legislative bodies generally has is to do reapportionment and redistricting after a census is done. We did the census and it will be the congress' job or the president's job to reapportion legislative seats among the 435 congressional seats among the 50 states, and then it will be a more local job to do redistricting. The legislature will have to draw during the regular session next year congressional districts, state senate districts, state house districts and state board of education districts. In addition the county will have to sometime next year redraw districts for the four county commissioner precincts and for the five justices of the peace and constable precincts as well as for all the electoral voting presence of which are approximately 200 here in travis county. Last time the court hired a consultant to assist in that process. The rfs was released in january of 2001. This is a process the county only goes through every decade or so, so the rfs was released in 2001, bids were solicited and the court made a decision to hire a consultant to assist with legislative redistricting in march of that year, and then the process continues with the development of a tentative plan based on research and data gathered by the consultant, public hearings and public input and revisions to that plan based on the public hearings, adoption of a final plan and submission of that plan to the justice department for pre-clearance approval. All of that has to be done by basically december 1st of 2011, in this case, because that is approximately the time when the file period begins for 2012 elections. So in order to give candidates and potential candidates notice of what their districts are going to look like, the goal is have all this done by december of next year. We have plenty of time. We have -- in your backup you have a document that was presented to the court that was used as the rfs last time around. My proposal would be that we would revise that with assistance from the county attorney's office and, of course, the purchasing office and redraft that and present that to the court sometime late this fall so that the court could take action on that and we could begin the process of soliciting proposals for redistricting services for the next session. And then we would continue through the process from that so do you have in mind a posted public meeting with those officials or what? Or private meetings?
>> i thought it would be a briefing and it would probably be a good idea to post it and invited the public. Or even have two special meetings.
>> especially if you plan to have more than two members of the commissioners court.
>> well, and i certainly would invite all the members of the commissioners court there. I would think something that would be something that their staff -- they would be more likely to send their staff to. But i like the idea of making it a public meeting because i'm sure there are people in the public that are going to be interested and we could begin outreach at that point.
>> as far as the numbers from the census, when will they be really available to --
>> the official numbers must be released to the state of texas not later than april 1, 2010.
>> no later than april 1, 2011.
>> no later than april 1, 2011. The census numbers have to be delivered to the president by december 31st. The next step is the apportionment which happens out of washington, and then i think in the past, and others could speak to this better than i can, but i think in the past those numbers have been available by early march sometime. But they must be given to the state not later than april 1st.
>> no later than april 1st. Because i was trying to decipher exactly how the timeliness of what we're doing here, everything being in plays with the stakeholders and, of course, looking at the numbers from the last census, the r.f.p. -- the request for proposal and as far as that's concerned we'll deal with this if that's the way the court is going to go, and the timeliness of all of it. Is i think very central. I'm sorry, i didn't mean to cut you off.
>> i was just going to say, commissioner, that the real hard work begins once that data is available in april, so i would certainly recommend that the county have its consultants in place by then. There are people who think that -- there's an argument to be made that if the consultants even have some lead time, that they can begin assembling a database and putting some of that information together so that you get -- you get a 90% accurate picture of what's going on that can then be modified based on the actual final census data.
>> i'm trying to recall when we actually did that last time around, when we dealt with redistricting, and as far as having someone in place just as you stated to get very familiar with everything, the database.
>> yes, sir.
>> and i can't recall exactly. Do you recall based on when we had that consultant on board in the last redistricting thing?
>> commissioner davis, in response to your question, the contract with the consultant was approved by the court on march 26th, 2001.
>> march 26th? Which is about a month out. I guess would the same time lines invoked then as is now as far as the april date as far as release of the data for the census?
>> yes, sir.
>> so a 30-daytime line then. Okay. Thank you.
>> commissioner eckhardt.
>> deece, looking over the previous suggestions from the 2001 effort, would it -- well, actually this may be a question to you, judge. Would it be responsive to what you were talking about, that perhaps we take a week and come back with a proposed procedure and time line for how to reach out internal to the travis county 48 electeds and a process and time line for reaching out externally to travis county residents and stakeholders? So that we can get a jump -- it seems like getting a jump on that in anticipation, that can be in the works and delloyd even in advance of putting an r.f.p. On the street for a consultant, i would think. I would think we're the better arbitors than the consultant would.
>> a date you should know is that we issued that r.f.p. In january of 2222. And so how long it takes to put it together, it gives you an idea where we are compared to then.
>> so january of --
>> january of 2001 is when we issued it last time. Depending on how long it took to put it together.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> to be on the same path we would issue in january.
>> it also seems that the internal and external input process may inform what should be in the r.f.p. So perhaps a two-week time period to come back with at least a draft of how to do that?
>> any other questions for the county judge?
>> [laughter] i don't know, it seems to me if we're informally inviting input from elected officials, i say let's just turn deece loose. Then maybe meet with him in two weeks and see what kind of input he's been getting. I can kind of guess what each will say, but i think an early informal opportunity would probably inform the process. Then we could meet formally in two weeks. I don't know that we ought to plan to wait as long to make the selection as we did last time. Seems to me it would make sense to get a firm in place for the six weeks before -- four to six weeks before we think the data may come down from i guess the state, the federal and then the state and then to us.
>> that would allow them to do some of the preliminary, building their own database that can then be refined with the census data.
>> and the ones who have been doing this kind of work for years typically know how to start even if they don't have 100% of the data. And we have gotten three or four informal submissions all right, right?
>> there have been numerous expressions of interest in providing these services for the county. I think we have four now, commissioner.
>> we've got what i would call pretty specific proposals for three or four.
>> yes, sir.
>> but i think -- i think i've directed them all to you. One came as late as yesterday.
>> i got that one, yes.
>> you didn't get the other three?
>> well, i -- i have gotten some, commissioner.
>> don't embarrass me in front of my court.
>> judge, i've gotten everything you sent me.
>> i think about four, yeah.
>> what kind of lead time are you suggesting and what is
>> [inaudible] is requiring?
>> well, if we really use the last r.s.f. As a model, i don't know why we wouldn't issue it around first or middle of november, get all the proposals then and then the first of the year go ahead and make our decision. A lot is really based --
>>
>> [inaudible] as for as i'm concerned.
>> because a slow period for us is first of the year. And i think we would be able to give more and better time and attention to this in january than we would march.
>> the legislative session will be full steam by march.
>> why put the pressure on us, on ourselves. So i would say -- i wouldn't rush the process, but i would go ahead and move, you know, expeditiously. But i do agree that i think informal input from impacted elected officials at the county would be appropriate. The other thing that it does, it enables them to put it on their radar.
>> yes.
>> early.
>> okay.
>> so today you wanted just to give us a chance to put it on our radar.
>> yes, sir.
>> and suggest that you be turned loose to informally meet with impacted elected officials and have us just sort of bless that informal effort.
>> yes, sir. This would be informal but i like commissioner eckhardt's suggestion of coming back to court in a couple weeks with a proposed time line and a little more specificity in terms of recommendation for process that the court could then digest and modify as it saw fit.
>> won't the elected officials want to know how they can provide input when it really matters?
>> i'm sure they will.
>> when the real work is being done.
>> yes, sir.
>> and i can't recall how we facilitated that last time, but i don't recall hearing any complaints after the process. I may have heard complaints about where the lines were drawn. But i think --
>> i think if i remember correctly, i believe there was a setup provided for elected officials to be able to review the raw data, review draft maps, draw their own maps if they wanted to, and i would imagine in the r.f.s., we could ask for that as part of the package of services that a winning bidder would provide for the county.
>> let's make sure our precinct 3 commissioner is not out of town this time so we don't end up putting all the -- all the western travis county in precinct 3.
>> yeah, i was going to say
>> [inaudible].
>> i believe there was some controversy about that last time, judge. This will be a fascinating initiative for us, mr. Eckstein.
>> i'm excited.
>> anything else?
>> only that we're bound to do it better than the legislature does it.
>> no comment.
>> [laughter]
>> thank you. We'll see you in about two weeks.
>> yes, sir.
>> consider your recommendation approved.
>> thank you, judge.
>> thank you, deece.
>> two weeks is september --
>> 7th.
>> you'll be out that day?
>> no, i'll be here.
>> i know you don't want to miss the fun.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 2010 2:30 PM
