History is made. Abdi Warsame wins Minneapolis City Council seat

[General Duke]

Ward 6, will be the new East African opportunity ward.

[Carafaat]

I thought there were like 200.000 Somali's in Minnesot. But there are not even that many black's. How many are Somali's?

[General Duke]

Somali's are underrecorded. We make up around 10-15% of the City. The whole City has a population of 389,000 with 150,000 coming from the minority groups. The Somali's are countd under the African American block.

The new proposed Ward 6, unites the voting power of the East African block.

 

The process is going well so far and it will be a historic moment for the East African community as a whole. To have changed the map of the City will energize the people and increase participation.

[General Duke]

................................... the Citizens Committee for Fair Redistricting. We are a group of individuals, business owners, religious leaders, community activists primarily from the Somali and East African Community, who are interested in participating in the redrawing of the thirteen City wards which represent Minneapolis residents. We believe that the time has come for the City of Minneapolis to recognize the diversity of Minneapolis residents.

 

According to the last federal decennial census, the City of Minneapolis has a minority population of 40%. Yet minorities are extremely underrepresented on the Minneapolis City Council. Currently, of the thirteen wards, there is only one elected official from the minority community. In a city of 382,000, there are over 150,000 minority members. We think this lack of representation to elected offices in Minneapolis City Hall is grossly unfair. We also find some of that underrepresentation can be attributed to the way current ward boundaries are drawn.

 

Citizens Committee for Fair Redistricting, Proposal.

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

^^They are trying their best to make a tangible change. It is a big job indeed.

 

Thanks for the update.

[rudy-Diiriye]

good luck homies...kick some azz!!

[General Duke]

BY DREW KERR

 

Community leaders working to engage citizens in redistricting process

 

The once-in-a-decade effort to redraw the city’s ward and park board boundaries is now underway, a process that will serve as an important first test of the Charter Commission’s ability to strip politics from the initiative. *

 

The redistricting process, which follows each new U.S. Census, is intended to create equitable wards and park districts that reflect the city’s most recent population figures.

 

According to the new Census, each of the city’s 13 wards should have between 27,958 and 30,900 people, while each of the city’s six park board districts should have between 60,575 and 66,951 people.

 

With their current boundaries, wards two and seven, which include growing downtown neighborhoods, have too many residents, while wards four, five and six, have too few people.

 

Until this year, a group of party leaders and city officials had decided how to change ward and park board boundaries to accommodate such population shifts. *

 

But a 2010 charter amendment reassigned the task to the city’s Charter Commission amid concerns over transparency and partisanship. An advisory group appointed by the Charter Commission is also assisting in the process.

 

Though he acknowledged there is likely to be pressure from political groups, Barry Clegg, who chairs the Charter Commission and is leading the redistricting effort, said the group is making genuine efforts to remove political considerations from the process.

 

“There will be people who will be unhappy and there will be people are thrilled,” he said. “But it can’t be about the council member —*it has to be about what’s required in the charter and what’s fair to the most people.”

 

Clegg’s group has already begun to consider draft proposals, but residents are being encouraged to get involved in the process so that community interests can be better reflected in the revised maps. ** *

 

Residents can submit comments, speak at public hearings or create a map of their own through a website created by the non-partisan government watchdog group Common Cause Minnesota. The mapping tool is available at drawminneapolis.org.

 

Mike Dean, the executive director at Common Cause Minnesota, said the map-drawing effort is based on the belief that residents know their communities best, and should have a say in how they are represented at City Hall.

 

“What we see is when citizens draw these maps, they tend to be much better than the ones that come out of the government,” he said.

 

One goal, Dean said, is to unite groups with shared ambitions so that they have a better chance to elect members that reflect those interests.

 

“We want to create homogeneous districts so that we can have a heterogeneous council and a majority doesn’t dominate,” Dean said.

 

One group that has already submitted a proposal with that idea in mind is the Citizens Committee for Fair Redistricting, a coalition of groups who represent the Somali and East African communities in South Minneapolis.

 

The sitting City Council has just one minority member, despite having a 40 percent minority population and, in a letter to the redistricting group, the committee said that “minority populations have been divided at the expense of the majority populations.”

 

“If there was proportional representation on the Minneapolis City Council, five of the thirteen wards would be represented by people from the minority population,” the letter said. “We think this lack of representation in elected offices in Minneapolis City Hall is grossly unfair.”

 

To help, the group suggested reshaping two downtown wards and creating a “minority opportunity ward” in the Seward, Elliot Park, Cedar-Riverside and Phillips neighborhoods, which are now divided into three separate wards. A “minority opportunity ward” includes at least 30 percent of a particular minority group.

 

The ward suggested by the Citizens Committee for Fair Redistricting would have 40 percent African Americans, 33 percent white, 20 percent Hispanics and 7 percent Native Americans, according to group leaders.

 

City Council Member Cam Gordon, whose ward includes the Cedar-Riverside and Seward neighborhoods, said he expects some changes, but that he has grown fond of the communities he represents and that he believes he can represent all who live in his area.

 

“I don’t think the quality of your service is determined by how similar or different you are to the people you represent,” he said. “My goal is to make sure everyone feels like their voice is heard at City Hall.”

 

Clegg, the Charter Commission chair, said he is hoping the group can do a better job of uniting common groups, however.

 

“We want to do what’s fair and equitable and that’s going to include moving some lines,” he said.

 

Another area that will also likely see changes is North Minneapolis. The Jordan and Hawthorne neighborhoods each lost more than 1,700 residents between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, while the North Loop grew more than any other neighborhood.

 

David Frank, the president of the North Loop Neighborhood Association, declined to comment on the potential changes because, he said, the issue is “too controversial.”

 

The Charter Commission is expected to put draft maps up for consideration at the end of this month and to finalize new ward and park board maps no later than April 3.

 

Public hearings on draft maps will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 29 at the Webber Community Center, 4400 Dupont Ave. N., and from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 1 at the Hosmer Library, 347 E. 36th St.

 

Two additional public hearings will be held after the final maps have been created. Those meetings have not been scheduled, and will be held in neighborhoods expected to see the most dramatic changes.

[General Duke]

NEW MAP

 

Proposed Ward Map for March 20 and 21 Public Hearings. [/url][/size]

 

The new proposed map, takes into account many of the recommendations of the Citizens Committee for Fair Redistricting. .

 

1. It increases the minority opportunity wards to 4

2. It creates a minority opportunity ward for the East African Community in Ward 6.

3. It creases a minority opportunity ward for the Latino's and Native American community in Ward 9.

 

Its along way from the current map and if implemented will transform the face of the City Council for the better......

[General Duke]

Redrawn Mpls. ward map splits fragile minority coalition

East African, Latino groups worked to ensure redistricting would favor their political fortunes, but some Hispanics feel shortchanged.

 

Article by: MAYA RAO , Star Tribune

 

Updated: March 13, 2012 - 10:38 PM

 

As the redrawing of Minneapolis City Council districts reached a critical point, Hispanics and Somali-Americans worked together to ensure the new ward boundaries gave both groups a better chance of winning election. One recent Saturday, Mariano Espinoza invited several East African immigrants over to brainstorm over fajitas, rice and beans.

"We left on a good note ... everybody was happy," recalled Abdulkadir Warsame.

But now, some are not so happy that the new map, approved last week by the 24-member Redistricting Group, appears to split this fragile coalition. The panel is scheduled to meet again this week to consider further minor changes, and will adopt an official map by month's end that will influence city politics for the next decade.

 

So far, the Redistricting Group's efforts to increase minority political participation have focused on increasing the black and Hispanic population in the Sixth Ward by extending boundaries to pick up much of Seward, part of Cedar-Riverside and all of Midtown Phillips.

 

 

"You can't keep both sides happy," said Redistricting Chairman Barry Clegg. "You'll either have a minority coalition ward where blacks have the majority over the Hispanics or you'll have one where Hispanics have the majority over blacks -- and there are no easy answers."

 

The changes have the support of Warsame and the group of East African immigrants he is leading, Citizens Committee for Fair Redistricting.

 

Yet they have prompted frustration among some Hispanics who see the shift from the Ninth to the Sixth Ward of Midtown Phillips, with its high concentration of Hispanics, as a move that weakens their influence. Espinoza fears the new map will pit both groups against one another in an election.

 

"It dilutes our power," he said.

 

That minority groups are involved in redistricting at all this year is a testament to Minneapolis' growing diversity. The population of the city's East African-born residents jumped 53 percent to 14,497 in the past decade, while the number of Hispanic citizens has increased 37 percent to nearly 40,000 during that period.

 

But neither group has one of its own on the 13-member City Council, so they have been asserting themselves in the once-a-decade process in which ward lines are changed to account for population changes following the census.

 

Warsame's group was active in redistricting from the outset, seeing an opportunity after helping campaign for Somali-American Muhamud Noor, who lost the DFL primary in last year's special election in Senate District 59. Early on, they proposed their own maps, telling the Redistricting Group that ward boundaries as they are currently drawn break up the influence of the East African community.

 

To address the problem, the Redistricting Group initially extended the Sixth Ward north to include the Riverside Plaza apartments, home to thousands of East African immigrants.

 

That proposal still troubled members of the Citizens Committee for Fair Redistricting. They packed a Feb. 29 hearing at the Webber Community Center to voice concerns that the revised map continued to divide their community. Noor also showed up to speak.

"I'm supporting them because they came out and supported me," Noor said afterward. "From that process they figured out we can get ourselves engaged in the political process, and this is the right opportunity."

 

Hispanics were later to the game. Still, Espinoza had been holding meetings with other Hispanics in recent weeks to talk about how they could become more politically empowered. A trainer for political leadership at Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network, he felt similarly that ward boundaries didn't offer minorities much opportunity to be elected.

 

Mike Dean, executive director of Common Cause, introduced Espinoza to Warsame at the Feb. 29 hearing and suggested they work together. So they all met and talked about a compromise map to present to the Redistricting Group, one that would give half of Midtown Phillips to Ward 6, and the other half to Ward 9.

 

Yet by last Wednesday, the redistricting panel had settled on a version that moved all of Midtown Phillips into the Sixth Ward, while a group of American Indians and Hispanics, including Espinoza, had brought in their own map, contesting revisions that they said broke them into different districts.

 

Among the group was Rep. Susan Allen, D-Minneapolis, elected last year as the first American Indian woman in the Minnesota House.

 

The changes in the Redistricting Group's latest map would increase the Sixth Ward's black population from 29 to 46 percent, and lower the Hispanic population from 19 to 17 percent. It would increase the Hispanic population in Ward 9 from 28 to 35 percent, and the black population from 17 to 18 percent.

 

The adjoining Second Ward would see dramatic changes by losing most of the Seward neighborhood. A district now diverse in income and race will become whiter and wealthier by pushing boundaries closer to the riverfront, noted Cam Gordon, the council member who represents that ward.

 

The Redistricting Group is "trying to find how best not to dilute minority voting, and there's probably a case that could be made for having a little more diversity in more wards," said Gordon.

 

Council Member Robert Lilligren, who represents Ward 6, would likely face a more competitive election with a mobilized base of Somali-Americans looking to put one of their own on the council.

 

He said he isn't thinking about himself just yet, but feels that there are better ways to create wards to give minorities more opportunity than the current map allows. Grouping several minority groups into a ward "does not mean that they will really get along," said Lilligren.

[Che -Guevara]

Now this is how politics should be. Proud of Maryooley getting ahead of the game and trying their best to put one of their own in there.

[General Duke]

Immigrants draw lines for change in Minneapolis

Article by: MAYA RAO , Star Tribune Updated: February 14, 2012 - 11:05 PM

Activists and redistricting officials are drafting revised political wards in Minneapolis to consolidate and

Abdulkadir Warsame, a local Somali-American, is working on a plan to reframe political wards to better reflect the neighborhoods they represent.

 

The increasing influence of immigrants in Minneapolis shows up in the bustle of Latino plazas and Somali malls, from East Lake Street to Cedar-Riverside -- but not on the dais of the City Council, where two of 13 representatives are members of racial minorities.

 

Ward boundaries divide two fast-growing groups, Latinos and East African immigrants, in ways that some redistricting officials and immigrant activists say dilute their voting power and lessen the likelihood that they will win election.

 

Some see an opportunity to broaden political participation through the once-a-decade redistricting process underway in Minneapolis, where a 24-member group is studying how to revise ward lines to reflect demographic changes following the U.S. census.

 

The panel's latest draft map -- to be presented at a meeting Wednesday -- would shift more blacks and Latinos into the Sixth Ward, which now spans Ventura Village, Phillips West, Whittier and Stevens Square-Loring Heights. The proposal increases the combined Latino and black population from 48 to 63 percent by expanding the ward to take in part of Cedar-Riverside, including Riverside Plaza, home to many of the city's Somali-Americans. It also adds Midtown Phillips and parts of East Phillips to boost the Hispanic population, while shifting a chunk of Whittier into another ward.

 

The Redistricting Group wants "to increase opportunities for minority voters," member Andrea Rubinstein said at a meeting last week. "There have been enormous demographic changes in Minneapolis ... and this is a great opportunity for us to recognize those things."

 

Minneapolis' population of 382,578 barely budged in the last decade. Yet as blacks increasingly left north and south Minneapolis, Latino and East African immigrants continued their influx into the city from the 1990s. Minneapolis is now 36 percent non-white, up about 1 percentage point in the past decade, and 15 percent of the population is foreign-born.

 

Political representation has not kept pace. The City Council's only racial minorities are Robert Lilligren, an American Indian, and Don Samuels, who is black.

 

"What would it do for our kids to have a council member from our community?" asked Abdulkadir Warsame, a Somali-American who lives in Cedar-Riverside. "It would encourage them; it would get more people to participate in the process."

 

After Somali-American Mohamud Noor lost the DFL primary in last year's special election in Senate District 59, Warsame and others who campaigned for him brainstormed about their next step. They consulted a former state demographer and formed a committee called Citizens for Fair Redistricting, then submitted a map proposing three wards with higher concentrations of minorities and immigrants.

 

Most of Minnesota's 32,000 Somalis live in Minneapolis. And the number of the city's East African-born residents jumped 53 percent to 14,497 in the last decade.

 

Terra Cole, a member of the redistricting panel, said that the group's proposal had influenced their approach.

 

"We didn't see what they saw, and it got us to think differently," she said.

 

The North Side's Fifth Ward is more than half black, but few of those residents are of East African descent. Redistricting Group Chairman Barry Clegg said it will be impossible to create an additional ward in which one minority group makes up more than 50 percent of the population; other parts of Minneapolis lack a similarly high concentration of one non-white community.

 

All of these ideas are fluid, as the Redistricting Group meets over the next few weeks to continue refining a new map and hear from the public. The deadline is April 3.

 

Hispanics have been less visible in redistricting hearings this year, even though their population in Minneapolis jumped 37 percent to about 40,000 since 2000.

 

Efforts are underway to boost political participation in the community, which is mostly Mexican. Mariano Espinoza, a trainer for political leadership at Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network who lives in Powderhorn, said he is meeting with Latinos in south Minneapolis about redistricting and other public issues.

[General Duke]

Che -Guevara;805284 wrote:

Now this is how politics should be. Proud of Maryooley getting ahead of the game and trying their best to put one of their own in there.

It's a once in a decade opportunity. So far the Citizens Commitee for Fair Redistricting has done well to transform the prospects of the East African as well as other minority representation. Breathtaking is how one would describe this.

[General Duke]

Public hearings Tuesday and Wednesday evening will give the public one last chance to weigh in on new ward maps for the city of Minneapolis.

 

These maps are being created by an independent commission, unlike legislative and congressional maps. The current proposal calls for the first-ever 'Somali ward,' in addition to two additional wards where minorities would be the majority of the population.

 

Does a Somali ward signal an increase in political power for the community? MPR News reporter Curtis Gilbert joins The Daily Circuit Tuesday to talk about that and other ward map issues.

[General Duke]

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/03/20/daily-circuit-minneapolis-wards/

[General Duke]

Redistricting hurts students’ clout

Students would have greater influence if the campus area was condensed into one ward.

 

The Minneapolis Charter Commission is in the final stages of redistricting Minneapolis into new wards. The Commission is set to take a final vote on the map March 26. As it stands, the new map splits the University District between four wards. This four-way split dilutes students’ influence in city government. The Commission should revise the map to consolidate the District compactly into as few wards as possible.

 

The “University District” refers to the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota and the four neighborhoods that are immediately adjacent to it: Cedar-Riverside, Prospect Park, Southeast Como and Marcy-Holmes. In redistricting parlance, the District forms a natural “community of interest” because the University community shares many unique interests that come with a large student population. Furthermore, the District has a unique status because the area is represented by the University District Alliance and because there are city policies that only apply within the district.

 

One of the positive changes in the city redistricting map is the creation of a “minority opportunity” district in Ward 6. The map accomplishes this by removing portions of the Cedar-Riverside and Seward neighborhoods from Ward 2 and placing them in Ward 6. The resulting district would be 34 percent black and 20 percent Hispanic.

 

However, this shift could have been done more sensibly by just moving the entirety of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood into Ward 6, rather than only a portion of it and then making the rest of the University District into a single ward. The total population of the University District minus Cedar-Riverside is almost exactly the population size that each ward must try to meet, so it could easily be a ward of its own.

 

Instead, the current map puts the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood in Ward 3, puts the University campus and Prospect Park in Ward 2, splits Southeast Como between Wards 1 and 2 and splits Cedar-Riverside between Wards 2 and 6.

 

This has two principal disadvantages for students. First, it dilutes students’ influence. Second, it makes it more challenging to pursue changes that affect the whole University District. To those unfamiliar with the consequences of redistricting, it might not be clear why splitting the University District disadvantages students. After all, isn’t it a good thing to have more people representing your constituency?

 

The problem is that students have an extremely low voter turnout. In the most recent municipal election, student-dominated precincts had turnout rates of 2 to 4 percent. If students were concentrated in one ward, they would form a substantial voting bloc, but when they are split, their influence is severely diminished.

 

The second problem is that a four-way split makes it more challenging to change policies that affect the whole University District. This is because the City Council has an unofficial but long-held practice of deferring local decisions to whichever councilmember represents the affected area. For instance, if you’d like to see a new bike lane installed, you usually only need to persuade the councilmember who represents the ward where the lane is located. If the bike lane extends into two wards, however, you’ll typically need to get both councilmembers on board.

 

If the University District is split into four wards, there will be four councilmembers to contend with. If the District were consolidated, we’d only need to work with one or two and they would be more likely to be friendly to students’ interests.