‘Bridging ward boundaries’
courtesy of ‘Payton Chung’

This morning Councilman Harry Thomas released a timeline of events for the coming redistricting of the eight wards, with the first votes coming as early as Thursday. The 2010 Census revealed an imbalance in the size of wards 2, 7 and 8 that will need to be corrected to comply with the city’s charter. Ward 2 will need to shave off approximately 1,000 residents, while Wards 7 and 8 will need to grow by approximately the same amount.

The City Paper’s Lydia DePillis took on the contentious issue a few weeks back, and this shapes up to be one of the more difficult processes that the city faces, especially in the wake of the Mayor’s successful “One City” slogan. The logical expansion targets for Wards 7 and 8 are in prosperous Ward 6, and some of the residents there aren’t at all thrilled at the idea of being represented by Councilmembers Marion Barry (D-8) or Yvette Alexander (D-7).

The schedule released today is after the cut.

Thursday May 26th: Vote in Subcommittee on Redistricting on a proposed map of new Wards. 1pm at the John A. Wilson Building.

Wednesday June 1st: Subcommittee on Redistricting roundtable for resident input. 6pm at the John A. Wilson Building. Those wanting to testify need to contact Carol Sadler at the council at 202.724.8198 or email csadler at dccouncil dot us by 5pm on the 31st of May, and bring 20 copies of their testimony to the meeting.

Tuesday June 7th: First Council vote on the Redistricting plan. 10am at the John A. Wilson Building.

Tuesday June 21st: Final Council vote on the Redistricting plan. 10am at the John A. Wilson Building.

Once the main redistricting process is complete, all of the ANC single member districts will be subject to the same alteration process which will likely take until the end of 2011.