This is thoughtful and correct and I'm glad you've published this. But the bigger problem wasn't so much that they submitted more than one map but that they overconstrained their deliberations so that three nearly identical maps were all they could come up with.
With little more than mere vibes in support, the commission decided early on that they would eliminate from consideration any maps that didn't have three of the four districts touching the southern border of the city and that didn't keep the entire west side in one district.
Further, the commission's deliberations utterly failed to consider the possibilities of multimember districts to lessen the impact caused by the nitpicking on the borders. All three maps from the Commission show the basic west-side mapping problem: to balance population, any west-side district must extend across the river. With multimember districts having a lower (25%+1) threshold for election, larger east-side appendages could have sufficient political power to elect one of the three councilmembers. But the commission's unnecessary constraints prohibited such considerations.
Finally, and somewhat hilariously, the Charter Commission's insistence that two public hearings be held in the proposed districts, it eliminates the possibility of a public hearing in the locations most impacted by the District Commission's maps. Specifically, Sellwood, the neighborhood orphaned in two of the three similar maps, is ineligible to host a hearing. The District Commission, at the very least, should schedule one additional hearing there.
This is thoughtful and correct and I'm glad you've published this. But the bigger problem wasn't so much that they submitted more than one map but that they overconstrained their deliberations so that three nearly identical maps were all they could come up with.
With little more than mere vibes in support, the commission decided early on that they would eliminate from consideration any maps that didn't have three of the four districts touching the southern border of the city and that didn't keep the entire west side in one district.
Further, the commission's deliberations utterly failed to consider the possibilities of multimember districts to lessen the impact caused by the nitpicking on the borders. All three maps from the Commission show the basic west-side mapping problem: to balance population, any west-side district must extend across the river. With multimember districts having a lower (25%+1) threshold for election, larger east-side appendages could have sufficient political power to elect one of the three councilmembers. But the commission's unnecessary constraints prohibited such considerations.
Finally, and somewhat hilariously, the Charter Commission's insistence that two public hearings be held in the proposed districts, it eliminates the possibility of a public hearing in the locations most impacted by the District Commission's maps. Specifically, Sellwood, the neighborhood orphaned in two of the three similar maps, is ineligible to host a hearing. The District Commission, at the very least, should schedule one additional hearing there.