A committee appointed to redraw Lexington’s legislative boundaries is moving forward with a new map that results in 46 precincts, collectively containing 48,803 voters, being moved to new districts.
After months of meetings, the committee of 15 council members has solidified the redrawn map. As of Nov. 5, the proposal for the new map is awaiting approval from the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council, who will have the final say on its implementation. A deadline for the map’s approval has not been determined at this time.
District boundaries are required to be redrawn after U.S. Census figures are released every ten years, if there are any significant population changes. From 2010 to 2020, Fayette County’s population grew by 26,767: from 297,803 to 322,570.
Among the most controversial changes are those to District Three, which contains most of downtown Lexington and the neighborhoods around the University of Kentucky (UK). Residents of the Pensacola Park neighborhood, contained in District Three’s Goodrich precinct, expressed concerns about their district changing, as the neighborhood closely identifies with neighborhoods around the UK area.
“We are a historic neighborhood,” Pensacola Park resident Jesse Voigt told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “We have a lot of students and professors from the University of Kentucky.”
Despite these concerns, the new map proposes moving Goodrich precinct into District 10, a largely suburban district which has suffered a significant population decrease since 2010. Each district must stay within a five percent margin of 26,881 voters, the average population needed in each district for voter numbers to be even. Several other precincts were proposed for District 10, but Goodrich was ultimately decided as the easiest adjustment according to population.
“It’s like a Rubik’s cube,” Don Todd, a member of the map redrawing committee, told the Herald-Leader. Whenever a district is moved, it leaves a hole in its former district’s voter count, requiring more districts elsewhere to be moved.
The original goal was to have the redistricting completed by Nov. 3. Now,according to Lexington’s city charter, a goal of April 2022 is more likely.
