They had only three days left to make it happen.
The council had until Wednesday to sign off on new district boundaries or the version recommended by the redistricting commission would have been adopted by default. Both the redistricting commission’s map and the version adopted by the council mostly keep districts close to existing boundary lines.
Without discussion, but after an apparent objection by council member Jaime Resendez, the council voted to adopt the map and voted beforehand to approve four amendments made to a version recommended in May by the city’s redistricting commission. The Pleasant Grove-area representative tried to interject several times to question the process but wasn’t allowed to speak after a majority of the council agreed to vote on the item without discussion.
Resendez was heard saying “[expletive] cowardly” during the roll call for the final vote, which was 14-0. Mayor Eric Johnson was absent from the vote.
The amendments were largely to restore neighborhoods and areas back into the council districts they’ve been in for at least the last 10 years. The council approved three of those changes this month but couldn’t get the required 12 votes to pass the final map with those amendments last Wednesday.
On Monday, the council reaffirmed the trio of changes and greenlit a fourth amendment that had been voted down last week.
The changes included restoring parts of the Casa View neighborhood to the East Dallas district that council member Paula Blackmon represents, putting three Deep Ellum and downtown-area parks back into council member Jesse Moreno’s district, and restoring the Parkdale and Lawnview neighborhoods to council member Adam Bazaldua’s district covering the South Dallas area.
The Parkdale and Lawnview neighborhoods were proposed to become part of Resendez’s district, and he voted against the proposal last week. He said last Wednesday he was concerned that moving them would further decrease his area’s population and affect voter turnout.
Most residents who publicly spoke to the redistricting commission and council members during the map redrawing process, which has been ongoing since the fall, asked for their neighborhoods to remain where they were, with many saying they wanted to keep existing community ties intact.
Several members of the redistricting commission who voted against their recommended map said they didn’t feel it did enough to increase the amount of people of color who could be elected to the City Council. The map would likely keep current levels of Black and Latino representation on the council without affecting majority white northern districts much, they said.
Randall Bryant, a Dallas redistricting commission member, on Monday said he still opposed the commission’s map that was used as a base for the council’s map because he feels it dilutes the voting power of minority voters. He noted demographic shifts haven’t occurred in northern Dallas in the 30 years since the city adopted 14 districts even though the population of white residents has gone from the majority to second most.
“We whiffed at the opportunity to make broad, bold and great change for this city,” he said.
Dallas’ mayor and 14 council positions are currently held by five Latino members; four Black members, including the mayor, who is elected citywide; and six white members. The current number of Latino council members is the highest level of Latino representation Dallas has ever had, and people of color hold the majority of seats in the southern half of the city.
Hispanic residents make up 42 percent of Dallas’ population; white residents, 28 percent; Black residents, around 23 percent; Asians, 4 percent; and Pacific Islanders are among other racial groups that make up less than 1 percent each. Residents in 2020 were also allowed to identify as mixed race in the U.S. Census.
The new map reflects the 2020 Census results. In terms of total population per district, Hispanic residents make up the majority in seven of the 14 council districts in southern, central and West Dallas. Black residents are the majority in one district, which covers Far South Dallas, with .1 percent more people than Hispanic residents. White residents are the majority in the remaining six districts in east, central and northern Dallas.
When taking into account voting age population, Hispanic and Black residents each are the majority in four districts and white residents are the majority in the same six districts as total population demographics.
“I just hope that my colleagues will support this and bring forth a map that we have tried to really unify communities and work with communities,” said Blackmon, who made the motion to propose the map that was eventually adopted.
Several residents of neighborhoods like Parkdale in southeast Dallas and Owenwood in Old East Dallas spoke in support of the new map before the vote because it undid efforts to put them in other districts. They said neighbors they spoke to didn’t want a change.
“I know some districts are going to lose people and some are going to gain people and there’s no simple fix to this,” said Grant Gailford, who lives in Parkdale. “But I would ask the several people who have expressed concern about losing people that they listen to what the people want.”
Pauline Gounden was among several residents in the Hillview Terrace area who said that being moved out of their South Dallas-area district caught her and her neighbors by surprise and that they wished they were asked what they wanted.
“Our neighborhood is in Far East Dallas and our needs are totally different from the residents of West Dallas and other parts of District 2,” she said. “What is the purpose of putting Hillview Terrace in a district with which we have no connection whatsoever?”
Among the changes:
- District 1 will move west to surround much of Cockrell Hill and include parts of the Mountain View College and Kenwood areas.
- District 2, which currently includes the Dallas Love Field area, the south side of downtown, Deep Ellum and the Cedars, will extend east past the Tenison Park Golf Course along Ferguson Road up through Far East Dallas and part of the Casa View area up to Gus Thomasson Road. District 9 in the White Rock Lake area currently covers much of Far East Dallas.
- District 6 in West Dallas will expand to include Dallas Love Field, and Elm Thicket-Northpark, a historically Black neighborhood in District 2, would be split between Districts 2 and 6. Several Elm Thicket-Northpark residents spoke in favor of being split between those districts to keep their chances high that residents will be able to elect residents of color. Both districts for several years have had Latino council members.
- District 9 will now cover the University Crossing area north of East Mockingbird Lane to The Village.
- In northern Dallas, District 11 will move into parts of Far North Dallas past Arapaho Road currently covered by District 12. And a portion of District 12 will shift south into District 11 to Keller Springs Road near Prestonwood.
- District 14 — which includes uptown, parts of downtown and Old East Dallas — will lose the areas picked up by District 9. District 14 will gain more of Oak Lawn west of Cedar Springs Road.
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