As Aleisha Karjala, chair of the City of Norman Reapportionment Ad Hoc Committee, banged her gavel demanding order from the frenzied voices of Ward 5 citizens, rural and urban community members clashed in a Sept. 27 public hearing over boundary lines and 11 square miles in the ward.
The committee proposed to move this portion of Ward 5 farmland to the more urban Ward 6. Ward 5 residents said during the hearing that they felt their political power was being undermined as a few of their rural voices were being asked to enter an urban area.
In a conversation absent from a previous Sept. 8 committee meeting’s minutes, Ward 1 committee member Larla Turner deemed Ward 5 Councilmember Rarchar Tortorello to be “dangerous” and said his intentions should be taken into account in the process of redistricting Norman’s wards. An unnamed committee member quickly retorted, leaving the committee with one question:
“Are we drawing boundaries based off of our political interests, or are we drawing boundaries off of the proposed growth of the population?”
The committee, which was tasked with redrawing the city’s ward boundaries, has fallen under claims of gerrymandering by Norman citizens and Tortorello.
Every 10 years, following the release of the U.S. Census, a reapportionment committee is formed to redistrict Norman’s wards to balance population growth. The group aims to keep around 16,000 people in each ward. The mayor makes recommendations for the committee, council members submit nominees and a majority of the council can approve them.
The proposed 2021 redistricting plan would only move Ward 8 councilmember Matt Peacock out of his ward, Ward 7 councilmember Stephen Holman said.
The proposed redrawing of Norman's ward boundaries set by the city's reapportionment committee.
The criteria for ward boundaries is that they should be formed “to equalize, as nearly as practicable, the population of the several wards,” according to the City of Norman Charter, Article 20, Section 3. The charter also states that wards should reflect common interests and ethnic backgrounds, and ward lines should not be used to separate voters from wards where they “most naturally belong.”
After the committee forms a proposal for reapportionment, they vote to send the plan to a public hearing. If the community is in agreement with the plan at the hearing, the committee plans another meeting and votes to send the proposal to the City Council. It is then up to council to hold another public hearing and either approve or deny the proposal.
The committee met for over two and a half hours total throughout two meetings on Sept. 2 and 8. Because the 2020 U.S. Census results were delayed by COVID-19, the committee was formed later than usual.
In the first meeting, the committee was informed of the guidelines for reapportionment based on the city charter. The members were given several versions of a map of the city wards, with one depicting residential construction permit activity, another showing current plot activity and one with the location and boundaries of the city’s precincts.
A map showing the activity of residential construction permit and their classifications that was given to Norman's reapportionment committee during its Sept. 2 meeting.
A map depicting the location of the city’s current precincts during the reapportionment committee's Sept. 2 meeting.
A map showing zoning areas within Norman that was given to the reapportionment committee during its Sept. 2 meeting.
The committee, however, did not receive any election results from the precincts or any other politically-based data, according to an email from Norman City Clerk Brenda Hall. The maps were distributed to avoid splitting voter precincts between the wards.
Following the Sept. 8 committee meeting, where Turner referred to Tortorello as “dangerous,” he responded in a letter emailed to Mayor Breea Clark requesting she disband the committee, as he felt their proceedings were “tainted” by “partisan comments.”
Email sent by Ward 5 Councilmember Rarchar Tortorello to Mayor Breea Clark requesting the city's reapportionment committee be disbanded.
“I’m asking the Reapportionment Committee to be disbanded immediately due to ethically improper, wholly inappropriate, and painfully skewed concerns. … I’m accusing the committee of politically motivated ward boundaries changes based on political interests rather than population growth,” Tortorello wrote.
Tortorello told The Daily in an interview that the nature of Turner’s comments was partisan and unethical leading to accusations of “electioneering and political gerrymandering.”
Gerrymandering is the redrawing of the boundary lines of electoral districts to give one political party or candidate an advantage over another to win as many seats as possible. A simple definition of electioneering is “advocating for or against a candidate or issue that is on the ballot,” according to the Oklahoma State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax.
On Sept. 27, the committee held a public hearing as they are required to in the city charter. Of the 13 citizens that spoke, each one of them expressed concern with the proposed redistricting.
Tom Hackelman, a member of the Norman City Charter Review Commission, voiced concerns regarding the amount of time spent on the redistricting plans. He said while these decisions are extremely important, they were made throughout two meetings before being brought to a public hearing.
Several Ward 5 citizens said this proposal would prevent the maintenance of common interests and agreed that the proposed plan would result in gerrymandering.
Ward 5 citizen Maggie Logue said that the committee went against the city charter by separating rural areas and placing a section of one in an urban area because the different communities “do not hold the same interests.”
Conversations surrounding the topic have continued over social media.
Comments in a Ward 5 Facebook group surrounding reapportionment controversies.
Holman, who has been watching council meetings for 25 years, said in an interview with The Daily that he did not hear any arguments that would support the claims of gerrymandering.
“I’m not entirely happy about how much of my ward is being redrawn, I don’t know that everybody is,” Holman said. “But to make claims that there’s some sort of being gerrymandered or there’s some sort of scheme going on, I didn’t hear any evidence of that.”
The neighborhood where Holman’s childhood home is located would be moved out of Ward 7 if the plan is approved, Holman said. While he said he was sad about losing this neighborhood, Holman acknowledged that the plan makes sense because Ward 7 experienced immense population growth.
He said that several Ward 5 residents seem to believe both Tortorello and Ward 3 councilmember Kelly Lynn are being moved out of their wards when that is not the case. Tortorello and Lynn both openly identified as conservative candidates before entering the Norman City Council.
Former Ward 5 councilmember Sereta Wilson said the controversy Tortorello is “trying to drum up” is not true. Because Norman is landlocked by the Canadian River, Wilson said the only natural direction for the city to grow is east.
She said population growth in Tortorello’s ward should be expected every 10 years.
“Everybody knew it was coming,” Wilson said. “People who know what goes on in local government know that the people in positions of power after a census get to do the redistricting. So for anybody, especially the Republican Party, to be upset about it or surprised seems a little bit uneducated.”
While Holman said he would have preferred that the committee present more than one option for redistricting, he does not believe it made a mistake or did anything wrong in its decision-making.
Holman also said the council has the power to make any changes to the proposal when it is presented before the council and the public would have more opportunities to speak on the proposed wards before any final decisions are made.
“We have the final say … and this would be done in a public meeting as well, where the public would have an opportunity to give feedback to the council as well,” Holman said. “Even if this goes forward the way it is, there will still be opportunity.”
Issues surrounding Norman’s reapportionment committee are now being cited by Ward 8 Oklahoma City councilmember Mark Stonecipher as a reason to not use an independent committee in redistricting plans to maintain a nonpartisan process. Oklahoma City’s charter does not include any provision for a committee, unlike Norman’s.
The next reapportionment committee meeting is on Thursday, Oct. 21. The committee can either vote to send the proposed plan to council as it stands, or it can be revised.
If changes are made to the proposal, the committee must have another public hearing to present a new plan to the public before sending it to the city council, according to the Norman City Charter. Should the committee vote to send the proposal as it stands, the council would also hold a public hearing before voting on the proposal.
