The Pima County Board of Supervisors created the Redistricting Advisory Committee at its April 19, 2011 Board meeting. The Committee will advise the Board on the redrawing of county supervisor district lines before July 31, 2011. The Committee is made up of five members. Each was appointed by a supervisor. Appointments to the Committee were approved by the Board at the May 3, 2011 Board meeting.

The appointees are: District 1: Corey Smith; District 2: Robert Gugino; District 3: Terri Hutts; District 4: Robert Fee; District 5: Augustine Romero. Gugino was elected Chair, and Smith was elected to serve as Vice Chair.

The five committee members have been meeting since May 26, 2011 and have held four other meetings on June 2 (Board of Supervisors hearing room in Tucson), June 8 (Nanini Library), June 16 (Sahuarita Town Hall) and June 23 (Ellie Towne Flowing Wells Community Center). Agendas & meeting summaries of each of these meetings is on their website, as well as other data about voter turnout in the 2008 & 2010 General Elections for each District.

Why this redistricting is necessary (info from their website, www.pima.gov/redistricting):

According to Arizona law, the Pima County Board of Supervisors is required to adopt new supervisor district boundary lines on or before December 1, 2011. The estimated population within each district must be equal, or vary by no more than 10 percent. The Census Bureau recently released county-level Census data for Arizona. Pima County was estimated to have a total population of 980,263. The most populous district, Supervisor Ray Carroll’s District 4, was estimated to be 20 percent greater in population than the least populous district, Supervisor Richard Elias’s District 5. Therefore the supervisors’ district boundaries must be revised to more evenly distribute the county’s population among the five members of the Board of Supervisors.

Pima Community College Board district boundaries are the same as the Pima County Board of Supervisors boundaries. They, too, will change as a result of the redrawing of supervisor districts.

This Advisory committee has come up with a proposed map of several precinct changes (marked “Committee’s Draft Map” on their website’s home page) and now want to have public participation in hearings around the five Supervisory Districts:

June 29, 1 p.m. Cienega High School, 12775 East Mary Ann Cleveland Way in Vail with Robert Fee
June 30, 2:30 p.m. City of South Tucson Council Chambers, 1601 S. 6th Avenue with Robert Gugino

July 6, 1 p.m. Town of Oro Valley Council Chambers, 11000 N. La Canada with Corey Smith
July 7, 4:30 p.m. El Pueblo Neighborhood Center, 101 W. Irvington Road with Augustine Romero
July 8, 10 a.m., Tohono O’odham Legislative Chambers, Main Street in Sells with Terri Hutts

July 11, 1 p.m. Tucson Estates Property Owners Association, 5900 W. Western Way Circle with Terri Hutts
July 12, 4:30 p.m. at Kirk-Bear Canyon Library, 8959 E. Tanque Verde Road with Robert Fee

Each public hearing is scheduled for public comments and the duration of the hearing will depend on how many citizens show up to testify. A court reporter will transcribe the public comments and Pima County staff will be present to assist in these meetings.

Once the committee hears from the public, they will have another final meeting on July 14 at 4:30 p.m. in the Board of Supervisor Hearing Room, 130 W. Congress St. A back up date of July 21 is also scheduled. For more information call Nicole Fyffe in the Pima County Administrator’s Office at 520-740-8149.