By PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
St. Johns County School Board members said Tuesday that creating new district lines is not a racial issue, but it became one anyway as black leaders and pastors asked the board to keep Lincoln-ville, West Augustine and Hastings all in one district.
However, the board voted 5-0 to recommend a redistricting map that was more compact and simpler.
The approved plan, called Revised Plan C, is one of the two plans the County Commission had narrowed from eight proposals on Nov. 1, when the board and the commission met in joint session at the County Auditorium.
There, the commission asked the School Board to come up with their recommendation and submit it by Nov. 15, when the commission votes on the redistricting issue.
One sticking point
Ideally, each of the five districts will contain 38,000 residents.
District 1 in the Northwest, represented by School Board member Beverly Slough and County Commissioner Cyndi Stevenson, shrank greatly due to population growth. Much of that was taken by largely agricultural District 2, covering southern and western St. Johns County and represented by School Board member Tommy Allen and Commissioner Ron Sanchez.
It now stretches from Flagler Estates to the County Road 210 corridor.
District 3, represented by Bill Mignon and commission Vice Chair Mark Miner, keeps its southeastern county area and has grown to take in the area surrounding St. Augustine.
District 4, represented by Bill Fehling and Commissioner Jay Morris, was once just Ponte Vedra Beach and part of the beaches but now goes out to U.S. 1 due to population growth.
However, District 5, represented by School Board member Carla Wright and County Commission Chairman Ken Bryan, was the sticking point.
Wright wanted it compact and not all the way out to C.R. 210.
“I’m not running in 2012,” Wright said. “This is not for me, but the next District 5 representative.”
The racial aspect
Wright’s desire for a compact district ran directly counter to a plan favored by black leaders called Plan E.
That version had District 2 stretching from the St. Johns River to Lincoln-ville, West Augustine and Hastings, giving that district a 16 percent black population, up from the 14 percent it has today.
But implementing Plan C would bring that population down to 10 percent.
The Rev. Ron Rawls of Lincolnville said he’d like to “preserve the integrity of the minority vote” in District 2.
“The Voting Rights Act said nothing about areas having something in common,” Rawls said. “I’m not really understanding the nature of how you are making your decision.”
Other speakers, including Greg White, Alan Kelso, Pastor Rick Torrence, Dwylla Willis, Kenneth A. McClain Sr. and Judith Seraphin, all supported Plan E to unite the communities.
Seraphin said Plan E was “the only sustainable plan” and threatened to file a Department of Justice lawsuit against the board if “minority voting strength is diluted” by Plan C.
But Robert Smith of St. Augustine said people were talking politics, not about school children.
Changing the map to include all three communities is “gerrymandering,” he said, saying Florida voters approved constitutional amendments 5 and 6 to prevent that.
“I don’t know why this is even coming up,” he said.
Rawls said this isn’t a matter of minorities being elected.
“It’s about a group of people having influence,” he said. “(We are) represented a little more.”
Final vote
Former County Commission Chairman Bruce Maguire said he lives in District 4, which is not an issue.
“The ideal situation is to figure out what’s best for the children. Keep it compact. Keep it simple. Keep us together. Don’t separate us,” he said.
The School Board recommendation to go with Plan C will be considered by the County Commission on Tuesday, while the School Board holds its final vote on Dec. 8.
After that, the plan will be examined by Department of Justice representatives, said to John Libby of American Public Dialogue Inc. of Jacksonville, the consultant on this issue.
The law does not require the School Board and County Commission to have the same districts, but it’s recommended, Libby said.
“This avoids voter confusion about what district they are in,” he said. “And it’s more efficient for the Supervisor of Elections. We’ve asked lawyers, and both of these plans are legally defensible. But you never know until you get in front of a judge.”
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