MINUTES

               City of Charlottesville Precinct Redrawing Committee
                        Meeting of Wednesday, April 7, 2021

        The meeting was called to order at 6:04 pm by the Co-Chair, Anne Hemenway, on
Wednesday, April 7, 2021 via ZOOM. Those present for all or a portion of the meeting
were Anne Hemenway, Melissa Morton, Taylor Yowell, Josh Jenkins, Jon Bright, Lloyd
Snook, Lisa Green and Maurice Walker. The meeting was convened for the purpose of
addressing the Virginia Code's requirements for precinct size and the fact that one
Charlottesville precinct (Johnson) had over 4500 registered voters who voted in the 2020
Presidential election, and five other Charlottesville precincts currently have over 4000
registered voters. In its November 2020 Final Report, ELECT listed the 200 plus
localities which had precincts with over 4000 registered voters who voted in the
Presidential election.

      Public Comment - No members of the public were present for this meeting and
no public comments were made.

      Discussion Items -

       1. Anne Hemenway gave introductory remarks. It was acknowledged that any
Precinct Redrawing was dependent, by statute, on the most recent Census data, and that
as of March 17, 2021 the 2020 Census data was not expected to be available under
September 23, 2021.

       Further, it was acknowledged that in addition to Census data, any Precinct
Redrawing should reflect current development, as well as known development not
currently under construction, but approved. Taylor Yowell received information from
Neighborhood Development Services ("NDS")which broke out in detail current
development within the City boundaries, as well as projects currently under review. It
was determined by Lisa Green and others that more information from NDS will need to
be gathered in order for our Committee to rely on projected residential growth from the
NDS document.

       We already know that Friendship Court will have 300 additional units and South
First Street will have 100 additional units. In addition, Lloyd Snook stated that the
current draft of the Comprehensive Plan anticipates development in the Greenbrier
neighborhood, on Grove Road and other areas of the City.




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      2. Once the development information is known in more detail, the Committee
agreed that we will need professional GIS mapping services to overlay the 2020 Census
numbers, plus the reasonable development information and to start the process of creating
reasonable precinct boundaries that can be maintained into the foreseeable future.

       It was recommended by Lloyd Snook that the Committee may seek volunteer GIS
services for this work or at least contract out the services in light of the fact that NDS
currently does not have the capacity and staff to assist with this project.

       3. The Committee also reviewed possible polling places for precincts. It was
agreed that each of the public schools should be considered. Maurice Walker encouraged
the Committee to use Jackson Via because so much of the growth in the Johnson precinct
could shift in that direction. Charlottesville High School and Burnley Moran Elementary
Schools were also discussed. Recent state legislation requires schools to close during the
November elections and most schools are on break during the June primary elections.

      4. Regarding the time-line for meeting the goals, it was agreed that little can be
done without the Census Data and without GIS services.

        It was acknowledged by the Co-Chair that the precinct redrawing process is being
initiated by a state statute which may be obsolete now that Virginia is a no-excuse early
voting state and by the fact that over 50% of the voters in Charlottesville voted early.
This change in voter behavior takes pressure off the election day precinct numbers.

       Josh Jenkins raised another complication in the precinct redrawing effort which is
the requirement that precincts must be contiguous and cannot be split by non-city
property, including property in and around the University of Virginia campus.

      5. The Committee agreed to hold off on further meetings until late September
2021 until at least a portion of the 2020 Census information and the City development
information will be available. Anne Hemenway will meet with City Manager City
Boyles on April 8th and Anne and Lisa Green will follow up with the development
information.

No further business was discussed.

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:15 pm




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