MOHAVE COUNTY – Redistricting methodology was addressed during the Feb. 1Monday’s Mohave County Board of Supervisors meeting in Kingman. Elections Director Allen Tempert provided strong testimony in support of contracting for expertise rather than attempting to use in-house resources to redraw county district boundaries.
Redistricting occurs once the census is complete every ten years and Tempert said the firm employed by the county 10 years ago did a great job.
“The consultants were the right way to go. Totally unbiased. They were the numbers people. They’re the analysts,” Tempert told the board. “I have a great skill set to do a lot of things but not this. I am not an analyst when it comes down to this and I don’t know if we have the resources in the county to dedicate to such a thing. The organizations have the expertise to do this.”
Tempert said the Department of Justice must approve the Mohave County redistricting plan, partly because of the presence of Indian nations within its borders. He said use of a consultant increases likelihood of approval without possible blow back from federal officials.
“I don’t want to be in front of the Department of Justice because somebody comes up and starts claiming a possibility of discrimination. You always hear the word “gerrymandering”. It’s going to start coming up left and right,” Tempert said. “No matter what we do or don’t do, we get under their thumb and the next thing you know for the next ten years they’re sitting in my office for every election.”
County Manager Sam Elters advised that it will likely cost less than $100,000 for the county to employ a redistricting consultant. The board approved moving forward with that intent.
Dist. 2 Sup Hildy Angius said the job will likely be relatively simple since there haven’t been significant population growth or shifts since 2011 redistricting. She said the current districts have worked well with some exceptions here and there.
“There are some places that didn’t make sense the last time,” Angius said. “We still scratch our heads over it. For instance, why Oatman is in Dist. 4 rather than Dist. 5 or Dist. 2, those things can be corrected.”
Dist. 4 supervisor Jean Bishop exposed another anomaly, noting that some people who reside in her district in Golden Valley pay secondary property taxes to the Colorado River Union High School District.
Angius said such imperfections can be resolved in this year’s redistricting effort. “To me, it’s just going to be a few tweaks and not a huge undertaking,” she said.
Dave Hawkins
