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City commission moves forward with Hayes-Santos’ map that “preserves the legacy seat” in District 1

Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton speaks to the Gainesville City Commission on March 28

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

The Gainesville City Commission held a Special Meeting on March 28 with Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton and decided to hold another Special Meeting on Thursday, March 31, to consider a redistricting map designed to preserve the “legacy seat” in District 1.

At their March 17 meeting, the commission had asked Barton to meet with them before they made any decisions about new city commission districts. Barton joined the commission for the first part of the March 28 meeting but said she already had other things scheduled for that afternoon and couldn’t stay long.

Barton said she was “disturbed” by the city commission’s March 17 meeting because “I have never had an adversarial relationship with anyone on this commission, and I’ve always been amenable to anything that you all have brought up to me… I have always provided you all with professional courtesy… and I just want to have that same professional courtesy returned to me, as well. The tone of some things were… it just really surprised me. There were comments made of something that I said, I didn’t say.”

Barton explained that she had hoped the March 2021 Gainesville City election would be the last standalone election, and after that, her employees had planned vacations and then redistricting, but then her Chief Deputy Will Boyett, who usually did redistricting, tragically died. Then Gail Johnson resigned from the city commission, and Barton’s office was asked to run a Special Election for Johnson’s city commission seat. She said she took that on, as she always does, but she had one request: a winner-take-all election. However, the city commission voted that down, and a run-off election also had to be held. Her office has lost more employees since that time, and she continued, “Elections is hard right now. Elections is very hard. And I can tell you from talking to other Supervisors across the state, a lot of them are saying they’re not running again… But we keep pressing on.”

Barton said the City has always followed the precinct lines determined by the Supervisor’s office, going back through at least the past four Supervisors. She also said the City’s redistricting consultant had contacted her office late in the process and that the City consultant’s comments about Barton’s consultant had been incorrect because she doesn’t use a consultant; she uses a firm that geocodes the voters. Then her office looks at the maps and draws the precincts. 

“I hope people will hear this and know that we’re in need of polling places. Maybe they can reach out to me if they have some ideas.” – Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton

Barton said that because of population growth, she will need to add a new precinct, which means she has to find a new polling place, on top of losing two former polling places: “I hope people will hear this and know that we’re in need of polling places. Maybe they can reach out to me if they have some ideas.”

Mike Bruckman, Barton’s Vote-by-Mail Ballot Coordinator, presented some maps showing their new districts, some of which are significantly changed from the current map. 

Commissioner Adrian Hayes-Santos then presented a map he had worked on that followed Barton’s precinct lines except for splits in two precincts. 

“Duck Pond votes very heavily. They have a very high turnout. And the student area, east Sorority Row area, has a lot of people… but very, very low voter turnout.  So that allows District 1 to have a more minority-access district.” – Commissioner Adrian Hayes-Santos

Hayes-Santos said he also took into account “actual people who turned out to vote in the 2020 August election; this map would have 54% turnout for black voters and 34% white. The previous proposal [from our consultants would have] 44% black and 46% white.” He said he was able to increase the number of black voters by adding Sorority Row and taking out the Duck Pond: “Duck Pond votes very heavily. They have a very high turnout. And the student area, east Sorority Row area, has a lot of people… but very, very low voter turnout.  So that allows District 1 to have a more minority-access district.”

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut said she liked Hayes-Santos’ map because “it preserves the legacy seat. I’m very concerned that we keep that legacy seat.” She was also glad that the Stephen Foster neighborhood was no longer split between city commission districts.

Barton said Hayes-Santos’ map was “workable” but that she wanted to look at it more closely. She added that she couldn’t make a decision based on a map on the overhead but said if they sent her the map by email, she would look at it.

Commissioner Harvey Ward was concerned that the new map “has not had any vetting from the community, and that is a big deal.” He wanted to have a meeting for community engagement that wasn’t in City Hall, and he wanted organizations like the NAACP and neighborhood groups to have a chance to look at the new map. 

Hayes-Santos proposed a Special Meeting on Thursday to give time for the Supervisor to look at the map and allow time to make any changes before the first reading of the redistricting ordinance on April 7. He then made a motion to tentatively move forward with the proposed map, have the Special Meeting on March 31, and schedule the first reading of the ordinance for April 7.

“I look at what’s happening at the state level, and it makes me very afraid, very worried… But we see the state administration apparently trying to establish at least one chamber that reimagines the Jim Crow legislature. So I was hoping to be sure that couldn’t happen here.” – Kali Blount, public comment

During public comment, Kali Blount said he was glad to hear Chestnut “speak about the legacy district and preserving that. Because I look at what’s happening at the state level, and it makes me very afraid, very worried… But we see the state administration apparently trying to establish at least one chamber that reimagines the Jim Crow legislature. So I was hoping to be sure that couldn’t happen here.” Blount thought Thursday was too soon to realistically get the word out to the community.

“We have to do everything that we can to protect the integrity of minority access.” – State Senate Candidate Rodney Long

Rodney Long, who is running for the State Senate, said that single-member districts were enacted in Gainesville “because African-Americans felt that they did not have access to the ballot box.” He said that “there was nothing in the charter amendment that said, oh, by the way, we have to protect District 1 because that’s the African-American legacy seat. Although it’s not written there, that’s why we got single-member districting. We have to do everything that we can to protect the integrity of minority access.” 

Long was glad that Hayes-Santos had found a way to move the Duck Pond out of District 1 because it’s “probably the most active voting precinct in the City limits… as liberal as it is, one day, if it remained in this particular district, [it] could upset the whole concept of District 1.” He agreed with Hayes-Santos’ idea of bringing in a low-voting-participation student district: “If that’s the strategy we need to use to protect District 1, then that’s what y’all need to approve.”

The motion passed unanimously.

A link to the proposed map and more information about how to give feedback can be found here

  • If/when race-based Hate Crimes against Whites come to Gainesville, the Racist Blacks and their corrupt supporters will be cheering the crimes on.

    (CNN)- A Florida grand jury has formally indicted an Orlando man accused of killing a Daytona Beach couple earlier this month in what officials are calling a random attack.

    Jean R. Macean, 32, is charged with two counts of first-degree premeditated murder in connection with the deaths of Terry Aultman, 48, and Brenda Aultman, 55, according to an indictment from the Voluisa County Judicial Circuit Court released Tuesday.

    • Agree. Just incentives crime against whites thinking they won’t be punished. Racist drawing of lines to ensure a particular race wins. Great. And Mr fake minority Hayes – “Santos” from my stepdad so I’M A MINORITY from Canada drew a racist map! And Barton who had felons in the jail delivered ballots ok’s it. The blind leading the blind and ignorant. Driving the city into the dump on a daily basis. Soon it may be unrecoverable due to huge debt, crime, and gov failed programs. When Biden’s spigot runs dry, they’ll be no way to pay for their horse crap.

  • Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton: ““Elections is hard right now. Elections is very hard.”

    Sounds like a dog-whistle, gangsta threat coming from corrupt election officials nationwide who helped illegally install Bozo Biden. Apparently, it was also “hard” for Kim Barton to verify that Diyonne McGraw was eligible to be on the ballot. Corrupt Black Power wants more Power!

  • Consider the SOE officially woke. She discovered these libeRATS will eat there own if given the opportunity. Many of us have known that for quite some time.

  • Is Kim wearing that mask because it’s a political statement or because “ I wear a mask to protect you and
    You wear a mask to protect me”? Government officials
    Still wearing masks gives me NO confidence that the
    Vax shots work…Kim, didn’t you get your 4th Covid
    Shot yet? Is it peer pressure because the city & county
    Commissioners still wear them while on televised public
    Meetings?

  • Hispanics are flipping GOP, where are they? I bet the Duck Pond is tiring of the Woke brigade too. That’s why they want to preserve District 1, so people like the Chestnuts and Longs can keep milking boohoo grants another 10 years.

  • On my!!!, poor Kali is “very afraid and very worried”?
    Oh, what to do??
    Gerrymandering districts is ok when it comes to
    100% guaranteeing a black official in office? What that is is the very definition of JIM CROW, and isn’t that bad?? You want: What was good for the goose is good for the gander huh Kali? what a hypocrite! You always have
    To bring race into the equation…maybe you should consider seeing a psychiatrist to be treated for your inferiority complex…you’re embarrassing yourself.

  • “Elections is hard.” She was never cut out for this. More drama from the elections office. I hope this is her signaling she won’t be running again.

  • Wait, so the votebymail coordinator is running the redistricting? How much staff she losing???

  • Schizophrenic policies are the norm among Dem pols and voters. There are MANY policies they espouse that are mutually self-destructive. Black gerrymandered districts while pretending to want racial integration is just one example.

  • It sounds like they don’t “need” the liberal votes in the Duck Pond neighborhood because of the overwhelming black vote, so they’ll shuffle those Duck Pond votes elsewhere, to where they are needed. And all of this talk about “preserving the legacy district” is a lot of nonsense/BS.

  • By saying “Elections are hard right now” means Barton ain’t up to the job. Give it up “girl”! She likely means it’s “hard” for dems to cheat like they did last time. Having someone show one gov ID, of any kind, isn’t really any problem at all, isn’t racist (whites have to comply also) and I’m sure 99% of legal residents have a gov ID. And having to go vote a mere mile or less a few times every 4 years isn’t “hard”. The only thing hard is getting honest poll workers and election officials.

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