Dale commission OKs re-district plan

A resolution to redraw voting district lines in Dale County was passed at the Dale County Commission meeting April 12. The new district lines will not impact voters going to the polls in the May 24 primary elections but will instead go into effect with the 2024 election.

The issue has been on the commission table since Nov. 2, 2021 when the commissioners met with Southeast Alabama Regional Planning and Development Commission Executive Director Scott Farmer to hear options to resolve a population deviation revealed by the then-recently released census date.

The census revealed about a 25 percent deviation between Commissioners Charles ‘Chic” Gary’s District 3, with a population of 14,068, and Commissioner Chris Carroll’s District 1, with a population of 10,912.

At a commission meeting Oct. 26, 2021 Farmer told the commission that the recommendation would be to change the district lines in order to get to a 10 percent population deviation.

Farmer presented the commission with an option that reflected the district lines after moving a “little triangle” of some 1,444 people—mostly within the city limits of Ozark—that would put all the districts back in compliance. Gary and Carroll, the two commissioners directly impacted by Farmer’s proposal, agreed to the proposal presented.

The resolution with the new district lines was rescinded one day before a Nov. 24, 20221 deadline to approve the change in advance of the May 24 primary election. At the commission meeting Nov. 23, 2021 the three members of the commission present voted to rescind the resolution to redraw the lines for two commission districts.

The decision to rescind became necessary after the commission learned that the legal notification of the resolution, set to run in the Nov. 11, 2021 edition of the legal newspaper of record located in the Dale County seat, did not run.

“(The Ozark newspaper) had all the information and they confirmed that it would be printed. I don’t know what caused the problem but we got a call after print date that they didn’t get it printed,” explained Commission Chairman Steve McKinnon at the time. “So we had to rescind the resolution and have to do it again. It will come into effect in 2024.

“It was not a commission nor an administrator issue,” McKinnon said. “We voted to run (the legal notice of the redistricting) in that paper at our meeting. They dropped the ball on it and now there is nothing that we can do,” he added.

“I know we’ve tread ground a few times now,” Farmer said at the commission meeting April 12. “We made the most conservative changes possible to have the least disruption to existing voting districts to be in place for the 2024 election.

“Traditionally after the United States Census results are published local, state and federal governments look at their populations. Traditionally, local governments have allowed up to 10 percent deviation between the districts with the highest and lowest populations,” Farmer said.

Following the vote to approve the new district lines, Gene Lynn, representing the Concerned Citizens of Ozark, asked the commission why there is not a district in Dale County with a majority minority population. “We’ve gone about 200 years without representation and we were hoping that these new district lines would be created in such a way that we might have representation,” he told the commissioners. “We’re not claiming that there is racism on the commission just that there is no minority representation. We’re just at the point where we are just tired of waiting. I’m 72 years old. If you guys don’t do it, when will it happen?

“There is minority representation in most of the Southeast Alabama municipalities but not in Dale County because of the way the districts are drawn. We pay taxes like everybody else. That’s taxation without representation. We vote but the districts are drawn so that our vote doesn’t really count. I’m not saying that it’s not legal. I’m saying that is not fair.”

“We don’t have control over the re-districting lines, that doesn’t come through the state and the census information, isn’t that true?” Dale County Commission Chairman Steve McKinnon asked Farmer.

“The demographics do come from the census, but y’all do have control over where those lines are drawn,” Farmer replied. “You’ve got the latitude to do whatever you want to technically as long as the numbers are pretty close.”

Lynn asked for the commission for the opportunity to meet to discuss the issue during a commission work session.

“We welcome everyone to our commission meetings,” McKinnon said. “We try to put everything out there to the public.”

The next meeting of the Dale County Commission is April 26 at the county government building in Ozark. A work session begins at 10 a.m. and is followed immediately by a voting meeting. Both meetings are open to the public.