City Council can't reach a consensus over new ward lines. Public hearing now for February

PETESRBURG – City Councilors are so far unable to agree on which updated ward map they want during this redistricting cycle. Three council members have been butting heads over some of the city’s prominent neighborhoods.

The two areas that are most hotly contested among councilors are at opposite ends of Ward 4 – Blandford and Grove Avenue.

Ward 1 Council Member Treska Wilson-Smith has been adamant about keeping Blandford together in Ward 1, citing that her constituents have said that was their preference. Other actions have brought Grove Avenue into the forefront.

Ten map options were presented by the Crater Planning District Commission in December. Of those maps, Council reached a soft consensus among two of them, maps 5 and 6. A decision would have to be made about Blandford between those two maps. One option moved the entire neighborhood from Ward 1 into Ward 4, using Crater Square to offset the numbers between those two.

Tensions boiled over since that initial meeting with the addition of a new map.

Councilmembers met with CPDC in groups of two where they could make suggestions for map changes. None of those meetings produced changes to any of those maps.

After those meetings, Ward 4 Councilor Charlie Cuthbert consulted CPDC by phone, which produced and entirely new tenth option. Ward 5 Councilor W. Howard Myers said this was going behind the backs of other council members by having a later, unknown one-on-one with CPDC.

“One other member of council is adding another map to the equation which is rocking the boat for me,” said Ward 5 Councilor W. Howard Myers. “I find it disingenuous that we have another map here, when we’ve been dealing with these other maps and trying to move forward.”

Map 10 adds Grove Avenue into Ward 4. Nearly every map option had cut the street out and placed it into Ward 5.

It was never explicitly stated that council members couldn’t contact CPDC to have new maps, though other councilors indicated surprise that another map had been created. Wilson-Smith and Ward 6 Councilor Annette Smith-Lee also objected to Map 10's creation.

“All I did was pick up a phone,” Cuthbert said.

City Council heard from about 15 people at a public hearing on Jan. 25 where a final vote was expected. Public voices at the virtual meeting were split between two different causes. One side advocated for keeping Blandford together under Ward 1, while the other side said it wanted Grove Avenue to remain in Ward 4, where it’s been for over a century. Only two speakers addressed other issues.

Grove Ave. residents plead that Cuthbert’s newly drawn map 10 was in their best interests. They said their historic street’s interests were more consistent with Ward 4’s Old Towne than they were with anywhere else in the city. Most speakers from Grove Ave., many of which had written letters, voiced support for Cuthbert’s representation over them.

Cuthbert held a meeting with his constituents the night before the redistricting public hearing, which he said was helpful to educate his constitutes about the process.

Myers said Cuthbert asked him to talk address Grove Avenue at the public hearing after the two spoke over the phone.

“I am not trying to take Grove Avenue from Charlie or anyone else. I'm just doing what I believe should be fair across the board for the council to have an opportunity to design what might be of interest to everybody,” Myers said.

Blandford residents spoke in favor of being part of Ward 1 while also saying that there hadn’t been enough involvement with residents during the redistricting cycle, echoing their Councilor’s sentiment during the meeting.

Wilson-Smith said public involvement was lacking, bordering on illegal. There was no opportunity before the expected vote on Jan 25, for residents to give their input. She also said she hadn’t been made aware that letters were an accepted forum for the public to give comments, and that the Zoom meeting was hard for elderly residents to navigate.

Time is a somewhat pressing issue when it comes to finishing the maps, though the extent is unknown. Localities’ deadline for redrawing their districts were due on Dec. 31, though delays from COVID-19 mean that most cities are far behind schedule. Council held the public meeting on the Jan 25, urging expediency having been past the deadline.

It is unclear when the state might step in if the maps remain undecided. Richmond, for example, isn’t voting on its maps until April 25 and is currently in the middle of two public displays for it’s map options.

“We have to do it in a manner that that is justifiable,” Wilson-Smith said. “There are still citizens who have no idea about this. That comes back on us. I'd rather do it right and late than they do it wrong. Just to hurry up and have something down. That that doesn't speak well of any of us if we do that.”

Should city council continue to disagree and fail to come up with an option, the maps will be redrawn by the Circuit Court. That option was floated but none of the councilors wanted to leave it to the courts.

“I think council should have some sense to get it done,” Wilson-Smith said.

Map options 5, 6 and newly created map 10 are being considered for the final vote. They will be displayed to the public over the course of a week at Union Train Station. Petersburg’s final public hearing has been pushed to Feb. 15.

You can reach Sean Jones at sjones@progress-index.com. Follow him at @SeanJones_PI. Follow The Progress-Index on Twitter at @ProgressIndex.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Petersburg council can't agree on new ward maps, delayed until February