Redistricting Public Meetings Announced

Friday, May 6, 2011 – The House Redistricting Committee and Senate Committee on Reapportionment held a joint committee meeting on the House Chamber Floor.  The meeting served as an announcement of the scheduled dates for public meetings on redistricting – to be held this summer – throughout Florida.  Click here for video highlights.

The public meetings will serve as one of the primary tools for Florida’s diverse communities to present their suggestions for Florida’s new state legislative and congressional district boundary lines. 

Today’s announcement highlighted meetings from June 20-22 in Tallahassee, Milton, Fort Walton, and Panama City – and – meetings from July 11-13 in Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, The Villages and Gainesville.  Additionally, meetings will soon be announced for Central Florida (July 25-28), Southeast Florida (tentatively August 15-18) and Southwest Florida (tentatively August 29-September 1).  Click here to watch the full meeting.

As meeting information is updated, www.floridaredistricting.org will always contain the latest and greatest calendar news.

Filed under: Public Meetings, Public Participation, 2011, cannon, census, committee, committee meetings, district, florida, florida channel, house, legislative, mydistrictbuilder, open government, public participation, redistricting, senate, subcommittee, transparency

Next Week’s Redistricting Committee Meetings

Next week’s authorized meetings times for the Redistricting Committee and subcommittees will be as follows:

• Monday, May 2 – Redistricting Committee – 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. – 17 House Office Building
• Tuesday, May 3 – House Redistricting Subcommittee – 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. – 17 House Office Building
• Wednesday, May 4 – Senate Redistricting Subcommittee – 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. – 17 House Office Building
• Thursday, May 5 – Congressional Redistricting Subcommittee – 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. – 17 House Office Building

The meetings will consist of a tutorial of the House’s MyDistrictBuilder online redistricting application. 

This week, committee members were given a visual tour of the site in their respective committee meetings.  Staff responded to questions and even implemented a couple suggested changes to MyDistrictBuilder, per the request of committee members.

Filed under: MyDistrictBuilder, Public Meetings, committee, committee meetings, data grid, de grandy, demographic, district, florida, house, mydistrictbuilder, public participation, redistricting, senate, subcommittee

New MyDistrictBuilder Video Tutorials

MyDistrictBuilder’s video tutorial library has been revised to reflect recent updates to the application.  The whole library is included here at FloridaRedistricting.Org’s Page 2 in the links to the right under “MyDistrictBuilder Video Tutorials.” 

You can also visit the “How to Use MyDistrictBuilder” playlist at http://www.youtube.com/MyDistrictBuilderFL, or click on the individual video links below:

• Video Tutorial: Opening MyDistrictBuilder
• Video Tutorial: 1-2-3 New Save Open
• Video Tutorial: Layers of Geography
• Video Tutorial: Building with Assign & Lasso
• Video Tutorial: Locking and Unlocking Districts
• Video Tutorial: Using Data Labels
• Video Tutorial: Copy and Pasting Districts
• Video Tutorial: Saving the Data Grid as a CSV
• Video Tutorial: Population Deviation
• Video Tutorial: Building with Data Shading
• Video Tutorial: Finding Stragglers

 

Filed under: MyDistrictBuilder, Public Participation, 2010, application, census, data grid, deviation, district, florida, geography, layer, mydistrictbuilder, population, public participation, redistricting, shading, tutorial

Redistricting Committee Updates

The Redistricting Committee met today to drill down further into Florida’s redistricting process.  The Committee first heard remarks regarding:

• The jurisdiction of the Committee and the subcommittees, and the responsibilities of Committee members;
• Opportunities for public input and participation in the redistricting process; and
• House rules and procedures for redistricting.

Additionally, the Committee heard testimony from the House’s special counsel for reapportionment, regarding Florida’s state constitutional provisions on redistricting.  Specifically, counsel helped the Committee members examine the recently approved Amendments 5 and 6 (Article III, Sections 21 and 20 of the Florida Constitution).

The Committee also got a tour of the beta version of the MyDistrictBuilder application.  Throughout the week, each of the redistricting subcommittees will also hear the same presentations in their respective meetings.

Filed under: Data & Code, MyDistrictBuilder, On the Web, Public Meetings, Public Participation, 2011, 2012, amendment, census, committee, committee meetings, constitution, data grid, deviation, district, doj, florida channel, house, mydistrictbuilder, open government, procedures, public participation, redistricting, subcommittee

FloridaRedistricting.Org: From Home Page to Front Page

With committee meetings underway, and public submissions of redistricting plans and public meetings throughout the State about to begin in the next couple months – www.floridaredistricting.org, the home page of our outreach, is going from home page to front page over the next few weeks.

The main portal to MyDistrictBuilder, current events, meeting information and public participation resources will still be www.floridaredistricting.org. 

But this operation is about to become very information heavy, from public meeting records to redistricting plan submissions to lots of data and resources.  Therefore, our WordPress pages will capture the full extent of that content.

Filed under: Data & Code, MyDistrictBuilder, On the Web, Public Meetings, Public Participation, 2011, committee meetings, data grid, district, florida, mydistrictbuilder, open government, public participation, redistricting, resources, transparency

Video Update: Chairman Weatherford’s Opening Remarks

Filed under: Public Meetings, cannon, committee, constitution, district, florida, legislature, mydistrictbuilder, open government, public participation, redistricting, subcommittee, transparency, weatherford

What’s on the Agenda for April 20-21?

Wednesday, April 20, 2011 – The agenda for the joint meeting of the Florida House’s Redistricting Committee and Congressional Redistricting Subcommittee will serve two introductory purposes for the newly appointed members of the committees.

The presentations should help provide the committee members with a foundation for the many redistricting decisions to come.  Moreover, the presentations will help set the stage for committee meetings in weeks 8 and 9 of the 2011 Legislative Session, in which the committees drill down further into Florida law, the ways in which the public can participate, and how to use MyDistrictBuilder.

First, former Florida House member (1989-1994) Miguel De Grandy, now serving as counsel to the House on reapportionment and redistricting matters, will provide the Members with a redistricting legal 101.

Second, Amy Baker, staff director for the Legislature’s Office of Economic & Demographic Research (EDR), will give the committee members a view of Florida’s new demographic portrait, based on the results of the 2010 Census and the American Community Survey.

Thursday’s joint meeting of the House Redistricting Subcommittee and Senate Redistricting Subcommittee will consider the same agenda and presentations.

Filed under: Public Meetings, 2011, african-american, apportion, black, census, committee, constitution, data grid, de grandy, demographic, district, florida, hispanic, house, mydistrictbuilder, redistricting, subcommittee, voting rights act

Updates to MyDistrictBuilder: Save and Open Functions Active

The ability to Save plans in MyDistrictBuilder has been activated.  Currently, you can only Save in DOJ (Department of Justice) format.  The Open function is also active.  When Saving and Opening, the file extension will appear as “.doj”.  It is recommended that you Save your work regularly.

With the 2010 Census data already available in MyDistrictBuilder, and samples of the American Community Survey data available, users can certainly begin building redistricting plans now.

DOJ format is what the Legislature will use to submit plans for the State House, State Senate and congressional districts to the U.S. Department of Justice.  This format is generally the most common language between redistricting applications.

In addition to Save and Open, there are some changes to the data grid at the bottom of MyDistrictBuilder. 

Filed under: MyDistrictBuilder, application, data grid, department, deviation, district, doj, florida, justice, mydistrictbuilder, open, redistricting, save

Speaker Cannon’s Update on Committee Appointments

From an April 15, 2011 memorandum to all Members of the Florida House of Representatives, title “Update on Appointments…

…”The Redistricting Committee, the House Redistricting Subcommittee, the Senate Redistricting Subcommittee and the Congressional Redistricting Subcommittee will have their first meetings on Wednesday and Thursday of next week.  The vice chair of the Redistricting Committee, the chairs and vice chairs of the subcommittees, and the membership of the committee and the subcommittees will be announced by Monday, April 18.”

Filed under: Public Meetings, 2011, cannon, committee, congress, district, florida, house, legislative, redistricting, senate, session, subcommittee

Florida House Calendars First Redistricting Committee Meetings

April 13 – The Florida House of Representatives released its Calendar for Week 7 of the 2011 Legislative Session.  The House Redistricting Committee and its three subcommittees will hold their first meetings April 20 and 21.

The three subcommittees are the House Redistricting Subcommittee, the Senate Redistricting Subcommittee and the Congressional Redistricting Subcommittee — named for the specific district maps under their jurisdication.

April 20, the Redistricting Committee and the Congressional Redistricting Subcommittee will meet jointly, 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM, in 212 Knott Building of the Capitol complex.  April 21, the House Redistricting Subcommittee and the Senate Redistricting Subcommittee will meet jointly, same time, same location.

Filed under: Public Meetings, 2011, cannon, committee, congress, district, florida, house, legislative, mydistrictbuilder, redistricting, senate, session, speaker, subcommittee