Redistricting Public Service Annoucements

Below you can enjoy and share our video public service announcement for the upcoming public input meetings on redistricting.

The video is also available at the Public Participation Toolkit, https://mydistrictbuilder.wordpress.com/participation/.  There you will find several helpful resources you can use to educate others about redistricting and ways that they can get involved. 

For example, you could use a combination of the video clip below and a couple of the informational fliers from the Public Participation Toolkit as a way to present on redistricting at a community or organizational meeting.

As always, let us know if you have any questions or need additional information by emailing us at mydistrictbuilder@myfloridahouse.gov.

Happy Wednesday!

Filed under: Public Meetings, Public Participation, committee, congress, florida, government, meeting, mydistrictbuilder, open, participation, public, redistricting, senate, toolkit, youtube

Guidance for Public Participation

With public meetings on redistricting about to begin throughout Florida, we are getting questions about what kinds of public testimony are appropriate at those public meetings.  How can Floridians express the interests of their communities without running afoul of state and federal redistricting laws?  How can Floridians talk about redistricting in a way that positively reflects the standards in law?

While it is the goal of the Florida House of Representatives to consider any public testimony that is offered at the public meetings, via the House’s MyDistrictBuilder application, or through any other means, it is equally important to address the reality that – by law – some kinds of input simply cannot be considered in the crafting of Florida’s new state legislative and congressional district maps.

We created the handout below, Guidance for Public Participation, as a reference to the concepts that are promoted and prohibited in federal and Florida redistricting laws.  Guidance for Public Participation can also be found at www.floridaredistricting.org (or directly at http://bit.ly/mTaxBj).

The handout gives general guidance for the kinds of public testimony that will be considered, and also the kinds of public testimony that will not be considered.  For a greater understanding of these legal issues, visit the Legal Resources section at www.floridaredistricting.org.  Our Redistricting Concepts & Terminology document at http://bit.ly/i1DpDu may also be a helpful guide.

We hope you find the handout helpful, but please feel free to email us at mydistrictbuilder@myfloridahouse.gov if you have any questions.

Filed under: Public Meetings, Public Participation, federal, florida, floridians, government, law, legal, mydistrictbuilder, open, participation, public, redistricting, standards, state, testimony

Updates to MyDistrictBuilder

We released some new features to MyDistrictBuilder this week.  Here’s a tally of what’s new:

• Building by Places (Cities) – So you want to build districts entire cities at a time?  Now you can!  Previously you could build by County, VTD or Blocks.  You will see the Places was added to the drop-down menu.  Quick suggestion – it is sometimes easier to see Places (city boundary lines) if you change the Bing Maps view from Aerial to Road.

• Data Grid – You can sort the Data Grid now by column.

• KMZ files – You can now Save and Open plans in KMZ format.  KMZ is a file format that in the long-run will allow people to view your redistricting plans in multiple types of applications, and it also brings summary-level data along with the file. 
• Note, when you click on Open System File, you now have a choice of opening Florida’s existing Congress, House and Senate maps in either KMZ or DOJ.
• KMZ is also a faster option for opening a file.

• When you go to Open your saved redistricting plans, you will notice that you have a drop-down choice of either KMZ or DOJ.

• Submit – Yes, there is a Submit button now under the File tab.  No, it doesn’t work yet.  If you are ready to Submit a full or partial redistricting plan, we are ready to accept.  Click Submit, and give us a call at the number that appears.  The button will be fully operational soon.
• Preferences – There’s now a Preferences tab.  At present there is only one feature there, a District button that allows you to set the ideal population for districts.  This is especially useful is you are going to use MyDistrictBuilder for building local government district boundary lines.  More features to come.
• Save and Lock – When you Save in the future, if you saved with the Lock on for one or more districts, the Lock is saved.

As always, send us a message at mydistrictbuilder@myfloridahouse.gov if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

Happy Friday!

Filed under: MyDistrictBuilder, Public Participation, application, congress, data, doj, file, florida, house, kmz, mydistrictbuilder, open, participation, public, redistricting, representatives, save, senate, submit

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