Everett City Council district map nears completion
Story update: On Monday, Oct. 19, the districting commission held a meeting about the map.
EVERETT — After a year of work, the map to be used for restructuring elections for five City Council seats by geographic districts is almost done.
The city’s districting commission will meet Monday, Oct. 19 at 5 p.m. to take a final round of public comments.
The current map follows the general lines that developed weeks ago. District No. 1 puts the Delta, Riverside and Northwest neighborhoods together. District No. 2 contains downtown and most of central Everett. District No. 3 collects most of west Everett. District No. 4 has everybody south of the Boeing Freeway, such as Casino Road. District No. 5 encompasses southeast Everett, including Silver Lake.
In 2021, five City Council seats will be elected using geographic limits. It means the candidates would only come from within their districts and only voters living in the district would elect their council representative.
Two council seats will remain open for citywide election.
The public voted in 2018 to change the council system to include districts under the idea that districts will spread out and strengthen local representation on the city’s decision-making body.
The power dynamics in North Everett is partially why a neighborhood group called on the commission to completely rewrite the map to make Broadway in North Everett a defining east-west line for the city’s districts. They wanted Broadway as the boundary specifically to assign Northwest and Delta to different voting districts out of fear that candidates hailing from Northwest, as one of Everett’s wealthiest neighborhoods, could outspend or overpower elections within this proposed district. Right now, four of the seven sitting council members happen to live in the Northwest Neighborhood.
However, Delta residents outnumber the other neighborhood within the district, a consulting expert hired by the city explained last week in an update to the City Council.
Dividing the districts down Broadway also would make strange-looking districts, explained Districting Master Tony Fairfax.
The hypothetical eastern district would have collected Delta, Riverside, the east side of Port Gardner, Lowell, and stretched down into the Valley View neighborhood, which loosely is what the neighborhood group advocated for. But the western district? It would stretch well down past 41st Street, too, creating two kidney-shaped districts that clump north and central Everett together.
The mapmakers have legal constraints on how to draw the districts so they are fair and equitable.
The rulebook says the districts need to each have similar population sizes, a composite of similar demographics for the people living in each district, and are as tight and compact as possible.
Each of the five districts represent approximately 20,000 residents based on the latest U.S. Census. The district maps are expected to be tweaked during 2021 to reflect the 2020 Census results, but won’t change again until the after the 2030 Census.
The nine-member districting commission must finish this year’s work by Nov. 1 to send to the City Council because of city charter rules. The council will approve the map with a hands-off vote: The council can’t change the maplines since it affects how council members are elected.
For more information on this, see www.everettwa.gov/districting
Immediate prior coverage:
EVERETT — Time is closing for volunteer decision-makers to finish the map used to set district boundaries for electing most of the City Council members using geographic districts. Residents in northeast Everett have concerns about the current map.
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