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Sarasota County commissioners do their worst on redistricting

Barbara Peters Smith
barbara.peters-smith@heraldtribune.com
Barbara Peters Smith

Truth spoke to power for nearly three hours in the Sarasota County commission chambers Tuesday morning.

And then power responded with mini-lectures on how foolish we voters were to think we ever wanted single-member districts in the first place.

Or, as Commissioner Nancy Detert put it just before siding with the majority to shove a redistricting plan down our gullets that citizen after citizen stood and implored the commission to please, please, please discard: “I don’t think they understood the ramifications.”

So, just in case anybody in the county fails to grasp the ponderous personal history lessons and patronizing explanations dished out by Detert, Al Maio and Mike Moran: One ramification of the 60% vote in 2018 by citizens to change our form of local government is now a 60% vote by the Board of County Commissioners to make us really sorry we didn’t listen to them when we had the chance.

They told us not to abandon countywide elections. And, hey, look what happened!

Detert, Maio and Moran chose the most disruptive — and the most actionable — option before them, a new district map that pushes voters around in unexamined ways, with some demonstrably hurtful results. They could have — like Charles Hines and Christian Ziegler — voted for the less controversial map, which mostly adhered to the status quo.

Or, since both maps were based on calculations shown to be laughably rough and raw, they could have chosen — in the words of Sarasota City Commissioner Shelli Freeland Eddie, who delivered a resolution from city leaders — “to do nothing and to wait until after the Census.”

Except for its worst possible outcome, this was a beautiful meeting. Truth followed the rules and refrained from yaying or booing, instead speaking eloquently to power with full hearts and incisive minds. Sitting in the audience, I felt so proud to belong to this community.

“I don’t think that having a new map will make your districts any more balanced. You’re missing the inputs. The data are flawed,“ said R.N. Collins. ”That change in methodology fixed one set of problems and caused another.“

“Let all things be done decently and in order,” said Pastor Ruby Robinson, quoting from the Bible’s first book of Corinthians.

The numbers underlying the redistricting maps “are bogus,” said Valerie Buchand, “and if you did not know it, you know it now.”

“This is shocking. The voters clearly stated what they wanted, and do not want the process to be rushed or forced in another direction,” said Liza Caruso. “We must humble our desires and not force our personal will on others.”

And Walter Gilbert passed on some advice from his father: “He said, ’Son, when you go do something, make sure you got a way out.’”

All of these speakers and dozens more were offering the commissioners a way out. Too bad they couldn’t see it.

There are still some ways out after this dismissive decision. But they won’t be simple, or smooth, or full of the hope and tentative trust that came to the meeting on Tuesday.

Barbara Peters Smith is the Herald-Tribune’s opinions editor.