Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.
Every ten years, Glendale is required to redraw its City Council districts based on data from the U.S. Census. The process is called redistricting and the goal is to make sure each Council district has approximately equal population.
Let’s begin with the Census data for 2020 provided to the city. On July of 2019 the Census Bureau’s estimated population for Glendale was 252,387. It’s final, official count of Glendale is 248,325.
Everyone in the State believes the Bureau’s count is wrong and the population was undercounted. Experts said they expected to see even higher rates of growth. William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., who specializes in census data and urban populations, said he expected to see a higher growth rate in Arizona. Cities with council districts redraw those boundaries every 10 years after each U.S. census.
Four cities looking to redistrict by the next election in November include:
- Mesa
- Glendale
- Peoria
- Buckeye
Other Valley cities, such as Chandler, Scottsdale and Goodyear, don’t use a district system, instead electing council members on a citywide basis.
Look at this chart for Glendale.
City-data.com got its numbers from the Maricopa County estimates. I have no idea how the County arrived at these figures.
Please note, according to Census data, that every council district but the Yucca district added from 2,000+ in population to 6,000+ in population. Yet the Yucca district supposedly lost 315. Can anyone in their right mind believe this? The Yucca district has exploded over the last 10 years with new residential subdivisions (Copper Cove, Bethany Ranch and Positano to name just a few) as well as new apartment complexes. Yet, in the past ten years the Yucca district lost 315 people? Ridiculous. It’s nuts. The data makes no sense. The city should be requesting a recount of the Yucca district data. Someone, somewhere screwed up. If you put garbage in, garbage comes out. I suspect that the Yucca district, in fact, gained about 10,000 in population over the last decade.
Not only that, but the Census Bureau has also been late in releasing census block data (will do so this month, September) on population counts, the very data needed to redraw districts. As a result, Glendale has until December 15, 2021, about 3 months, to submit their new council districts to the State.
Here are the guidelines, city council adopted, that shall be used to redraw the districts:
- Each district shall respect communities of interest as much as possible;
- District borders shall follow visible natural and man-made geographical and topographical features as much as possible;
- District borders shall be drawn to avoid locating more than one current Councilmember in any one district as much as possible;
- Each new district shall preserve the corresponding existing district’s population and territory as much as possible;
- Districts known to be areas of higher-than-average population growth in the two to five years following redistricting, based on development projects that have received final plat approval from the City, may be under populated within the population deviation amounts allowed by law;
- To the extent possible, consistent with constitutional law and the requirements of federal and state statutes, each district shall contain a substantially equal number of electors.
The city has created a dedicated web site allowing all Glendale residents not only information about the redistricting process but on or about September 16th the public can see the population data by census block and draw their own redistricting maps. Here is the link to the web site:
You can learn more and get involved by attending one of three public Glendale workshops. By the time of these city hosted workshops occur the appropriate data should be available on the city website to any citizen who wants it. Here are the workshop dates:
| Monday, September 20 | 2:00 p.m. | Glendale City Council Chambers 5850 W. Glendale Avenue |
| Wednesday, September 22 | 10:00 a.m. | Glendale Main Library Auditorium 5959 W. Brown Street |
| Monday, September 27 | 6:30 p.m. | Foothills Recreation & Aquatics Center Coyote Room 5600 W. Union Hills Drive |
Why should we focus on redistricting whether it be on a local, state or national level? We all vote for those representatives that most closely align with our values and goals. With redrawn districts you may find that now you are in a district that has a representative with whose values and goals with which you disagree. By involving yourselves in the redistricting process your input will contribute toward making sure that your representative actually represents you.
© Joyce Clark, 2021
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