After a special session that extended for over seven hours, Fort Worth City Council delayed releasing a redistricting map for public input so that an external legal firm could analyze amendments.
Mayor Mattie Parker said the proposed map will be approved Feb. 22. The council’s redistricting resolution would also be amended Feb. 22 to accommodate necessary public input meetings. The city has scheduled March 29 for a final adopted map, which will add two new districts to bring Fort Worth to 10 districts for the next decade.
Council members could not reach agreements on opportunity districts for Hispanic voters and communities of interest.
Assistant City Manager Fernando Costa delivered an initial assessment of three map versions: one designed by Pablo Calderon, which Fort Worth’s redistricting task force recommended to council and was referred to as Map X; and two separate amendments to that map, referred to as maps 2 and 3.
Council members Carlos Flores and Gyna Bivens, criticized the initial maps 2 and 3 for not providing enough Hispanic opportunity districts. One of the initial districts per map had a Hispanic voting-age population of more than 52%.
“[Version 2] dilutes the Hispanic population in the north,” Flores said. “I think we’re going backwards on version 2.”
“No matter what the stats show, it does not fly well with the citizenry to say we can only have one likely Hispanic district,” Bivens added.
The special session was temporarily paused for a scheduled City Council work session and resumed afterward. Council members then discussed potential amendments to the version 3 map, agreeing on a plan that would bring Flores’ District 2 to a 62% Hispanic voting-age population and a new District 11 to a 52.65% Hispanic voting-age population.
Law firm Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta, which has provided redistricting analysis for other Texas governments, such as Montgomery County, will analyze the maps before the Feb. 22 session.
