Fair & Equal: A Community Conversation
Next Wednesday, August 10, the Fair & Equal campaign will hold a community conversation at 6:30 p.m. at Peter Jung Gallery, 512 Warren Street. It's an opportunity to ask questions and find out how and why the proposed new ward map was created.
Also, for anyone who harbors fear that what's being proposed will dilute or diminish the ability of minority populations in Hudson to elect representatives of their choice, a chart showing the impact of the proposed changes on ward demographics can now be found on the Fair & Equal website.
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Great info. Thanks, F&E. Now, if we could have some income data and exact boundary lines (it's a bit unclear even on the large maps), we'd be there; there being the beginning of understanding how all of this works from a "fair and equal" perspective as representative government goes. If this data is in an accessible format, as it seems to be, it would be interesting to see various what-if scenarios... What if, for example, we had 10 wards with 1 representative from each? We have a wonderful opportunity here to remake Hudson for the 21st century. And I hope the F&E folks can put all their hard work and research toward such a re-imagining. thanks. --peter m.
ReplyDeletePeter, Hudson has had its last illegal election. So at this point, all this "reimagining" will need to wait after the next census. That is where the course of events have led us. So, in my view, it would be good to think about whether this map is reasonably acceptable to get to here from there, with the ballot box being the remedy for the existing mess. In the end, one must choose from the options that are out there. In this case, there are but two options.
DeleteI think it's the same unspecified opposition retooled to achieve the same ends.
DeleteEven before the map is understood, and before everyone's income bracket is known (watch: class resentment is the next strategy), the same unspecified prejudgement overrides all else.
There just has to be a better idea - or so the argument goes - and so the nearly perfect must be sacrificed to achieve the impossibly perfect.
So now, F&E's hard work will be undermined to the tune of innocent brainstorming. Out of respect for the creativity of the F&E group, they're the first invited to lead us away from their own solution. (The reason we must abandon their solution has never been explained.)
I like how it's always up to someone else to work out the details, some imagined community of munchkin technicians who are capable of realizing every scheme, even when the latest idea is more outlandish than the last.
So here's what you do. You make F&E's solution appear relative to any other solution, no matter how glib, and then you get enough people to believe that, given enough time, anyone can come up with these ideas (which someone else will work out).
Then, right before the referendum, you ask why we're all rushing into this? It will sound like reason itself, especially to those who started thinking about it the day before.
PM: hogwash.
ReplyDeleteIf five votes are cast by five people with an income of $15k each, and five votes are cast by five people with an income of $250k each, and some are black and some are white, what difference does that make?
Nice chart. I would also be interested in the age breakout of the wards. Just because the wards have a similar population doesn't mean they have similar numbers of eligible voters
ReplyDeleteI believe the age numbers are included in the census data that the chart summarizes as to race. But it is important to remember that Council members don't represent the voters in their wards, they represent all the residents of their wards -- voting and otherwise.
DeleteIt would be interesting to see a map with the addresses of the "Fair and Equal" committee members inside the ward boundaries (present & proposed). Also,it would be interesting to know what their future political intentions are.
ReplyDeleteThe group members of Fair and Equal (I'm not one of them) are your fellow citizens.
DeleteYour thinly veiled hostility insinuating private interests over the group's actual, selfless voluntarism is unworthy of this discussion. Like Hudson's weighted vote, it's just the sort of thing which inhibits participation in self-government. On two counts, then, it occurs to me that's your goal.
The second question has already been covered, and I'm sure the answer will calm your evident cynicism.
Cynicism in Hudson? Why would that be?
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