THE REVERE ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021 Page 9 City begins redistricting process W By Adam Swift ith the results of the 2020 U.S. Census in, the City of Revere is beginning the sometimes touchy process of redistricting and re-precincting. Reuben Kantor, the city’s Chief Innovation Officer, recently gave an overview of the re-precinting process and some of the changes to the city’s demographics that came to light with the latest census results to the Human Rights Commission. Kantor said those results show population growth in all six of the city’s wards, and that Revere is now a majority minority community, with 55 percent of the residents identifying as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). “Re-precincting happens every 10 years after the U.S. Census releases the data to the cities and towns; cities and towns have the opportunity to account for where the population changes have happened since the previous census,” said Kantor. Communities must review and redraw precinct lines since some of them may no longer be legal because of changes in population, according to Kantor. Each precinct must legally be within fi ve percent of each other in total population. “We’re really trying to get it to less than that so that all the precincts are the same and all the wards are the same,” said Kantor. “That’s going to require some pretty big changes in where we draw the boundaries so we can have these equal precincts.” The deadline for redistricting is still up in the air because of a bill in front of the state legislature that is trying to determine if the local boundaries are drawn fi rst, as has typically been done, or if the state will redistrict it’s legislative and congressional districts fi rst. “If [the state] draws their boundaries fi rst, we would want to draw our precincts within those boundaries, but if we draw our boundaries fi rst, they will try to fi t into those precincts,” said Kantor. Regardless of the outcome at the state level, Revere is starting the process of holding public forums to discuss the redrawing of local boundaries. Kantor said the City is putting together some draft maps of what redistricting might look like to get the conversation started. Two of the key considerations in redistricting, Kantor said, are making sure the new boundaries don’t lead to either packing or fragmenting of communities of color or communities of interest. “Packing is putting all of a certain community of interest in a single disREVERE | SEE Page 15
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