Photo attribution: Screenshot from Redistricting Denver 2022 website
Denver’s City Council has been undergoing a redistricting activity this year. This is a decennial process that is required by city charter to adjust the borders of city districts to maintain more or less equal numbers of citizens in each council district. The activity uses the latest population data compiled in the previous census.
Several candidate maps had been submitted for consideration, some by sitting city council members and others by various citizen groups. As the council worked through the process, they eliminated most of the maps for various reasons. One of them, Map A, was submitted by our (at the time) Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca. That map would have split our footprint into two different districts and the overall downtown area between three, severely diluting the political influence of UpDoNA and that of LoDoNA. Fortunately, that plan did not go very far at all, and was voted down early in the process.
The City Council met on Tuesday, March 29 to vote for a final map, and Map D was the map selected. I believe that Map D was the best scenario for UpDoNA, LoDoNA and other organizations that share our desire for an improved downtown area. The advantages are:
- It keeps our entire footprint in a single district
- It keeps us and LoDoNA in the same district
- It keeps us in the same district as other organizations with which we may decide to begin or to increase our affiliation with
It moves us to District 10, represented by Chris Hinds. Ms CdeBaca will no longer be our councilwoman.
Map D is shown below, but a more detailed version can be viewed by going to https://geospatialdenver.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/ce8e35f5d9874e62bd1f2c6c218e1c4e and selecting “Plan D – Final”. The new boundaries for the city’s 11 districts will become effective with the April, 2023 municipal election.
If you wrote an email to encourage the adoption of Map D, we’d like to thank you for your help. Emails to city government is a very effective way to influence the decisions that are made by our elected officials.
