Council to Vote Next Week on Suspending Rules to Bring Redistricting Back to Horseshoe

Yesterday we confirmed the existence of council member Delia Jasso's amended council-districts map she hopes will replace the version the city submitted to the Department of Justice at the end of October. Actually, we were told, it wasn't really a map, more like a redo of District 1, with Jasso and Scott Griggs no longer in the same district.

Jasso gave a copy of that do-over to Mayor Mike Rawlings Wednesday; per the mayor's chief of staff, Paula Blackmon, his office asked Jasso to get with the Redistricting Office to run the numbers. But Redistricting Project Manager Yasmin Barnes Tolliver just told me that a new proposal "hasn't been sent to us yet. We're waiting on whoever [Jasso] has working on it to send it to us."

So, no -- right now, there's no map to look at.

But ... come Wednesday afternoon, the council will discuss and then take a vote on suspending rules that keep previously voted-upon items from coming before the council for a year. You may recall: On October 27, Jasso and five other council members (Scott Griggs, Pauline Medrano, Monica Alonzo, Sandy Greyson and Angela Hunt) asked the mayor to put a "Redistricting Alternative" on a voting agenda, December 14 at the latest.

Says Blackmon today, "There will be an item on the agenda to suspend the rules at Wednesday's briefing -- after lunch and in the council chambers, because we thought people might want to attend. We weighed everything and decided to put it on the agenda, and if it passes we'll have the map [ready] for the December 14 meerting. It's a timing thing."

But, really, how interested will the council be in reopening the redistricting discussion, given how ugly it got last month? Keep in mind: Only six members asked the mayor to consider an alternative, and nine voted in favor of the new map. But to suspend the rules, two-thirds of the council will have to vote "yea," meaning Jasso will have to find nine other willing votes.