Austin’s new Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission is expected to be fully in place tonight. That’s the group of Austin residents who will draw the city’s first geographic council districts.
Last November when voters approved the charter that changed the city’s form of government from at-large to geographic, they also approved the establishment of the commission in two steps.
Step 1 was to draw at random from a pool of qualified volunteers the names of the first group of commissioners.
Step 2 happens tonight at City Hall. The first group will choose their new colleagues from that same pool of volunteers.
The idea is to ensure that the commission will be as diverse as Austin itself in terms of gender, socioeconomic status, geography and ethnicity.
