Reno City Council members on Wednesday asked city staff to make several changes to one of the four final proposed ward maps and bring it back to the council for a vote to expand the city from five to six wards.
That decision was made after more than an hour of discussion – and arguments – and three failed votes.
Votes for map option A as submitted, option A with changes recommended by Council member Naomi Duerr to add the Kietzke/Virginia Street/Redfield business district back into ward 2, and for option D as submitted, all failed.
Ultimately, council members directed staff to revise map option A to include Duerr’s ward 2 changes and add two parcels to ward 3 to balance the difference. Council members Jenny Brekhus and Meghan Ebert voted against the motion.
Map option A was favored mainly by city staff, several council members and many who provided public comment. However, Council members Duerr and Ebert expressed concerns with that option and said option D was better for their wards.
Duerr said through map option A, ward 2, which she represents, would lose 80% of its current residents – the most significant change of any ward in this process. She said she could live with that but wanted to ensure the business area near the convention center remained in the ward because potential development in the area would have the most impact on ward 2 residents nearby.
Ebert, who represents ward 4 encompassing areas in the north valleys, said her concerns were about ward equity.
“I think it’s important for me to advocate for my ward and call out that my ward has the least amount of parks as it stands, with the maps as it is right now. We also have only one community center,” Ebert said. “Regardless of what map we go with, we will lose our only community center. If this city cares at all about equity, sharing resources, providing equally to the residents – who all pay the same taxes, I’d like to remind everyone – map D comes the closest, but it still falls very short.”
Ebert said communities in her ward are already underserved regarding parks and community spaces. She acknowledged that the parks and community centers aren’t moving. Still, voters in the ward would no longer have a council representative advocating for improvements to those parks and would receive a less-than-equitable share of community funding and resources.
Map option A would leave five of the city’s 83 parks in ward 4.
“We will still lose parks. We will still lose our only community center,” Ebert said, getting emotional as she spoke. “When we disperse funds for different areas, my ward will get less funds because we have less parks. It’s not an equitable disbursement of funds for parks and other recreation centers. It does matter to my constituents because we already are lacking, and we’re gonna have less, so that means we’ll have less funding.”
Brekhus, who initially said she supported map option A, agreed with Ebert that ward 4 has fewer city-owned community spaces than any other ward and should retain at least its only one.
“That is pretty compelling to me,” she said.
Calli Wilsey, the city’s director of policy and strategy, said efforts were made to accommodate as many requests as possible in the options. “It’s important to note there’s no perfect map, and compromise is part of this process,” she said.
The redistricting process began in June, and since then, more than 80 map suggestions have been submitted and reviewed by city staff and redistricting consultants. Wilsey said those maps were reviewed for common themes and outliers that might be worth considering.
The final map meets the requirements set forth at the start of the process, including maintaining less than a 5% deviation in the population of registered voters in each ward. It also keeps the downtown area as one ward, which many community members favored.
Council will review the revised map and must make a first vote on the ordinance to approve the new ward map in August.
Wilsey said a second approval vote is required to enact the ordinance – not possible until the Sept. 13 council meeting unless a special meeting is called. Wilsey said she would provide the final map to the Washoe County Registrar of Voters office between the first and second votes to ensure the city meets the Sept. 1 map deadline.
