The Salt Lake City Council can be bold as it considers the six maps submitted by the 2022 Salt Lake City Redistricting Commission, in particular the one titled RD2022-04.
It would be easy for the council to adopt the map with the least number of changes and be done with it. An adoption that will see the council boundaries fundamentally unchanged for 30 years the next time they are considered.
Nothing else about our city has remained unchanged in the last three years, let alone three decades. Downtown has changed. Salt Lake City has changed. It is time that our council boundaries change too.
Eric Kenney is a multi-year renter in the rapidly changing Central 9th Neighborhood. The street they live on has grown from around 100 residents in 2010 to an anticipated 1,000 residents by the end of 2022, when all the new apartments and condominiums are complete.
The C9 neighborhood has an affinity to the west side of downtown and Ballpark neighborhood, much more so than residents east of Liberty Park or even east of State Street. This area has a lot of multi-tenant dwellings, is much more affected by the issues of homelessness and is a rapidly growing segment of the city. It makes sense to have a district that shares so much in common and have a representative who understands.
Erik Lopez lives in the Rose Park neighborhood and is a long-time resident of the west side of Salt Lake. This area has seen tremendous growth while also being undercounted/underrepresented in the 2020 Census.
As the population and affiliation of the communities have shifted, so does our need for our current City Council maps to reflect the changing demographic and community landscape. This includes and should consider our homeless population as well as our diverse neighborhoods that are seeing growth.
The map we recommend puts the vast majority of the Fairpark Community Council into a single district. The Guadalupe School neighborhood finally can be represented by a west-side district, something that was a point of consideration during 2012 redistricting. We can’t continue to consider the west side in terms of current City Council boundaries, but should consider the growth that we will see and experience over the next 10 years.
A point of contention brought up by the council was how residents would have their votes nullified if they adopted radical boundary changes. We believe this to be a disingenuous argument at best. While it is true that most of the districts just had an election, that election was based on boundaries drawn 10 years ago. There’s always going to be an election preceding the redistricting process.
Redistricting, however, is not about the existing council. It’s about us the residents and who we can elect to represent us for the next 10 years. Members of the City Council chose not to give the Redistricting Commission their current home addresses, so as not to constrain us. We chose not to ask for them nor consider them either.
For the council to be concerned about that now reeks of politicians trying to choose their voters, something we just saw the Utah Legislature do with our state legislative and congressional boundaries.
Our city is radically different from what it was 10 years ago. It is hard to imagine how different it will be in 10 more years. The City Council should be bold with an eye toward the future and consider boundaries that truly represent the city’s uniqueness and complexity. Therefore, we recommend the council consider the map titled RD2022-04.
Eric Kenney
Eric Kenney is vice chair of the Salt Lake City Redistricting Commission, and current District 5 resident.
Erik A. Lopez
Erik Lopez is chair of the Salt Lake City Redistricting Commission, and current District 2 resident.
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