According to the version of events that Jacksonville’s city lawyers told a federal court, the City Council passed a redistricting map last month that carefully considered many factors: The council wanted a map that was “as logical and compact a geographical pattern as possible,” one that honored planning district boundaries, major roads and waterways, one that considered socioeconomic demographics and one that maintained Republicans’ advantage.
But if council members agreed to those criteria, they didn’t do so in public.
The city’s claim that council approved seven principles that drove redistricting raises questions about whether council members made mapmaking decisions in private meetings with city staff — which may have violated Florida’s open-government Sunshine Law.
Read the rest of this story at Jacksonville Today, part of WJCT Public Media.