Learn how to participate in the process of drawing the new district maps in Michigan, the role of "communities of interest", and how to engage with the new Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission in the redistricting process. February 2021.
Transcript:
in 2018 michigan citizens passed a ballot
initiative that would take the redistricting power
out of partisan politicians hands instead
a non-partisan citizens commission would
redistrict the state of michigan in a way that
truly represents the diversity of michiganders
this commission will listen to testimony from
historically underrepresented communities
to ensure that everyone has a voice now we will
hear from representatives from communities in
other states who can speak about the importance
of being part of the redistricting process
redistricting is an exciting opportunity for
communities to think about what representation
means for them what do we want from our elected
officials what's important to me what's important
to my family what's important to my neighbors
and other folks in my bigger community one thing
that's really exciting about redistricting is
it's a really important opportunity for people to
collaborate and coordinate across different
communities and groups one thing we see in
california and i know exists in many parts
of this country is a tremendous diversity
from the navajo nation um redistricting
in the navajo language is called
it's important that we participate in
the entire process of redistricting
and we learn about the various
principles that take place
it's also important to understand how the voting
rights act of the 1965 protects indigenous peoples
blacks hispanics asians and other minorities and
that helps people such as indigenous peoples to
formulate maps that we believe gives us a
chance to elect candidates of our choice
why is it important to participate why is it
important to define yourself and your community
because if you don't define yourself then someone
else will try to define you only you can keep your
community together the people trying to create new
maps need your help to understand your community
boundaries use this opportunity to engage with
the commissioners and educate them about your
community sell your story we need to hear from
you with your help those creating the new maps can
understand and implement new districts that keep
communities together it's time we draw the line
welcome and thank you for joining tonight's
policy talk at the ford school on redistricting in
michigan and the role of communities of interest
i'm john chamberlain a professor of emeritus
at the gerald r ford school of public
policy and i will be the modder for the
moderator for the event the introductory
video we just watched was produced by
two ford school students molly kalp
and mario syed and i think provides
a great introduction to what we're
going to be talking about tonight
i want to thank connie cook
of voters not politicians
for recruiting and coordinating
this evening's presenters
and a special thank you goes to the sponsors
of tonight's event will be shown on this slide
before we turn to the presentations i'd like
to note that we'll have about half an hour
of q a following the presentations we have
already heard from quite a few questions
with quite a few questions from nearly 1 000
individuals who registered for tonight's event
if you would like to submit a question you may
do so in one of the ways shown on the slide
so what will be covering in our time together
tonight as you must know if you've tuned in
in 2018 michigan voters approved proposal 2 which
amended the michigan constitution to bring about
important changes in the process for during the
districts for our congressional delegation and our
state house and state senate the new process open
and transparent and places citizens to the center
of redistricting it replaces a process in which
political parties legislators and their allies
selected new districts behind closed doors the
role of the citizens in the 2021 region streaking
is twofold first final decisions on the three
districting plans will be made by the michigan
independent citizens redistricting commission or
the micrc for short which are randomly selected
from more than 9 000 citizens who applied to
be on the commission they have been meeting
regularly since september second the constitution
assigns a high priority in the criteria that
govern redistricting to public input submitted
by communities of interest or cois for short
we are interested in hearing from these
communities about how they would like their
districts to look this allows citizens
to communicate directly with the micrc
about how they would like to be represented in
congress and the state legislature tonight's
event focuses on these communities what they are
the role they play in the new process why they
should want to participate in the redistricting
process and how they can do that effectively
the presenters tonight will focus on four
topics the role and structure of the new micrc
the criteria the commission will use in drawing
districts and the description of communities
of interest why communities of interest want to
participate in the redistricting process and the
information for communities of interest about how
they can communicate effectively with the micrc
our first two presenters are from no
voters not politicians the organization
that organized the campaign for proposal 2 and
is now working to support the participation of
communities of interest in the new redistricting
process we will hear first from nancy wang
the executive director of legislative politicians
who will discuss the background of the miss
or m-i-c-r-c and bring us up to date
on his progress sandy sereni elser
a vnp volunteer who is leading the np's
educational training program will follow
nancy with a discussion of the criteria the
commission will use in drawing districts
and the description of communities of interest
i'll now turn the screen over to nancy
thank you so much john i'm nancy and voters not
politicians is the grassroots non-partisan group
that formed in 2016 over facebook to end
partisan gerrymandering in michigan and our
dream was really to replace what we had which was
our partisan politicians were taking redistricting
which is a process where every 10 years we take
the census data from the federal government
and we need to redraft or redraw our election
district lines to make sure that our congressional
districts state house and state senate
districts have the same number of people them
and the politicians were taking that power and
giving themselves an unfair advantage by kind of
splitting up you know taking voters and
really splitting up our communities or
whatever they had to do to make sure that they
could create safe districts for themselves and
their political parties and what we wanted to
see our dream really was to replace that and
put in place citizens whose whose goal was really
to take us back to um representative democracy
and kind of what redistricting is supposed to do
which was to keep our communities together and to
um to help us you know stay with people that are
in our geographic area that share interest with
us and allow us to elect a representative that
would take our interest and advocate for us in
lansing and dc and to be sitting here now and
for all of us to be sitting and talking about the
new citizens commission that we have in michigan
and to talk about how the job of that commission
is to in fact go out this year and take input from
our communities to find out where we are in order
to draw maps that keep us intact well that really
is um that's really exciting and um and surreal
but in fact we do have a citizen commission now
thanks to the vote of 61 of michiganders uh in
2018 to adopt this constitutional amendment uh
we had a super majority of michigan voters that
were in independence democrats and republicans all
throughout the state that wanted this reform and
um and it's and it's you know first started
meeting in september it's got 13 members
um and it's got four republican members four
democrats and five that are neither republicans
or democrats so they can be independents or
they can be third party um supporters and
in their diverse group um you know geographically
they represent kind of the diversity of michigan
um and they've been you know they have regular
meetings every thursday anyone can tune in you
can watch in real time on youtube or facebook um
they they um welcome public comment you can submit
public comment either by requesting to speak or
submitting a written comment and their job is to
to carry out the requirements that we put
in the michigan constitution and that really
is you know to draw maps again around public input
they have to learn for themselves um you know
from the public where our communities are where
our boundaries are what interests are at stake
why we want to be kept together and then they
need to draw the maps that reflect and respect
our communities instead of splitting them apart
um they need to take you know public input all
along the way they need to act in a way that
reinforces the public trust so there's no more
backroom deals there's no you know there's no
um decision making where they can be taking
political parties or candidates and trying to
give them an unfair advantage that's explicitly
prohibited now by the constitutional amendment
um and you know they have to be 100 transparent
which is is definitely you know absolutely the
opposite of what we used to have um every every
conversation they have about redistricting matters
you know every conversation they have amongst
themselves or any member of the public um has
to be in an open meetings and the commission um
there's other requirements in the constitutional
amendment as well that governs their conduct so
they can't you know the commissioners themselves
can't kind of draw maps however they want um they
can't kind of replace their own values you know
and and inject them into the process um they can't
like i said give one party or their
preferred candidate an advantage over another
all of that you know they need to follow to
the letter exactly what's in the amendment and
yeah and and it's going very very very well
i'm happy to say heard time and time again at
their meetings um all of the commissioners really
stressing how seriously they take their um their
duty that they know that you know they really are
carrying out the will of the voters and i think
it's going to be a really exciting process and i
hope that programs like these really encourage all
of us to participate and to give our input so that
the maps really respect us and allow us to elect
the representatives of our choice so with that
i will turn it over to sandy sereni elser of vnp
good evening and thank you nancy and thank you
john um my name is john mentioned my name is
sandy cerini elser and i'm a volunteer with voters
not politicians and this evening i'm going to just
run through the seven criteria that the commission
has to follow when it draws voting district lines
and uh the criteria are in rank order of
importance so not only do they have certain
criteria they have to follow but also they have
to give a higher weight to certain criteria that
more more weight to federal laws than um to uh
compact districts so as you can see from this
slide the seven criteria are listed here the
first one is they have to follow federal laws
and the two most important components of this are
equal population in voting districts which we all
know is why we have the census every 10 years
so that we can re balance the district so that
my vote in district 1 is the
same as your vote in district 2.
the other component of federal laws is that the
compliance with the voting rights act of 1967
which you probably know prohibits discrimination
based on race gender religion national origin
and disability the second criteria is that the
districts have to be contiguous that just means
that they all parts of the district have to touch
each other so you can't have a little island
of a district up in the u.p and have the balance
of the district down in southeast michigan the
third component is communities of interest
which we're going to touch on in a minute
um the fourth component is re prohibits
giving disreported proportionate advantage
to any political party so no particular
party has any advantage over the other
the fifth component is no candidate advantage
which prohibits protecting incumbents the sixth
component is that the commission needs to consider
existing city township and county boundaries
and finally the seventh component is that the
districts have to be reasonably compact that means
no more snaking districts no more districts like
the 14th u.s congressional district that starts on
the southern river boundary of detroit and winds
through detroit up through southfield and ends up
in pontiac no more snaking districts like the 76
house state state house district that runs from
north of grand rapids through a tiny corridor
through grand rapids and ends up in the southern
suburbs and the reason for this is that um
sometimes politicians when they drew the maps
were doing it in a way where they would
divide up community members so they would
have a safe district as nancy mentioned and
unfortunately this divided our communities which
is now not going to be a permitted um criteria
the commission needs to consider communities of
interest and make those districts compact on slide
seven you see that we highlight the communities of
interest as high priority third priority and this
is why it's so important for us to let communities
know that the commission would like to hear from
them they'd like to know where the community lives
where their geographic boundaries are and what
their purposes are what's their common purpose
and now on slide eight we're going to see what is
a community of interest and i'm going to spend a
few seconds reading the definition of communities
of interest it's very short but very important
it says that districts shall reflect the state's
diverse population and communities of interest
communities of interest may include but shall not
be limited to populations that share cultural or
historical characteristics or economic interests
and this part is really important communities
of interest do not include relationships
with political parties public officials
or candidates for public office so what exactly
is a community of interest it really is just your
community it's my community it's our neighbor's
community it could be your school district it
could be your church community it could be the
farmers that bring the approaches to the market
and we like to tell communities that for purposes
of redistricting all the community needs is to
have a specific geographic area and a common
purpose and we also like to remind communities
that you don't have to draw the district lines
these district lines are going to be drawn by the
commission and your only job is to tell the
commission where your community is and what
your purpose is and the commission is going to
take all the other seven uh other all the other
six characteristics that we just talked about and
they're going to take all the information from all
the communities and they're going to come up with
the district maps that we think are going to be
non-partisan fair and help us elect
officials that our communities want to have
and now on slide i think we're on slide nine
we're going to have a little bit more about
what is the community of interest and these
show the some of the examples of shared economic
interests where do you work where do you shop
what kind of transportation do you use are your
roads okay do you have a amtrak line do you
have good bus service do you have environmental
concerns and like for example an environmental
concern could be a community with a goal of trying
to remove pay fast from the huron river watershed
the huron river and its tributaries and the land
that drains into it um are the community and then
the purpose is to lobby legislators to adopt laws
that prohibit use of chemicals that create people
that allow pfas to seep into our waters and
contaminate our fish and our drinking water
and finally we're looking at slide 10 now where we
have some examples of shared cultural or historic
interests as you can see there's a tiny little
picture of the eastern market which is a historic
market that brings people together there's also
town centers there's school districts there's
church communities and all of these are types of
communities and we hope that these communities
are going to talk to the commission tell the
commission where they're located and who they are
um there's one example that i think is very
important it's the farmington and farmington
hills school district that was it's a it's
a joint school district for both communities
and uh the district was split right down the
middle in the last um redistricting and so these
community members my guess is they are going to
want to get together and tell the commission that
they would really love to have their just their
school communities all together in one district so
they can lobby the legislators for the things that
they would like such as perhaps better funding for
schools so now i am going to just wrap this up by
saying that we are working wanting to work with
communities and encourage them to think about what
fosters a sense of connection in your community
what does your community have in common policy
goals and what does your community need from state
and federal legislators and we're going to hope
the community members remember these simple things
that all the commission needs to know is who you
are and where you're located so now i'm going to
turn the program back over to john so he can he
can introduce some real live community leaders
who are going to tell you why their communities
are working on the redistricting process john
thank you nancy and sandy uh i hope
that that clarifies for some of you what
communities of interest are or or are not
all communities of interest are welcome
indeed urged to participate in this process
school districts at sandy mentioned
are communities of interest
so are the service areas for regional
hospitals a tourist attraction
near one of our great lakes a neighborhood
association or a group of owners with homes around
the lake who are concerned about water quality
communities of interest that are already organized
the staff resources familiarity with the public
policy process will find it relatively easy to
participate in this process but communities of
interest without these advantages are urged to
join them there is no published directory
of communities of interest so it is only by
providing input to the commission that a community
of interest can make its views heard so don't run
the risk that your community of interest will
be among those that remain invisible and silent
don't count yourself out just because you're new
to a process like this instead count yourself in
we will now hear from three individuals who
represent communities of interest in michigan
to talk about why they are participating in the
redistricting process and why that's important
to them our presenters are carmen williams
the executive director of oakland forward
non-profit that works to provide opportunities
for individuals with a focus on people of color
in oakland county rebecca islam the executive
director of asian and pacific islander american
vote michigan which works through forums and voter
registration to increase civic participation by
asian and pacific islander americans and
andy helmbolt a longtime battle creek
resident and a former city commissioner who works
on regional development we will begin with kermit
hello hello hello uh thank you so much
john for this opportunity i'd like to thank
uh first of all there's not politicians not only
getting this pass but that they're doing to make
sure that these lines are fair and inclusive
for everybody i also like to thank all those
sponsors for today's event it's really briefly
i wanted to talk about i'm the city council
president and the city of pontiac which was
mentioned which happens to be in the 14th
congressional district and when you start talking
about communities there's uh one of the things
uh that we have to talk about is your pineapple
doesn't have anything in common with gross point
but if you look at our congressional district
we're part of it and so these communities
have been gerrymandered uh from
the beginning i want to talk about
looking forward and focuses on making sure that
black and brown communities are taken care of and
one of the things that we need to do is to make
sure that our people people um are taken care of
since three fifths uh law in this country
african-americans have been underrepresented
it's an opportunity to make sure not only that
they get represented but they get a seat at the
table some of these districts let's talk about
our state house have not been changed in 30 or 40
years so that's one of the things that we need to
talk about in our community so thank you so much
uh john for this opportunity i know my internet is
a little shaky right now but i want to encourage
everybody to get involved to get focused and make
sure that they participate in this commission
it doesn't matter who you are uh what income level
you have but make sure that you let your voice be
heard so communities can represent you uh the way
that you need to be represented thank you so much
thank you kermit i think we heard you for the
most part hi everyone my name is rebecca islam
i am the executive director of api vote
michigan and we are a nonprofit graduate
organization that is committed to justice
and as john mentioned equity for the asian
american community in michigan and we do
that through graduate mobilization and our
impact in the api community involves increasing
voter registration advocating for public policy
providing censors education that we just had
last year assisting folks with citizenship
applications developing youth and leadership
and building coalitions and we work to ensure
that all asian americans and pacific islander
americans can exercise their right to vote
and make sure that they have a part of this
democracy and my organization is excited to be
part of the redistricting effort here in michigan
as our democracy is deeply dependent on it
and ensures that representation and each of us
are represented so moving on to the next slide
okay so we are extremely proud of the work
that we did in mobilizing the api committee
for the 2020 election apias have proved to be
crucial in influencing what we all know was a
historic election and our accomplishments included
registering over 10 000 api voters engaging over
four hundred thousand apia voters which led to a
historic api voters turnout amongst our population
which has led us to continue our efforts
into redistricting next slide please
so now that we are here with redistricting
um what's at stake there is just so much at
stake as you guys already heard um there's so
much at stake when we talk about redistricting
it ensures that we have political representation
that more accurately reflects our communities in
the long term this can also affect things
from funding assigned you mentioned funding
to programs to services for vulnerable communities
like the api community in our community
particularly there's a canadian hemptronics that
does not want marijuana dispensaries in this city
and fair and accurate mapping will give that
community the opportunity to decide if they
want these dispersaries in their community or
not and it is naive to think that a marijuana
dispensary in one district affects only those
residents who live in close proximity of that
especially this country will affect
a much larger radius and therefore
individuals within um expended radios should
definitely also have a say in if they want that
business in their community or not and that's just
one example that demonstrate how redistricting can
impact someone's ability to express their need in
a community with others also services and programs
should address the needs of a community the needs
of a community should be looked at collectively
and across district lines if there are significant
numbers of individuals who have the same needs
we should be addressing those needs
regardless of what side of the district
they resign on redistricting is just a way that
helps us to correct those issues and for apias
we are part of the fabric of this state and
we've seen that that in the last election we
need people to know that we are not statistically
insignificant which individuals might argue
if they're looking at the current map district
by district we are a significant mass of voting
block of michigan and we need to make sure that we
are seen as such and that we each play a part in
redistricting efforts to ensure that we also
benefit from the programs from the services
the system that our tax dollars are contributed
to um can i get the next slide please
okay so api vote michigan is working to
recruit community members to get involved
in this employing work we are hosting
a series of communities presentations
that explain the importance of mapping to our
community members in targeted api languages
we have plans to present
proposed redistricting methods
as you all know community voices and input is
so critical to redistricting if community voices
and actual residents of these communities
are not at the table as these maps are drawn
those resident concerns will remain invisible and
when i say actual residents of these communities
um i'm not talking about advocates
who live in other zip codes
um do not you know we if community members don't
if our actual community members do not set up the
table and express their needs those needs will
simply not be addressed and we know government
solutions are only effective if communities
show up and come to the table and make sure
that their concerns are voiced and their issues
are heard and i think following the 2020 election
that each of us understand the weight of each of
our elections and each of our votes and how we can
make an impact and the difference we watched
he read states that have been dominated by
one party for decades turned blue and then there
were states like our state michigan and georgia
where disfranchised communities and black and
indigenous and people of communi people of
communities made a difference and as we take part
we can have real change we can see real change
and my hope is that all of our communities will
show up and participate in redistricting efforts
however and wherever possible so that we can make
sure our government continues to work on behalf
of the people that it's supposed to represent
and with that i will hand it to andy thank you
yeah amen thank you rebecca um so i'm here to give
an example of of how uh my community in battle
creek has has been affected uh and our community
of interest here as we see it has been affected by
by the way that lines have been drawn and here
we have we have what's kind of the the opposite
problem that folks like kermit have in
southeast michigan where you have a very
very large population center that has to get cut
up into different districts out state michigan
such as places like battle creek
we have the opposite problem where
we have to draw district lines that encompass many
different communities together into a district
um and we feel in battle creek that that has been
done pretty poorly over the last uh three decades
or so and that uh that's it's been done
poorly for you know political advantages um
so let me tell you a little bit about our
our community of interest here and how we see
ourselves in battle creek and calhoun county uh
aligned more closely with the kalamazoo community
in kalamazoo county who we have been separated
from when it comes to a u.s congressional district
uh and when i say we you know i'm i'm speaking
generally here about people from battle creek
i don't intend to speak on behalf of all people
from battle creek in canton county you know i'm
i'm just i'm here on on good faith that i have
you know as a resident here i have some sense
for for what people feel about how how they're
being represented so who we are we are in battle
creek calvin county we are an i-94 interstate 94
community uh our when we when we go other places
and we think about the other communities we have
affinity with we think of other communities along
the east-west i-94 corridor uh kalamazoo being
the the largest and closest only 20 miles to the
west on on 994. uh to the point earlier about even
environmental geography the kalamazoo river flows
through our our city and into kalamazoo so when it
comes to environmental concerns and water quality
uh when we had the enbridge oil spill
here in calton county you know that oil
that oil flowed flowed downhill to kalamazoo um
but not just that uh the whole the region here
from an economic standpoint thinking
of economic community of interest
you know our our our our regional economic
development efforts are partnered with
kalamazoo we share major employers the labor
pool commutes back and forth between kalamazoo
far more than that it commutes outside of those
two communities our health care system our two
major health care systems uh here in in southwest
michigan serve battle creek and kalamazoo
education education system you know if you're
if you're going to stay at home for a four-year
university here in battle creek you're probably
going to attend western michigan university
that's based in kalamazoo and has some of its
programming like its aviation school in battle
creek transportation i mentioned the interstate
uh our the regional airport here the international
airport is on the edge of kalamazoo it is called
the kalamazoo battle creek international airport
um but then when it comes to sort of more informal
things like just recreation in le and leisure
uh if if there are things that i want want to do
with my family the that battle creek doesn't offer
more likely than not i'm going to kalamazoo to
do that just this weekend my wife and i took our
daughter to an arcade in kalamazoo and went to
a burger joint over there that we hadn't been to
that people were talking about or you know if
i want to go over by on canned diced tomatoes
at costco i go to kalamazoo to do that so that
you know that is the community of interest that
we're building uh you know building an effort
here in in battle creek and calhoun county
to testify to the the mic rc but the history here
is that you know many years ago and for many years
we were with kalamazoo in a congressional district
but starting in the 90s that changed we calhoun
county got put in uh with a more south central
district they went from calhoun county over to
washington county and so that's that was oriented
around 94 yes but we didn't really consider people
here didn't really feel like that that district
felt like home to us we were battle creek was the
largest metropolitan area by far in that district
and yet out of the 10 terms 10 congressional terms
during that time only two of those congress
people were from the battle creek area
and so when it came time to redistrict again
10 years ago we got moved out of that so the
little bit of competitiveness that existed in that
district was taken care of by calhoun county in
battle creek being taken out of that district and
put into the grand rapids congressional district
which of course for the last five terms has
been represented by someone from grand rapids
um and you know grand rapids isn't super far
away from us but we certainly do not have the
the north south affinity or feel a community of
interest connection with the community of grand
rapids to anywhere near the extent that we do
with kalamazoo and you know as i talk to people
and you know this is sort of the common feeling
around battle creek but before you know before
preparing for this i talked to some folks around
town just to check in and you know hey what's it
been like having someone represent us from from
grand rapids well it's not been good we don't
people just don't get the feeling that that
we're represented by someone from our community
and and really you know all partisanship aside if
if i'm represented by someone from the other party
okay that's that might be a personal issue for me
but from a larger sense from a sense of wanting
to have trust in our in our government and
the people that represent us people should
feel like their representatives come from their
community and we just haven't had that here for
30 years in battle creek and so that's our
goal in making you know making testimony and
public inputs to the commission with that i would
thank you for your time and turn it back over to
john and if folks have questions about
what's you know how things are going
here or what we're planning to do we'd be
happy to take them later thank you john
thank you kermit rebecca and andy uh
for telling us about three communities of interest
and and how they will take part in the process
there are thousands of potential communities of
interest in michigan that can take advantage of
the same opportunity that these organizations
are going to take advantage of so i think it's
important that everybody think seriously
about whether they participate we urge you to
think about what communities of
interest are important in your lives
and being thinking about how these communities
can convey their views to the micrc
you can begin by identifying the boundaries
of your community of interest on a map
and articulating the shared interests that define
your community of interest and you might sketch
in your current congressional state senate and
state health districts like andy did and learn
something about how well they serve your interest
in the districts and you could look at how the
history of those districts changed over time as
andy's did in most cases it will be important that
a community of interest to a community that remain
intact in new districts because that will provide
the best opportunities for your representatives to
get to know your community of interest and allow
you to communicate with them about policies that
you care about think also about other communities
of interest in your area that share your bonds
and policy goals as well as those that don't
and consider what your preferred districts might
look like you can include information like that
in the material you submit to the commission
we now turn to the final topic on our agenda
how communities of interest can prepare to be
effective participants in the public participation
phase of the redistricting process to talk about
this i'll turn the screen over to connie cook
who is a long time volunteer for voters and all
politicians who currently leads their community
mapping program she will discuss how communities
of interest can develop and present effective
testimony to the micrc about their desires
for their new districts take it away connie
thank you john i i thought it was a real treat
to hear from the three representatives of
communities of interest they speak with passion
about their need to be represented better and
it is interesting to see how important
that is for various communities in michigan
what i'd like to discuss is how communities should
go about preparing to engage in the redistricting
process so this slide slide 17 shows you that the
timeline is going to be very tight on the right
it says the new maps will be used in the 2022
elections in the middle it says they have to be
approved by november 1st and on the left of the
screen it says at least 10 public hearings must
be held before the maps are drafted then five more
after they're drafted and before they're approved
that would be a tight timeline at best
but the census has made it more difficult
covid slowed down the census process and rather
than getting census data in february or march
as we'd anticipated we won't have it now until
september 30th that means that the mic rc will be
unable to meet this set of deadlines and we trust
that a court will step in and provide a solution
in any case it's important for communities of
interest to be totally prepared when the public
hearings begin we expect that those hearings will
begin in may and will probably go through part of
june there will be as john says thousands
of communities of interest eager to testify
eager to submit maps to the commission so smart
communities are going to get started right now
on strategizing about how to effectively
describe themselves and map themselves
the commission will soon announce a portal and
a process for submitting maps and testimony
and the commission of course is obliged to
consider all the testimony that's submitted to it
let's go on to slide number 18 it talks about
mapping tools and we in michigan have multiple
tools that we can use for the mapping process
there's no one tool that we have to use
but the one that voters not politicians has
especially liked is called representable.org
you can google it you can try it out it helps
communities of interest tell the commission
about themselves who they are and where they are
it is a product of the princeton gerrymandering
group which is part of princeton university and it
is free a very good thing it has been vetted all
across the country and we've had over a hundred
beta testers working on it here in michigan
it lets the communities describe their shared
interests and it is relatively easy to use it
provides a digital map with some landmarks and
users can click to include regions in the map
census block by census block
representable calculates the population
and the area of your map for you as you as you
create it and then it produces a hard copy that
you can email you can print out you can send
to the commission when you're ready to do so
it has youtube videos that explain how to use
this mapping tool and try to make it easy and if
you have tech questions about representable right
now some of the staff are on the chats on youtube
and facebook and they can reply to you with
technical answers that i can't possibly give you
i want to talk about a misconception
and sandy alluded to it earlier we
find as we speak to groups about this mapping
process that many people think they have to
actually draw a voting district a congressional
district or a state senate district or
a state house district but that's not necessary
communities just have to draw themselves
decide where their boundaries are and draw
themselves giving their shared concerns
their shared interests to justify why they
constituted community and want to be kept together
most communities of interest are
not big enough to comprise an entire
district but the community of interest can
suggest to the commission other cities like
battle creek and kalamazoo that would like to be
together other groups that have shared interests
they can ask for landmarks such as industrial
plants or universities that they'd like to have
in their districts or they can say we don't want
to be with this other community that has very
different interests from ours you need to tell
the commission what your preferences are slide 19
shows the difference between a representable
map and on the right a paper and pencil map
vnp has paper and pencil maps with some
landmarks available for groups to use
if you'd prefer to do that rather than
an online mapping tool but it's just
fine to use a aaa map or a school district map or
realtors map or a back of the envelope map any map
is okay because the mic rc will soon have mapping
experts who can take your back of the envelope map
and turn it into something that looks
as good as the fancier online versions
if you represent a community of interest you're
likely to want to know how you can get help with
your strategy for presenting to the commission
besides vnp there are several other non-partisan
groups providing support for communities they
include the michigan non-profit association
and promote the vote and the league of women
voters additionally we see popping up various
party groups political party groups that are
eager to help communities with their strategy
for addressing the commission i am most familiar
with what voters not politicians is doing so
i'll tell you about that we are facilitating
conversations for communities of interest to
help them decide where their boundaries should
be and what their shared interests really are
and we're providing training for mapping
either online or with paper and pencil
we are offering town halls for the general
public to learn about the redistricting process
and you can go to the voters not politicians
website and sign up for a presentation from us
on redistricting if you would
like one we also offer much deeper
engagement for some communities of interest
like the three from which or from whom
you've heard tonight apia vote oakland forward
and the calhoun county battle creek group
vnp does have some small grants available
and we will provide them to communities
that need some financial support in order
to engage in the redistricting process
when we do presentations we are careful with
the cois to involve someone from the coi
in our presentations we don't know all your issues
we don't know exactly what your representation
ought to be but your members do so we try to
include people who are knowledgeable about your
particular concerns and will customize the
presentation for you using slide number 20
i want to conclude by discussing why communities
of interest should participate in redistricting
the opening video said if you don't define
yourselves others will try to define you
you might think that everything is fine for your
community right now you're perfectly happy with
your district why change it well it may change
on its own if you don't speak up and ask for
what you currently have for example the michigan
tribal reservations are all intact right now not
split in various pieces but there's
no guarantee that that will continue
they need to go to the mic rc
and ask that that should continue
if that's what they want and there are plenty
of examples of communities that have been split
through the redistricting process sandy mentioned
farmington and farmington hills that's certainly a
good example oakland university is split down the
middle two different districts if you can imagine
and there's a mobile home park in ann arbor that
is split down the middle because the partisans
who drew the maps wanted a few more republicans
over here and a few more democrats over there
so they just went into the mobile home park and
and picked out the people who had to be moved
we are hoping that redistricting will make things
work better for you that it will give you better
representation that it will give you better
elected officials people who care about you will
meet with you understand your concerns and that
the result will be better government programs and
services we want your tax dollars to work better
for you so i want to end now with slide number 21.
this slide highlights article 1
section 1 of the michigan constitution
which has become voters not politicians motto
political power is inherent in the people and
we expect that the redistricting process is going
to give the people of michigan the political power
that they need and deserve thank you all for
taking time to hear about the redistricting
process and i'm going to hand the mic back to
john who will lead our q a session thank you
thank you connie um if you are new to the process
of redistricting this may seem very complicated
but i urge you to take advantage of groups
and organizations like vnp that will
offer help and advice that it's not as hard as
it looks and it's important to your community
we're now going to turn to q a
for the remainder of our time
the slide tells you how you can get a question
in i should note that answers by tonight's
participants reflect their perspectives only
but in any way those of the commissioners
joining us to direct your questions to tonight's
presenters is miriam saeed a master of public
policy student who will graduate this spring
and who was one of the students who produced the
video that opened this event welcome marion
let's get started with the first question
hello everyone i'm very excited to be here and
honored to have been able to partner with vnp
to create a video highlighting the importance
of cois during michigan's redistricting process
i'll be monitoring moderating the q a portion of
tonight's event and read the questions that you
all have for our amazing panel of community
leaders our first question is for nancy
what challenges do the pandemic and census data
delay posed for ensuring adequate engagement of
communities of interest in the redistricting
process what is being done to address them
well certainly the pandemic has led to the census
delay um like connie mentioned and just recently
we heard that the census data for michigan
may not be coming to us until september 30th
but honestly uh where we're kind of emphasizing
is that this really does give us uh an opportunity
and perhaps more of an opportunity more
time for us to engage our communities
so you know i know that this is a matter that you
know how we go about it whether it's zoom whether
it's in person perhaps soon these are issues that
we in kind of the good government space are always
talking about with our outreach engagement and i
know that the commission also has it from a bind
and it's also discussing it um in their meetings
i think right now everyone's kind of hoping that
we'll get to in person soon um you know in
california and other states when they've done
this in the past they've had you know very very
well attended um public meetings where you have
hundreds of people kind of lining up to give
their testimony and that's really powerful
um experience but you know if not like or
in the in the kind of meantime as we're as
we're waiting for uh the pandemic to see then um
they are gonna and we are as well um as outreach
groups going to explore as many different ways
with through you know ethic media and through
zoom and through telephone and any other ways
that we can reach out to groups as possible
thank you for that
would anyone else in the panel
care to answer this question
okay so our next question
is for our community leaders
kermit rebecca and andy how might
the commission best prioritize
overlapping communities of interest of multiple
cultural ethnic or shared economic interests
are some communities to be considered
more important than others go ahead kermit
hello yeah um just to tackle that i think that
uh the commission should really consider those
who have been disenfranchised the most through
this process i think when you start taking into
consideration especially like communities of color
or people who have cultural interests that are the
same i think you make better lines and you make
better voting for everybody that's much more fair
great thank you
this next question is for connie i have heard
that communities of interest will have only a few
minutes at public hearings to offer testimony they
will also be able to submit additional materials
in written form if this is the case what
should coi focus on in their oral testimonies
connie you're muted
i think it is true that they will have a limit
on the number of minutes for each community of
interest so it's particularly important that each
community strategize in advance and decide what
its key issue is what its shared interest is what
really binds it and come before the commission
with a an articulate impassioned explanation of
why it's a real community and in terms of mapping
uh it would be very good for the community to cite
the data gathering process it used was there a
panel of community leaders who decided where the
borders should be was there a demographer whose
expertise was used was there a survey of the
population how did the community decide where
his boundaries should lie use their time
well that's why it's important to start early
great our next question is for nancy can
communities of interest be used nefariously
to isolate or exclude people so the concept of
communities of interest and actually that that
specific term as well is used in the majority
of redistricting processes in the united
states across the country and the idea is
and the way it's written in our constitution
is is as expansive as possible so the idea is
really to be inclusive and to allow members
of a community to kind of define themselves
as long as they're geographically connected
and they have a shared interest and of course they
need to articulate to the commission what that
interest is and it can't be discriminatory and
it can't be for political gain you know to give
one partisan uh or party an advantage over another
but otherwise it can it's it's however a community
wants to define itself with via historical you
know shared cultural interests um economic or
or frankly any other interest that um you
know that the drafters haven't you know hadn't
anticipated at the time of drafting it really
is up to the community members to kind of define
themselves go ahead andy yeah so i think one
one thing that's important to understand you
know if you do some ghouling on googling how
gerrymandering works is that one method of
gerrymandering or to give to give advantage is
to pack strix or just google district packing
which is you know taking a group of people who all
might be may well define themselves as a community
interest and pack them all into one district have
the other group majority group be able to control
all the rest of the districts thus minimizing
the pop minimizing the power of the folks that
you just packed all in the one district so that's
there's a balancing act that that has to happen
with the overall principle being what nancy
just said about making sure people people are
engaged in that that people have power and that
the whole system is fair to to make sure that
we're there our government represents everyone but
yes the concept can certainly be used nefariously
this next question is for our community leaders
what advice do you have for people who may be a
part of a community of interest that is not well
organized how do we get started go ahead rebecca
so what thank you mary um um so what's great about
living in michigan beside our lovely snow is that
as you've heard here today there are organizations
that are that already exist and have done the
difficult work of laying the foundation you know i
would reach out to any of us here you should also
view us as a resource that you can point um in
the right direction the excuse and that we can
point you in the right direction and if there is
a group that is more appropriate for you we direct
you there and one of the goals we all share is
that to get more community members involved in
redistricting and one of the benefits of doing
this work during the pandemic that we've all
leveraged technology um you know we've all became
zoom experts to better connect with people across
weekends um it was a little more challenging
before but we did it anyways right um and with
technology it helps us to bridge those geographic
distances and better connect and mobilize um and
again lastly um you know when doing this work
i would definitely say reach out to what is
not politicians they are the experts and they
can definitely plug you in where it's needed
and there's a ton of resources out there and we
can help you get connected with those resources
um so all you have to do is contact
one of us and we'll get you started
that cover it okay well i would just like to add
one thing to that you've already started today
by being part of this town hall meeting
because uh it really takes you thinking
about what's important to you your
grocery store your church or whatever
and so uh the great thing about voters not
politicians and everybody that's doing this work
is this regular people doing it so you don't
have to be elected or been in political office
a poli-sci major you can be a regular
folk at the grocery store and get it done
exactly i love that and this next question is
for nancy given that voters favoring the two
major parties tend to be concentrated
in particular areas of the state
for example republicans in rural areas including
the thumb and western and northern parts of the
state while democrats in urban areas including
southeast michigan will it be possible to
draw compact and geographically coherent
districts that have competitive elections
nancy you're muted
sorry as i mentioned during my part you know the
the goal behind the amendment is to kind of go
back to the idea of representative government and
and it's to keep our communities together so that
we can vote for the representative of our choice
um and that's why communities of interest rank
so high in the criteria that the commission has
to think about when it's trying to draw district
lines which is to keep our communities intact um
and then farther down the list our compactness
and um and uh and competitiveness actually is not
on the list of criteria and that was by design
um competitiveness for competitiveness sake is
not um you know the goal behind fair and impartial
redistricting it's a matter of of again you
know keeping people who live within an area who
historically with you know gerrymandering for a
lot of our underrepresented communities got taken
you know their voting power was taken away and
it's and put back that voting power um in those
communities we have seen in other states however
that have independent commissions that you do see
more competition you see you know new candidates
you know enter the races because incumbents are
not protected you do see when you know districts
um are aligned in a way where you're not just
specifically and intentionally carving people out
by party and kind of you know determining what the
election outcomes will be that there are more
districts that are mixed um you know in ways that
that they weren't under gerrymandering so i think
you'll see more competitive districts as sort of
like a result of fair redistricting but it's not
you know your your your um goal to start with
thank you for that connie do you think the
commission is likely to be responsive to a coastal
community of interest that requests that it
be placed in a district with other coastal
communities because of their common interest
in tourism rather than being included in a
district with inland communities that is such
an interesting question i remember when the
california commissioners were here talking about
california districts they talked about that
long district along the pacific coast route
1 a snake going down the edge of the state
with coastal residents primarily in the district
that is certainly a shared interest being on the
coast worrying about beach erosion worrying about
water quality worrying about tourism but there are
plenty of inland communities that may be worrying
about many of those same things as well uh
certainly in northern michigan the inland
communities in the leelanau peninsula for example
are also tourist meccas and they share
many of the concerns of the coastal
communities on that peninsula i i think that it
will be important for the commission to decide
what the shared interests are and to try not
to exclude people who have a shared interest
with other communities so if the coastal people
worry about tourism and the inland people have
the same concerns about tourism and need the
same kinds of policies to maximize the benefits
the commission may choose to
put them together we will see
sandy this next question is for
you or andy i'm sorry apologize
are there guidelines for the physical shape of
districts is the goal to create districts with
populations with similar demographics educational
and professional levels and or community interests
or to develop districts with balanced
political points of view and this is for sandy
oh thank you miriam um so there are of course
as i mentioned in the presentation there are
guidelines for the physical shape of the districts
they have to be um reasonably compact and they um
can't really be snaking the way that they
are now um so that's the compactness and
they also have to be contiguous so you they all
have to be together touching each other um so
i guess there's kind of two parts to this
question um the goal in the creating the distance
is usually generally communities will want to
stay together so there they will have similar
demographics and educational and
population issues um however um
the commission is going to need to balance that
against the political um issues they can't have
partisan gerrymandering they can't allow
any polit uh one political party to have a
a special advantage over another political
party so it is going to take a lot of balancing
for the commission to come up with um what
they think is right but generally i expect
that the communities will submit their maps and
the commission is then going to layer them out and
as we mentioned a community generally will not
comprise a whole district um so there will be um
uh they'll they'll be diversity not only be the
community they'll be with several communities
there'll be there's there'll be diversity
so um it's going to be interesting to see
what happens um i and i wish i could tell you
what the answer is going to be but i don't know
thank you for that so i just want to let for
everyone who is viewing right now that we're
watching the stream of comments and we'll do
our best to get to as many questions as possible
a lot are coming in but um we're
trying to get to as many as we can
and our next question is for nancy people in jail
can't vote when drawing district lines are people
in prison included in that area's population
demographics um prison gerrymandering for example
um for example if a latino person is arrested
in ferndale and serving time in alpena
where will they count in terms of
population data for district lines
right so in michigan there is this issue of
prison gerrymandering because um the people
in the jails are counted in that
district where they are where the
prison is located um not where they reside
and so you have an issue where for example
um for returning citizens um they are not you
know once they're returning to their community
um they were not sort of counted in in the
sense of um having their interests you know
take into account when those um districts
around their residency were were created
um i believe that there is a um a house bill
that was just introduced to um that kind of
speaks to this issue and i know that there are a
lot of reform groups um in other states that have
successfully you know launched campaigns to um to
undo what they call you know prison gerrymandering
but in michigan we still have the issue of
of having people counted where the jail is
sandy this next question is for
you with increasing polarization
it seems communities are becoming
more organized around political views
will the commission try to make
districts politically diverse
well i think that's similar to the question i
answered before and but it's a very interesting
question um so we're probably talking again
about uh the rural districts being perhaps more
republican and the uh cities being more democratic
i'm not sure that's what's intended but um
that there cannot be overt political favoritism
um partisan favoritism so um that commission is
definitely not going to allow that however a
community could say that we are interested in
some uh for example some views that the republican
party status uh stands for um the you know for
example uh lower taxes um and you know that's not
the same thing as saying we're republican district
so um i don't think any community is going to
get anywhere if they try to say well we're all
republicans we're a community and we're in
this area so we should be have a district so
same for democrats you know i mean we can't say
that we are um pro-welfare or whatever or whatever
democrats are um and make that fly with the
commission so um i actually think that communities
are going to think about what their actual needs
are what they're looking for from their state and
federal government and go from there and i hope
that that's what the commission will work with
kermit go ahead yeah i just wanted to piggyback
on uh what sandy was saying i think one of the
things is more people need to be heard at the
table in order to make those districts fairer
if uh if there's only three or four people that
testify at a given meeting uh then those people
are going to have the strongest voice and
they'll end up with the strongest map because
they've pushed their issues in their agenda
so it's very important that people of all
ideologies make their voices heard
at these tables so regardless if it's
republican democrat independent everybody needs to
speak up in order for those maps to be right when
we have them because they're there for 10 years
that's right yes go ahead nancy well and and you
know we do get a lot of questions about well will
we end up with this or will we end up with that
and i think you know the focus really here is
and then the intention behind the amendment was
was to level the playing field you know
it was to reform the process so it's not
to do something to give one party an advantage
but it's to make redistricting fair impartial
you know impartial meaning not you know helping
one party or candidate or or another and then
completely transparent so if someone wants to
advocate for their community to be kept intact
for this or that reason they have to justify
it like connie said um and then the commission
once it's adopting these lines or those lines it
has to explain its rationale for doing that and
it has to be you know for one of the reasons
that's that's allowed within the constitution
connie andy go ahead yeah i think it's important
to keep our eye on like we can talk about what's
you know is this more important in drawing a
district or is that more than drawing a district
and the fact is that some of these priorities
compete with each other yeah like the communities
of interest and the compactness you might have to
draw a funky line to keep a community of interest
together or and and there are at the end of
the day here there are going to be people who
are going to be mad about the way the lines get
drawn like there's only so many ways to carve
to carve these districts up and
it's not ever going to be perfect
there are going to be people at the end who feel
like they still got the shafts here they're going
to be like what the heck this didn't i didn't get
any any better deal here but what's important is
the process is vastly different that it's not the
the political parties themselves that are making
the decisions it's a public commission out in the
open as was described here up front and that's
that's the major difference that i think we're all
putting our faith in that that alone is head and
shoulders above better than than just letting
politicians draw the lines voter's not politic
most genius name for an organization ever happened
in my political lifetime by the way that was great
go ahead connie andy's right of course that
not everybody will be happy with the lines
as they're ultimately drawn but i hope those
people who are not happy will at least have
participated so they don't blame themselves
for the lines being put in the wrong place
it's all of our jobs to participate and
make sure the commission is as well informed
as possible about where we
want the lines to be and why
connie this question this next question is
actually for you how is the commission ensuring
that not just the politically aware are showing up
and participating in meetings how is the community
reaching beyond just community leaders to achieve
more citizen input well actually the commission
isn't ensuring that yet but i think they will
i know that they're concerned about having
community of interest testimony and involvement
in large quantities the group that is doing
a particularly great job of trying to involve
many communities of interest across the state
is the one presenting this webinar tonight the
close-up center at the ford school of u of m
they have had students out identifying thousands
of communities of interest across the state trying
to get contact information for them and then
writing them about the redistricting process
and the resources available to them so
that they will have a chance to participate
and i think that the commission will use close-ups
information in sending out its own notices
to inform as many people as possible across
the state and then as i mentioned earlier there
are many non-partisan groups like voters not
politicians the michigan nonprofit association
the league of women voters promote the vote and
so on and we're all out there trying to scare up
as many participants as possible finding
communities of interest wherever we can
go ahead rebecca yes just echoing um everything
that has been said um and by connie too
and i think the commission's plan to host
these town halls with various zip codes
within accounting within a county is an important
piece and should be prioritized and i would also
like to add that um you know prioritizing those
conversations with each of the ethnic groups
that compress the community um it is it
is critical to have these open dialogues
that encourage residents to voice their
needs and feel that their voices are heard
if we truly listen to our communities it would
help build that relationship and the trust
between the communities and i feel once these
conversations are held and i can't stress enough
how important this is um and once we've taken
that time to reflect on this conversation and
look at everything that has been said as a whole
um and that is a critical part everything as a
whole you can then identify areas where there may
be overlapping issues um shared gaps and needs and
this is the work that our organization and many
of the organization and the community are doing
day in and day out and i'm encouraged that
the commission is present and open to follow
this as well and this next question actually is
very related to that last point that you made
um and it's um towards the our community leaders
have your groups tried to work with other
communities of interest in nearby areas or are you
mostly working on your own and this is for rebecca
kermit and andy yes um api vote michigan is
part of a redistricting coalition um we've
already mentioned a few times michigan nonprofit
association has a coalition of 20 plus different
organizations at the table from different
ethnic groups that are working on redistricting
so all of our community organizations were
working together for the same common goal go
make sure that our voices are heard and
we're part of the table when the maps are dry
i would i would say this idea of working on
our own versus working with others there's
a there's a balancing act to play there
well so if our argument in battle creek
is we should be with kalamazoo yes we've
had conversations with people in kalamazoo
like hey if hey kalamazoo if we go say this
like we're telling the truth right like
people we've talked to say well
yeah yeah of course you are
but there will be lots of communities around the
kalamazoo area that will conceivably want to say
well we want to we want to be with kalamazoo too
and depending on how the numbers and the census
come back like there might not be room in the
kalamazoo congressional district to fit all the
people who feel they're in a community of interest
with kalamazoo and so you know it's not up to the
people of battle creek to to go convince
someone they should in with kalamazoo like
those folks need to make that case on their own
and leave it to the to the commission to to take
you know those factors into account
and they're obviously will have to
delay you know overlay other other factors making
a decision of well okay here's where we're gonna
yes there's this community of interest but we're
gonna have to split that and you know it gets real
complicated quickly so yes and no you know it's
it's about self-determination right like we want
to determine our our future it's not our business
to tell other people what their future ought to be
so uh at oakland forward uh we're doing of
course all of oakland county but we have six
target cities that we're focused on and we're
going to make sure that the commission hears
from them more than anybody else so we are very
unapologetically selfish in our viewpoints getting
to the commission and so we're going to make
sure that we have the town halls the meetings
and everything else to make sure that everybody
has a voice that we represent mostly and then
hopefully the maps will be fair but if those maps
come out the way we want them then that's going to
be on everybody else so i'm just letting people
know ahead of time that we are making sure that
our voices are heard and to go back to our earlier
question we're going to stack those commission
meetings so if it's two minutes per person we're
going to have 10 people so we get 20 minutes
that's what we're going to do that's the plan and
so everybody who's watching this call they need to
know that they're going to hear from not only open
forward but those key cities in oakland county
so they can get the best map possible so that's
what we're doing great it's good love to hear it
and we're just about wrapping up on our time for
questions and i apologize that we weren't able
to get to all the questions that were posed on
our stream but this last question is for connie
the coi process seems dependent on communities
mobilizing themselves how will the micrc conduct
outreach to potential leaders and communities
of interest that are not attending this webinar
um actually i think that's a question i've
already answered a little bit with close
up out there beating the bushes trying to find
communities of interest and the commission itself
the mic rc hasn't yet gotten to the point where it
is out beating the bushes but i know they intend
to they want to have as much testimony as possible
from communities of interest and they have put out
the locations where they will hold public hearings
assuming that the public hearings can be in person
not on zoom and they've tried to space them nicely
across the state and they're getting feedback
right now from the public about whether
they've selected the right places and how
to make the commission hearings as accessible as
possible and invite as many people as possible
i these commissioners are people who are very good
citizens they are taking lots of their personal
time to do the work for the whole state and
they're following the constitutional amendments
guidelines they're trying to be very careful we're
grateful to them and i know that they will go
out of their way to make sure that this process
works effectively the way it's supposed to work
and we're all happy that it's happening
this year yes it's very exciting i want to
as a wrap up thank all um of the audience for your
questions and thank the panelists for all of your
insights and your perspectives i'll now pass it
on to john to wrap up the event for the evening
thank you miriam wow i want to thank you
for starting us off tonight with your video
and finishing it up with handling the questions
so we thank you for that we received many more
questions than we had an opportunity to
get to and we thank you for submitting them
and we hope that you're going to continue to
follow the redistricting in michigan um that
it's got a long way to go there's a lot
of action going to happen along the way
and i think that that there are resources that
you can use in addition to the media that you make
in contact with but with regular updates
on what's happening what happens when the
the public meetings uh public hearings occur
you'll be able to watch them on the website
there are lots of opportunities to stay involved
check the you know the commission's website they
have when they're meeting they have agendas they
have public comments that people have submitted
after a week or so they have minutes of what
happened at the meeting you might have not been
able to get to so they're very active they're
very public and i think if you're working with
a group of people who could divide up a bid who's
going to watch how much of a four-hour commission
meeting but the minutes are there they're
doing a very good job in contrast to the past
there's more information out there than
you can probably absorb as an individual
or in the past you read about it in the paper
after it happened so i think that um following
the commission uh close-up has information that
we will be collecting and putting up voters not
politicians uh the michigan nonprofit association
others will so there's plenty out there
and it's important to keep up with what's about
to happen next so that you're prepared when we
get there coming uh i should probably mention
that the micr is working on an outreach plan now
and it is possible to sign up for the email list
on their website so that when they're ready to go
you'll be informed it's also possible to send
them you know an email but since here are
some of the things i hope you're taking into
consideration as you move forward there are
you know public comments they're they're not
extensive but almost every meeting a couple
of people write in and uh it's a chance
to you know get in on the discussions
before decisions are made about what they're
going to do where they're going to do it and
in particular how they're going to handle virtual
meetings because it won't probably come to that so
we hope that that tonight has you know wedded
your appetite for spending even more time
uh worrying about these things than you
might have been we hope you'll stay in touch
and go out there and spread the
word so thank you and good night