City Council ends redistricting process with adoption of Plan G

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today

Darren Dunn

(Seguin) — The lines have officially been redrawn for the eight single-member-council districts in the city of Seguin. The Seguin City Council, on Tuesday, approved a redistricting map, identified as Plan G.
The city council districts were out of balance, and needed to be redrawn using new data from the 2020 Census. Growth across various parts of the city meant that the council boundaries had to be shifted in order to meet the criteria established for this redistricting process.

The council appointed a citizen based Redistricting Committee to help come up with a plan. There were two maps that primarily emerged from that process. Redistricting Committee members could not reach a consensus on a single map to recommend to the council. Some committee members recommended Plan G, because they believed it did the best job of maximizing opportunities for Hispanic candidates to get elected to the city council. They said it protected the four minority-majority council districts, and also increased the Hispanic voting numbers in a fifth council district.

Plan C was preferred by some other members of the committee. Plan C was drawn by the consulting firm hired to help the city with this process. It was drawn to help serve as a starting point for the redistricting committee. Even though it was created without committee input, some committee members said it did a better job of keeping the Hispanic voting numbers higher in the four Hispanic-majority council districts. They also said it created districts that were more compact and contiguous and would make it easier for voters to understand the boundary lines for each council district.

Plan G was put together, with assistance from the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, better known as MALDEF. The organization has successfully sued the city of Seguin more than once over its voting plans.

Jason Biesenbach was one of the committee members that recommended Plan C to the council. On Tuesday, he did not try to sell either plan to the council, and instead thanked it for the chance to be part of the process.

“I’ve always come up here with a presentation, a lot to say. This time, I just wanted to come up and say thank you for the opportunity to have been on the committee. You guys have had a lot of time to chew over all the maps and information and I know that you are going to make a good decision that is best for the city no matter which way you go and I just want to thank you guys for the opportunity,” said Biesenbach.
No one else spoke during the final public hearing on the redistricting plans. Council members, who have had multiple meetings to discuss the issue, did not have a big debate on the issue Tuesday night. A motion was made, and a vote was taken.

The council was split on the issue. Council members Joe Rea, Chris Aviles and Jeremy Roy voted in favor of Plan G, while council members Sonia Mendez, Chris Rangel and Monica Carter voted against it. Council member Mark Herbold was not available for the meeting and the District 7 seat remains vacant following the resignation of former Councilwoman Penny Follis, who stepped down at the end of last year. That seat will remain vacant until the November general election date. The three-to-three tie forced Mayor Donna Dodgen to cast the deciding vote.

“If I am calculating correctly, it’s a tie. Am I correct? And guess who gets to vote in a tie? That would be me,” said Dodgen.” I vote for G. Therefore, G has passed, and we are done with redistricting.”
Mayor Dodgen says that redistricting is an important and often challenging process. She thanked all those who worked to make sure that they had the right plan for the voters of Seguin.

“Thank you all very very much. It makes my ears burn. It was a very difficult process. I appreciate everyone’s input. It’s going to be messy until we flatten our growth if we ever do,” said Dodgen.

Growth is going to likely be a significant issue in the city of Seguin for some time to come. The city’s housing market is booming, with new homes being built across various parts of the city. That rapid growth is going to continue to have an impact on the boundaries for the city council districts. The council districts are supposed to stay in balance, without a massive deviation in population size, between the largest and smallest council districts.

The council’s decision to approve Plan G as the new voting district map for the city brought the process to a close. It was the second and final reading on that plan. Had the council opted to reject the plan and opt for Plan C or another plan — it would have needed to host another meeting to approve any other chosen map on second reading.

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