Neighborhoods representing thousands of voters along Jefferson Avenue and in the Lower Garden District will be shifted to different Orleans Parish School Board districts after the lines are redrawn to reflect new Census figures, and a handful of neighborhoods in Broadmoor, Hollygrove and Central City areas may also be affected under various plans.
The 2010 Census showed the need for new maps that increase the population of hard-hit New Orleans East and Gentilly districts and reduce the population of districts in Algiers/French Quarter and, to a lesser extent, the Carrollton/Uptown area. Consultants for the Orleans Parish School Board have released four different versions of new School Board maps, and while the major differences between the new plans lie in the representation Gentilly and Treme, Uptown will also see some change.
District 6, which covers Carrollton and Audubon areas of Uptown and is represented by Woody Koppel, needed to reduce its population by about one-sixth, and largely does so by giving up its precincts that formerly reached into Mid-City.
District 5, which covers the central areas of Uptown and Central City and is represented by Seth Bloom, was already close to the target population of about 49,000, and so will merely shift slightly downriver to accomodate changes elsewhere.
Two to these districts’ boundaries are common to all four of the new plans:
First, seven voting precincts (mostly in the 14th Ward) that run roughly along Jefferson Avenue from the river up to Claiborne Avenue will move out of Bloom’s district into Koppel’s. One Fontainebleau-area precinct, however, will move the opposite direction, from Koppel’s into Bloom’s.
Current School Board boundaries along Jefferson Avenue.
Boundaries around Jefferson Avenue after redistricting (area to change outlined in black).
Second, five Lower Garden District voting precincts in the First and Second wards will move out of the neighboring School Board District 4 (represented by Lourdes Moran) into Bloom’s district. The total effect of both these changes is to move all of District 5 a few blocks downriver, so that Koppel’s includes more of the Audubon neighborhood and Bloom’s reaches into the Warehouse District.
Proposed district boundaries (area moving under all proposals outlined in black).
Current district boundaries.
The four proposals — labeled plans A, B, C and D by the consultants — differ in the ways they handle other neighborhoods along the boundaries of the district:
Broadmoor | The Broadmoor area is currently divided between Bloom and Koppel’s districts, and plan A would maintain the current alignment. Two plans, B and D, would unite the area somewhat by moving two precincts into Bloom’s District 5. Plan C would do the opposite, giving an additional 14th Ward Broadmoor precinct to Koppel.
Broadmoor under plans B and D would move precincts 11-17 and 12-19 to Bloom (plan D shown).
Broadmoor in Plan C, with precinct 14-23 given to Koppel.
Hollygrove | Two plans, A and D, keep two 17th Ward Hollygrove-area precincts in Koppel’s District 6, as they are presently. The other two plans would move them into District 3.
Plans A and D keep precincts 17-15 and 17-16 in Koppel's district.
Plans B and C move two 17th Ward precincts into District 3.
Central City | Most of Central City will still be represented by Bloom’s District 5, but four Second Ward precincts along the Ponchartrain Expressway near Claiborne Avenue are handled in varying ways by the different plans.
- Plans B and D move all four precincts into District 7 (which is the district most dramatically affected by redistricting, gaining parts of Algiers, the Central Business District and Mid-City).
- Plan C would give two precincts to District 7 and two to Koppel, adjoining the area he would still represent in Broadmoor.
- Plan A would give even more of the area to Koppel, and leave one of the four precincts with Bloom.
Plan A would keep precinct 2-3 in Bloom's District 5 and move precincts 2-4, 2-6 and 2-6A to Koppel's District 6.
Plans B and D move four Second Ward precincts in Central City to District 7.
While the boundary changes may attract the most interest from Uptown voters, the U.S. Department of Justice will examine how the plans will affect the racial composition of each district. District 6, formerly a 49-percent minority district, sees its minority population fall to between 40 percent in plan C and 42 percent in plans A and D — on average, the steepest drop in any district around the city. District 5 was formerly 45 percent minority, and ranges from 43 percent minority in plan C to 46 percent in plans B and D.
Plan A seems designed to get the districts as close as possible in population, with none deviating from the average by more than a few hundred people. The other three deviate by up to about 2,000 people from district to district, but none by more than 5 percent.
Complete maps of each of the four plans, and the current boundaries, are available at the Orleans Parish School Board website.
A public hearing on the options will be held at 6 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Mahalia Jackson Elementary School, 2101 Freret St.
