ATLANTA – State Representatives Houston Gaines (R-Athens), Marcus Wiedower (R-Watkinsville) and State Senators Bill Cowsert (R-Athens) and Frank Ginn (R-Danielsville), members of the Athens-Clarke County Legislative Delegation, today released a proposed updated district map for the Athens-Clarke County (ACC) Commission. These legislators issued the following statement regarding the proposed map:
“Per the Constitution and laws of this state, the General Assembly must pass an updated redistricting map every 10 years for the county to ensure equal population in each district. The Athens-Clarke County mayor and commission have been unable to reach a consensus; therefore, this delegation worked to create a draft map.
“We believe this new map will bring significant improvements to the map proposed by the county commission. Instead of carving up communities of interest to protect incumbents, we took the approach of keeping neighborhoods and communities of interest whole to reach equal population in each commission district. Our proposal is more geographically compact. It has less deviation in population, ensuring the principle of ‘one person, one vote.’ This map also includes four minority opportunity districts that have a population that is less than 50 percent white. It also doubles the current number of these opportunity districts in Athens-Clarke County, which is one more than as proposed by the commission and gives greater minority representation in Athens-Clarke County. Overall, we believe this map will ensure better representation for Athens-Clarke County and look forward to presenting this to the General Assembly when we reconvene for the 2022 legislative session.”
Under the proposed map, District 1 includes portions of rural and residential neighborhoods of East Side. District 2 includes portions of the Normaltown and north downtown single family neighborhoods, encompasses various social services, both of Athens’ hospitals and Piedmont University. District 3 includes portions of Winterville, Athens’ local airport, Lexington Road corridor business district and mixed-use and industrial areas. District 4 includes the University of Georgia campus and downtown historic district with the eastern portions of the Five Points neighborhood. District 5 includes the West Side residential areas north of Atlanta Highway/Broad Street and is east of the S.R. 10 Loop. District 6 includes Bogart, rural areas of Athens’ West Side, a major business corridor, Georgia Square Mall, large local employers and the western portion of North Athens. District 7 includes several single-family residential neighborhoods near Timothy Road, the Beechwood area and a major retail center. District 8 includes East Side’s single-family residential areas and encompasses the commercial main street business corridor. District 9 includes portions of North Athens with a major employment area, large industrial sites, as well as rural and single family neighborhoods. District 10 includes the Five Points residential areas that border main street businesses. Additionally, the delegation’s proposed map ensures that Districts 2, 3, 6, and 9 would be considered minority opportunity districts.
*Editor’s Note: The delegation’s proposed map and a population summary of ACC is attached.
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