BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE — Bradford County commissioners have approved a new map of their districts.
Bradford School Board members share these districts and have previously adopted the map.
A couple of citizens expressed concern about how District 1 was drawn to include a higher minority voter population to maintain a majority minority district in the county. Vyunda Strong of Lawtey said she didn’t believe the way the district is drawn would withstand a legal challenge and it doesn’t make the county look good. Paul Still complained he hadn’t seen the map prior to its consideration for approval.
Redistricting, which is required to maintain a balanced number of voters in each district following every decennial census, has been the topic of multiple public discussions since the census results became available, and the county commission and school board held workshops to discuss the process and which of the proposed maps they would select.
Commissioner Chris Dougherty, who voted against approving the map, said he would prefer that commissioners be elected by voters countywide instead of individual districts. It would eliminate districts altogether and running for office countywide would truly make them county commissioners instead of district commissioners.
“Focus on the priorities of the county and not just one district,” he said.
At-large elections were held for commissioners in Starke and Bradford County as well as the school board before they were sued over the lack racial diversity in local leadership. The solution was to vote by district, with one district maintained as a majority minority districts.
This time, population shifts made it difficult to raise the number of Black voters in county District 1 above 50% while also maintaining a relatively balanced number of total voters in each district. Commissioners and school board members must also be allowed to continue representing the district they were elected in.
Commissioner Carolyn Spooner thanked law student Colson Douglas for his involvement in providing maps for the county commission and school board to consider. She thanked the both boards and the elections office for working together, and Assistant Supervisor of Elections Matt Barksdale in particular for the time he spent working on the maps.
