Sarasota County's redistricting plan leaves Longboat in same district

For the past several weeks, Sarasota County Commissioners have received data and feedback from members of the community on how to redraw the county's commission district lines ahead of the 2020 elections. 

Although the plans would move several voting precincts throughout the county into new commission districts that might not feature elections in 2020, all three alternatives drawn up by the county-hired consultant Kurt Spitzer and Associates would leave the town of Longboat Key in District 2. 

However, several of the six alternative maps submitted by county residents suggest splitting the districts by more geographical boundaries, leaving one commissioner for each city in the district. 

Although Commissioner Nancy Detert requested Spitzer look at one citizen's map version, several county commissioners said that limiting each city to one commissioner is a bad idea. 

"Do we want to put an entire city in one district," Commissioner Alan Maio said. "Frankly, that confounds me because the city of Sarasota is now in three districts, the city of Venice is in three districts and the city of North Port is in two districts." 

Commission Chair Charles Hines said he'd prefer each city is at least represented by two commissioners so that the public has more opportunity to have its voice heard at the county commission level.

That rule does not apply to Longboat Key where each proposed map would leave the entirety of Longboat Key's Sarasota end in a single district, which is right now held by Commissioner Christian Ziegler. However, commissioners said that because Longboat is split into two counties, Sarasota and Manatee, it would still have two county commissioners representing it. 

What commissioners did want to avoid is a district map like some proposed, where commissioners would be pulled out of the district they're currently in and into another.

For example, one proposed map would pull Ziegler out of District 2 and into District 1. However, Ziegler would still be allowed to serve the remainder of his term. This would mean that both Commissioner Michael Moran and Ziegler would be representatives in District 1, leaving no commissioner representing District 2 until the 2022 election. 

"That's an eventuality we need to avoid," Maio said. 

At a meeting on Monday, the commissioners did not vote on maps to advertise for a public hearing and instead requested Spitzer relook at some of the data and one map submitted by the public. The board now plans to host a special meeting the week of Oct. 20 to select one or two maps to advertise for a public hearing.