You may recall the post from yesterday detailing a note to the Decatur City Commission from City Manager Peggy Merriss about moving around 800 residents from the city’s northern voting district to the southern district.

Well, I’ve rarely seen the Commission more uncomfortable discussing an issue as last night when the Mayor suggested that in preparation for sending the new districts onto the U.S. Justice Department, the city better look at creating five voting districts – one for each commissioner – due to the current impossibility of creating a “minority majority” district using the current two district breakdown.

None of the five commissioners stated their preference in creating five districts, but it was decided the city better be prepared and at least look at if a five district breakdown would create a single “minority majority” district before submitting a two district breakdown – without a majority minority district – to the Justice Department for clearance under the Voting Rights Act.

Many of the commissioners said they believed that smaller districts would create too small a constituency for commissioners and all voiced their support for the current North/South representational division.  If was also noted that if a “minority majority” district was created, it was likely that Commissioner Cunningham would most likely not be eligible to represent that district due to the location of her residency.

But looking at the New York Times census map, the Decatur’s black population looks pretty well dispersed – though the larger population looks to be on the west side of town – and the commission may be correct that a minority majority district is impossible even when divided into 5 districts.