Boundary commission reviews machine-drawn ward maps, plans public input and dashboard of commissioner drafts

The Wharton Boundary Commission on June 8 reviewed machine-generated map runs and commissioners’ own map drafts and agreed to copy selected versions into a dashboard for overlay and public review, the commission chair said.

The chair opened discussion of unfinished business by asking whether new commissioners had access to the sandbox tool the department used to host machine-run outputs and commissioner-drawn maps. A staff member said she would make copies of three commissioner maps (Jane’s, the chair’s and Sarah’s) and add them to a separate dashboard so commissioners — and later the public — could toggle versions on and off.

Commissioner Sarah described her commission-drawn map as emphasizing voter balance: “I was using the voter metric more than usual … I was trying to get the voter data to be even,” she said, and reported moving parts of the 5th Ward into 3rd Ward to even counts while trying to keep neighborhoods contiguous. Staff reported Ward 7 at about 2,061 registered voters and said the commission’s dataset average would be corrected to 1,976 registered voters; staff said she would update materials this week.

Staff emphasized the machine-run tool’s many parameters and limits and recommended a manual refinement stage. “Computers are high speed idiots,” the staff member said, noting the automatic runs sometimes produce geographically odd shapes or aggregate large parcels such as farms or university blocks. Commissioners agreed those tool outputs are useful for comparison but said manual adjustments will be necessary to preserve neighborhood integrity.

On process, commissioners asked staff to preserve commissioner drafts without public-facing author names; staff said she would retain internal tags identifying which commissioner produced each draft but publish the dashboard versions as "commission drawn" so members could continue iterations without personal labels. The commission agreed to take a small number (three to four) of candidate maps forward into public input rather than publishing a large set of alternatives.

The commission set a follow-up meeting for Monday, June 22, at the same time and place to review dashboarded drafts and continue refining boundary options ahead of public workshops. With no further business, Commissioner Alice moved to adjourn, Jane seconded, and the chair closed the meeting at 7:11 p.m.

The meeting materials and the previous meeting minutes are posted on the city website; staff said this meeting was being streamed and will be available on the city's YouTube channel.