A sitting member of Council, who is up for re-election in 2023 developed the initial redistricting proposal, which would go into effect the year that he is running. The Council Chair, who is also up for re-election, had no issues with this approach until members of the public called 'foul'. Plans that were supposedly created by the County were merely tweaks on the egregious plan initially developed by this sitting Council member.
It's highly inappropriate and outrageous for any sitting member of Township Council, let alone one who is up for re-election in 8 months to demand, for the first time in 30+ years, a drastic redistricting effort in Upper Providence Township, and then draw the new voting districts themselves with absolutely zero public input, oversight, or discussion on the methodology, approach, goals, and desired outcomes. The optics are quite astonishing!
Until members of the public raised concerns about the appropriateness of this approach, the Council chair (who controls the agenda and who is also up for election in arguably, the most gerrymandered district of all) allowed this one-way, highly biased process to progress, apparently not seeing or just plain choosing to ignore the very clear conflict of interest.
Bottom Line: Aside from the gerrymandering, aside from the lack of transparency, aside from the massive disruption - this approach is not how this process should be done. An individual who is a sitting incumbent whose office is up for re-election should not be drawing their own voting district right before their election (or ever, for that matter)! Our Council Chair should be focused on doing things the right way and not just the easy way. The optics are very bad. This is just not acceptable. We deserve better!!