Golden Sun eXtra Your Local News Source, Mohave County, AZ

Chairman of the Mohave County Board of Supervisors Buster Johnson announced Tuesday, Jan. 10, that the redistricting plans for Mohave County Supervisors and Mohave Community College (MCC) District Board have been approved by the United States Department of Justice “without even a phone call to question anything.”

County Elections Director Allen Tempert received a letter from the Justice Department, dated January 5, that the map showing the five districts, which will apply to both MCC and County Supervisors, was approved.

“We have to credit our staff for doing a great job on the redistricting process,” Johnson said. “We approved and submitted the maps, which were received by the Justice Department on November 9, and our approval took place less than 60 days later, without even a phone call to question anything.”

The Board approved the hiring of Federal compliance Consulting LLC to handle the redistricting project for both districting maps as well as the Justice of the Peace and JTED districts on Feb. 7, 2011.

“At that time we started getting things together for the first round of open houses to get public input,” Tempert said. “Our starting point was the current MCC districts.”

From May 12 through 24, Tempert held the five open houses to gather public input – in Kingman, Lake Havasu City, Bullhead City, Colorado City and the Beaver Dam/Littlefield area.

“We took public comment from the meetings and from the survey that was on the Mohave County Elections website,” he said. “All that information was turned over to Tony Sissons, President of Research Advisory Services, Inc., out of Phoenix. Tony is a subcontractor to Federal Compliance Consulting. He took the information and created a good draft alternative which was passed by Bruce Adelson of Federal Compliance Consulting out of Potomac, Md. Bruce is a former Department of Justice guy responsible for assuring that we would pass the DOJ redistricting requirements.”

From August 23 through 30, a second round of open houses was held in the same areas.

That public input was gathered and made available for public inspection. All minority voting rights were protected and the population numbers in each district were very close. Everything was, once again, sent on to Sissons.

“Then we put the draft map in front of the Board of Supervisors on September 12,” Tempert said. “The Board adopted the draft Supervisors and MCC districts. At that time we worked with Adelson on submission to the Department of Justice. It took a few weeks and was very detailed. We sent that very large package to the Justice Department on November 7. They received it on November 9. It was approved on January 5, 2012.”

“It is very hard to make sure all minority rights were protected and that the districts were divided evenly,” Johnson said. “Our staff and our consultants did an excellent job. Hiring a consultant who has a long history working inside the U.S. Department of Justice really paid off with this quick and painless approval.”

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