Sedgwick County commissioners pick map that makes smaller changes to political boundaries

More than 9,700 people got a new Sedgwick County commissioner on Wednesday after the County Commission approved new boundaries for the county’s five districts.

The redistricting is part of a once-a-decade process aimed at making sure all districts have a similar share of the population based on Census data.

The map they chose — one of 11 proposed by county staff — moves 1.87% of the Sedgwick County population into a different district. The change goes into effect immediately.

Commissioners approved the map chosen by a bipartisan ad hoc redistricting committee last week. It makes minimal changes to the existing districts, compared with some of the other options that represented substantial changes to the district boundaries.

The 15-person committee, which was assembled last month amid questions of fairness in the redistricting process, included five commissioner appointees and five partisan appointees each selected by the county Republican and Democratic parties.

They unanimously chose Plan 6, which swings Democratic voters to districts 1, 2 and 5 but upholds a Republican majority in all five districts.

The largest political shift is in District 4, where Democratic Commissioner Lacey Cruse is running for re-election. Registered Republicans gained a 282-vote swing through the new maps, an Eagle analysis found.

The new boundaries make little change in the racial demographics of the districts.

Other larger shifts came in Pete Meitzner’s District 1 and Sarah Lopez’s District 2.

Cruse swapped Meitzner the Sleepy Hollow neighborhood, Wesley Medical Center and MacDonald Golf Course for Eagle’s Landing neighborhood near 45th Street North and Oliver. Much of downtown Wichita, including Century II, Naftzger Park and Intrust Bank Area, also moved from Cruse’s district to Meitzner’s.

Lopez gained the South Central neighborhood south of Harry to Pawnee along the Broadway corridor from Meitzner. The Springdale neighborhood south of Kellogg to Lincoln between 143rd Street East and Fairland moved from Commissioner Jim Howell’s District 5 to Meitzner’s District 1.

Cruse, whose district saw the most population growth since 2010, celebrated the work of the committee, which she pushed to form late last month.

“I think it’s nice to see two groups of people who traditionally might not always agree voting 15-0 for one map, and they decided on that together,” Cruse said.

This story was originally published December 15, 2021 at 5:04 PM.