What ever happened to open transparency in our government? Where is the courtesy to the public? I thought we had "CIVILITY" in Howard County or does that only apply to driving?

Unfortunately, I think this is really the result of unintended consequences of what many of the Elkridge residents who testified at the hearing last October wanted. I say this as one of the few who actually testified to keep our community in one district to increase our voice. Many other community members, however, testified that they preferred to be split among multiple jurisdictions so that we would have access to more council members, even though our voice in any one district would be diminished.

At the time I think those community members wanted things left as they were without radical change. But the current proposal is the unfortunate result of what those who testified said they wanted.

As for split communities -- take a look at what the General Assembly did to Elkridge with the Congressional map. Our little neighborhood of Canbury Woods is split between Sarbanes and Ruppersberger along Fairbourne Court. Everyone down to the RR tracks from there along Hanover Road is in Ruppersberger's district.

Furthermore Elijah Cummings' district reaches the West side of I-95. The Howard County portions of 21075 and 21076 are split among 3 Congressional Districts.

There should be a meeting in Elkridge about this first. Maybe at the community center, or at the Elkridge High School. Could we perhaps meet at the tennis dome??

Touche!

Part 1
Elkridge had been in two districts for years and asking to keep our voice in district 1 was not a mistake. I suggested that the boundary between districts 1 and 2 should be Rt. 100 as it has bisected Elkridge. This would keep our neighborhoods whole to the north and south. When I testified, yes I wanted to keep our presence in district 1 strong as I see us aligning more with Ellicott City and less with the City of Columbia. The big talk of one district came from people in other parts of the county during the process. It was pointed out in comment on the artical; to have all of Rt. 1 In one district, we would almost always be on the loosing end of a majority vote.

Part 2
The amendments posted would not put us all in one district and this is a numbers game to not allow any one district to have more voters than the others. It is also a bit of turf war, for example the maps provided by the committee had portions of Dorsey Hall moving to District 1. Columbia representation wants to keep all of Dorsey Hall represented by them. To make up for that an amendment was put forth to move portions of Elkridge that has long been in district I to District 2. This was done to even out numbers and possibly make members of the council to decide to keep all of Dorsey Hall in one District. The sad part is that aside from forums and making a lot of noise to the Council the constituents do not get to decide what district we are in the end. A better process may be to have three maps vetted by committee and presented to the public and voted on by constituents on the next general election after the census.

If people want to change the redistricting at the state level then they have to make choices in the voting booth that will reflect the changes they want.
We the people only get the government we are willing to settle for.

I agree with Howard. Elkridge and Ellicott City have more similar interests and communities than Elkridge and Columbia. Elkridge and Ellicott City have the "Ilchester" area where the communities begin to mesh together. (I think that Columbia should really be privileged to its own council member since the needs of that community are different with it being governed by the CA.)