School board wants to tweak current districts in redistricting | Eastern NC Now

The Beaufort County Board of Education had a public meeting with its redistricting lawyer this evening on redistricting the school board districts for next year's election.  It gave its lawyer directions informally to tweak the existing districts and not to put incumbents in the same district.   The problem with that is that the existing districts have always been intentionally racially gerrymandered, and the courts since the last redistricting have ruled that race can no longer be considered in drawing districts (that was from a Democrat filed lawsuit, by the way).  The south side of the river districts, in particular, are blatantly gerrymandered based on race.  One board member stated on the record that the existing districts were drawn based on race, so the lawyer has been put on notice.  If the new districts are drawn that way it will be a slam dunk to challenge them.  The lawyers will come up with three alternative plans and a public hearing will be held.  Citizens can address the plans at that time.