Three of the five members of Alaska’s redistricting board visited Haines on Tuesday to solicit public input as they piece together a new state legislative map.

Board members presented six maps—two devised by them, and four submitted by third parties—at an open-house meeting.

The maps show three main options for pairing the Haines Borough with other population centers to reach the target of 18,335 people per legislative district. Haines could be linked with downtown Juneau, as it currently is; with the more working-class Mendenhall Valley; or with Sitka, as part of a new elongated outer coast district from Yakutat to Craig.

“It seems as though Skagway and Haines are more in line with Juneau.That’s where the travel patterns seem to be. That’s where the economic links seem to be. You have the upper Lynn Canal Corridor with the ferry routes. You have the commercial fishing ties as well,” board member Nicole Borromeo told the CVN.

Borromeo drew one of the two maps proposed by the board — labeled as version four — which keeps Haines paired with downtown Juneau. “We had heard a significant amount of public testimony at that point that said leave it; we’ve gotten used to it; we like it; we feel more connected with downtown. And these were just the sampling of Alaskans that called in.”

Since then, Borromeo said, the board has received additional comments saying they’d like to see Haines paired with Mendenhall Valley and the north end of Juneau. Fewer comments have indicated that Haines residents want to be paired with Sitka, but there is still time for input, Borromeo said.

Board member Budd Simpson said that connecting Haines with north Juneau makes the most sense to him. He drew that pairing in the other map proposed by the board: version three. He said he thinks that district would be “more compact” geographically—connecting the upper Lynn Canal—and socio-economically, since northern Juneau tends to be more working class than downtown, where many state government workers live.

Simpson also clarified that an earlier map proposal, which would have put representatives Andi Story and Sara Hannan, both Democrats, in the same district, was not—and could not have been —gerrymandering because board members don’t know where the representatives live and because they are required by law to use oddly-shaped census population blocks.

“That was unintentional,” Simpson said. “And it was based on the odd shapes that go along with the Census blocks.”

Board members don’t really “draw” anything: they piece together population blocks drawn by the U.S. Census Bureau, which often don’t have straight lines. One block happens to have a small protrusion jutting into an Auke Bay neighborhood, enclosing a few houses including representative Story’s. The board members didn’t draw that protrusion, Simpson said, and they are legally bound to use the jagged census blocks.

Still, “I didn’t like...that there was this slim finger that was included in that one census block,” Simpson said, noting that public feedback made board members look more closely at that proposed district line, which he adjusted to make the map more compact. “It was not fixed as a way to save representative Stori’s seat—because that’s something we honestly don’t care about,” Simpson said.

Each state redraws its legislative map every 10 years, upon completion of the U.S. Census. In most states, the legislature redraws districts, but in Alaska an independent redistricting commission does it. Two board members are selected by the governor, one each by the state House speaker, Senate president and chief justice of the Alaska Supreme Court.

The other board member who visited Haines, John Binkley, encouraged people to engage in the process and submit input.

“These are changes that will affect communities for the next 10 years,” Binkley said. “We need the guidance of people in the communities to know what their thinking is, how they’re affected by whether Haines is with north Juneau, with south Juneau, with Sitka. What do people think about that?”

The redistricting board has until Nov. 10 to devise a final plan. Comments can be submitted online at https://www.akredistrict.org/map-comment/

Haines Borough Assembly member Carol Tuynman asked the assembly on Tuesday to adopt a resolution to give input on redistricting.