Former State Representative and current State Senate candidate Pat Fleming was the guest speaker at the Douglas Chamber of Commerce meeting on Thursday, January 19.

Former State Representative and current State Senate candidate Pat Fleming was in Douglas last week talking to a small group at the monthly Chamber of Commerce meeting about the redristricting and how it will affect not only Douglas but also Cochise County. Bruce Whetten/Douglas Dispatch

Fleming was there to discuss the redistricting of Cochise County and how it pertains to Douglas.

The State Senate candidate told those in attendance about the outcomes of the two meetings that were held by the Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) in Tempe on January 13 and 17.

According to Fleming, the IRC approved all of the technical changes requested by the counties, on January 13, most of those changes affect no voters at all, she said. Also, in some cases the census tract data is not accurate or does not agree with the counties data.

All technical changes for the congressional districts were approved with one motion and all the technical changes for the legislative districts were approved on a second motion.

At the January 17 meeting, the IRC approved all of Cochise Country would be one Legislative and Congressional District along with Greenlee County, half of Graham County, Vail in Pima County and Southeast Tucson.

According to stats provided to the Douglas Dispatch by Fleming the target population for our Congressional district is 710,224. The voting age populations is 558,252; 121,379 (21.7 percent) Hispanic, 386,563 (69.2 percent) non-Hispanic, 19,389 (3.5 percent) African American, 107,182 (20.5 percent) Native American, 15,674 (2.8 percent) Asian and 9,336 (1.7 percent) Multi-Racial.

For a Legislative district the target population is 213,100 the final total for Legislative 14 is 217,639; 67,082 (30.8 percent) Hispanic, 132,552 (60.9 percent) non-Hispanic, 7,070 (3.2 percent) African American, 1,851 (.9 percent) Native American, 3,654 (1.7 percent) Asian, 506 (.2 percent) Hawaiian and 4.978 (2.3 percent) Multi-Racial.

Fleming said the City of Douglas will not be split from the rest of Cochise County as originally proposed.

For additional information on the redistricting and maps showing the outlines please visit http://www.azredistricting.org/

Kathleen Gomez, President of Chamber of Commerce, also announced upcoming events for the City of Douglas.

February 14th at the Douglas Art Gallery there will be cake served to celebrate the State of Arizona’s 100th birthday from 4 -7 p.m. At 7 p.m. there will also be a release of balloons with glow sticks attached.

On February 25 the Centennial Committee will be hosting a dance at the Knights of Columbus to help fund the upcoming events in October.

At the February meeting there will be a guest speaker from Fort Huachuca to discuss the Air-O-Drome training that will be held at Cochise College and its impact on the City of Douglas.