DeKalb Students Art Exhibit Set for Saturday

May 21, 2021
By: Dwayne Page

The DeKalb County Student Art Exhibit will be Saturday, May 22 featuring works of local art students.

The annual event, sponsored by the Smithville Study Club, will be held from 1-3 p.m. at the DeKalb County Complex at 712 South Congress Boulevard.

“All students are encouraged to attend whether you have art on display or not. We have a featured local artist, Shan Stout and although she won’t be there in person she has sent her Quacker books and an art sheet for all the children to enjoy. We will have a table where children can make some art. Part of the show will be virtual with a power point slide presentation of local art but there will be 68 actual pieces from several of the schools on display”, said Susan Hinton, Art Chairman for the Smithville Study Club.

All students who have art on display will get a ribbon if they attend the show Saturday. Kids can take their art work home after the show at 3 p.m. or they may pick it up at Justin Potter Library Monday afternoon.

The public is invited to attend.

May 21, 2021
By: Dwayne Page

The DeKalb County Commission Monday night is expected to take the first step toward redistricting.

A resolution will be up for passage to establish a redistricting committee to come up with a plan to redraw county commission district boundary lines, a process which is done every 10 years following completion of the United States census. The federal government stipulates that districts must have nearly equal populations and must not discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity.

The U.S. Census Bureau announced in February that it would deliver the detailed datasets needed for redistricting by September 30, 2021.

Once the census numbers are known, the redistricting committee must produce a recommendation to submit to the county commission, which has the final say on redistricting. The approved plan then goes to the election commission to redraw precinct boundary lines so that voters and candidates for the 2022 elections know in which districts and precincts they reside.

Matthew Hill explained the redistricting process for members of the county commission Thursday night during a committee meeting of the whole.

Hill is the senior GIS Specialist for the TN Comptroller’s office and has presided over the Redistricting process for other Local Government officials the last 10 years.

Although the actual 2020 census numbers are not yet known, Hill said it is estimated that DeKalb County has grown in population over the last 10 year and is now at more than 20,000 residents with the third and seventh districts having grown the most.

“Right now we think the county commissioners will represent about 2,860 per district. That is up from the 2,675 residents that you represent now. It also looks like the growth and declines in your county have actually been evenly distributed. With the estimates it looks like District 6 may have to gain some folks while Districts 3 and 7 may have to lose some population. All that means is that Districts 3 and 7 have grown at a faster pace than the other districts while District 6 has lagged a little bit behind the other districts in population,” said Hill.

The new census numbers are expected by mid August.

“ We can start redistricting as soon as we begin processing all the data but even then you have only a very slim timeline to redistrict in DeKalb County. For counties like yours who have a primary in 2022, we recommend that you get your district lines set as quickly as possible and get the plan over to the election commission in preparation for that primary,” Hill said. “The worst thing that could happen is for people to come in to pick up a petition and the district lines are not set which would cause confusion.”

“Also think about the level of assistance you will need,” he continued. “You will have three options. You can have someone internally in your county do it. You can have somebody from CTAS do it or I can help you with redistricting. I would come down here with my laptop and project on a screen all the census blocks and form those districts. Our office has GIS technology which allows us to redistrict with precision. We can zoom down and adjust these census blocks to generate statistics in real time to allow you to see it before we commit to it. Census blocks are what the Census Bureau gives to us. It is the smallest statistical geography that we get from the Census. The way I typically describe a census block is it is dotted by roads or by features you can see such as a power line, a creek but it can be non-visible features like county line boundaries, city limits, or school boundaries.”

“The Census Bureau provides us the total population with the makeup of all the demographics including white, black, Hispanic, and others and our GIS software will calculate as we select census blocks how many people we are moving from district to district and what it does to the overall deviation. Census blocks are really the building blocks of the plan. We are grouping census blocks to create districts and voting precincts”, he added.

DeKalb County Election Administrator Dennis Stanley said a redistricting plan should be in place before the election commission begins issuing candidate petitions in mid-December for the 2022 local primaries.

“The bottom line is the full county commission will be the one that approves the county commission districts. The election commission will be the one that will approve the precinct lines,” Stanley explained. “However, you have to get to that point and to do that you must have a redistricting committee. Generally I am on that committee because it is my office that is probably impacted the most throughout this entire process. Generally the county mayor is on the committee as well as someone from the department of education because you have school board districts as well.”

“This has nothing to do with politics. It’s about equal representation under the law,” he continued. “Whatever the impact of redistricting, it will take my office quite a while to make those changes in the voter data system. You can’t be approving a redistricting plan on December 1 and expect me to have that done by December 20 when we start giving out petitions for the Democratic Primary. Please understand that Matthew and his office will not tell you what plan you must adopt. They will provide you with some options and it will be up to this committee to make a recommendation to the full county commission. I am not asking you to accept what they present. I am asking that you look at it. You can make some alterations possibly, provided the numbers work, but don’t take three months to do it. You don’t have that much time,” said Stanley. “I am asking you to appoint a committee, have it in place, so when the numbers arrive, that committee is ready to go to work without delay.”

Hill said he would be glad to assist the county’s redistricting committee in developing a plan to present to the county commission.

The regular monthly meeting of the county commission will be Monday, May 24 at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Mike Foster Multi-Purpose Center (County Complex)

May 21, 2021
By: Dwayne Page

A win and they’re in!

The DCHS Tiger baseball team will travel to Signal Mountain (tonight) Friday, May 21 to take on the Eagles in the sub-state. Game time is 5:30 p.m. (Central Daylight Time) or Smithville time. That’s 6:30 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)

WJLE will have LIVE coverage on AM 1480/FM 101.7 and LIVE web stream at www.wjle.com

The winner of the game advances to the State Tournament. The season ends for the loser.

DeKalb County is 16-12-1 while the Signal Mountain Eagles are 25-8

Meanwhile the DCHS Tiger Soccer team lost at Cumberland County 9-0 in the Region Tournament Championship game Thursday night and will travel to Chattanooga Red Bank for a sub-state game Saturday, May 22 starting at 1 p.m. (CDT) Smithville time. That’s 2 p.m. (EDT).

The winner of the game advances to the State Tournament. The season ends for the loser.

DeKalb County is 9-8 while Red Bank is 3-3-1