HELENA -- When it comes to political stories that bore you to tears, it's hard to beat "redistricting," the dreadfully arcane process of drawing new legislative-district boundaries in Montana every 10 years.
Who wants or has time to page through reams of district maps to see how newly drawn lines might carve up your neighborhood or put you in a district that you never knew the number of in the first place? Only those who are paid to do it.
But this year, thanks to some spiffy new technology, you can use the Internet to pinpoint your house, neighborhood and city -- or anywhere in the state -- and see how they're affected by the five proposed plans for new districts, which will take effect for 10 years, starting in 2014.
These mapping tools, available on the Montana Legislature's website, make it all the easier for any citizen to have detailed information if you're telling people drawing the districts how you feel about it.
These "people" are the five members of the Districting and Apportionment Commission, which kicks off a two-month, statewide tour of public hearings this week in Missoula (Tuesday), Pablo (Wednesday) and Kalispell (Thursday).
Commission members say they want to hear from the public about the effects of proposed new boundary lines, and will consider that testimony when sitting down in August to draw up the final map of 100 House districts.
But enough about the process. Let's get to the web-based maps -- and how best to use them.
Go to the Montana Legislature's website at http://leg.met.gov and click on the Districting and Apportionment Commission link (probably under "today at the Legislature" on the upper-right side of the site).
Once you get to the commission's site, scroll down to the "Maps" category and click on the "view draft maps" link. You'll see links to five plans: Urban-rural, Existing, Deviation, Subdivision and Communities. The first four were drawn up by legislative staff; the last one by the commission's two Democratic members, Joe Lamson and Pat Smith.
Click on each one, and under "statewide view," you have the choice of linking to a state map of the plan with Google Maps or Google Earth.
The Google Maps link is a little easier to use, although not as versatile. Once you click on it, up comes a map of Montana, and you can use the zoom and scan functions on the upper-left corner to zero in on any city or location, right down to your street. The lines of the proposed districts are in blue, and you can click on any district to get its number, population, Indian population or over-18 population.
The Google Earth link allows you to switch between plans more easily, type in addresses, zoom, scan and see the terrain.
To use it, you first must download (or already have) the Google Earth program (available at www.google.com/earth) on your computer and open it. Then, click on each of the five plans to download and open the Google Earth version.
The plan's map file will ask you what program to use to open it. Insert "Google Earth," and it should open onto the program, appearing by its plan name under the "Temporary Places" folder on the left panel of Google Earth. Move the plan name to the "My Places" folder before opening the next plan, or you'll lose it.
Once all five plans are in the My Places folder, you can switch back and forth between any of them (by checking the box in front of the one you want), type in your address in the search panel and zoom right to your neighborhood, and see what district you'd be in.
The districts are the colored blocks, and the crimson lines are the boundaries of the existing districts.
Once again, you need only to click on each proposed district to get its number and population.
As you'll see, each plan can throw you into different districts.
Take my house right in the heart of Helena. In two plans (Existing and Communities), my new district is similar to my current district: It includes my immediate neighborhood, and then snakes out into the Helena Valley (one to the west valley, one to the central valley).
The Subdivision and Deviation plans put me in a district that's mostly south-central and southeast Helena, and a strip up a gulch south of town.
Finally, the Urban-rural plan throws me in with downtown Helena and the city's west side.
Once you get the hang of using these Google tools, you can see pretty easily how your neighborhood fits into the scheme of things -- or doesn't. Problems figuring it out? Email me at mike.dennison@lee.net, and I'll see if I can help.
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