McCandless kept largely intact in latest legislative redistricting

The new 2022 House and Senate district maps largely split McCandless from other North Allegheny communities but kept the township itself intact, according to town manager Robert Grimm.

The reapportionment process takes place every 10 years as required by the Pennsylvania State Constitution to reflect population changes, according to Dr. Mark Nordenberg, chair to the Legislative Reapportionment Commission.

Under the old legislative maps, Bradford Woods, Franklin Park, Marshall and McCandless were in the same House and Senate districts. These communities make up the North Allegheny School District.

The finalized state House district maps have McCandless and Franklin Park in District 30, while the NA communities of Marshall Township and Bradford Woods are in District 28.

The proposed map for House District 30 had placed one part of McCandless in District 30 and another part in District 28. The final, adopted map keeps all of McCandless together.

Grimm was pleased McCandless was kept intact.

“That is a positive turn from our standpoint,” said Grimm, at the March 28 township council meeting.

Grimm, on behalf of the council and the township, wrote the Legislative Reapportionment Commission in January, formally opposing the proposed House and Senate maps because they separated the township from other communities in North Allegheny School District. And the township, made up of seven wards, itself had been split.

“While it would have been nice to have all school district communities together, it was more important to the Town to have only one representative,” Grimm stated.

The final state Senate district maps put McCandless in District 38 while all other North Allegheny communities are in District 37.

“It is a disappointment, but we recognize that we can’t necessarily win all of these battles,” he said.

He added, “keep in mind that we are in the same Council of Governments with many of the communities in the new district and have working relationships established with the other elected and appointed officials as well as common issues that we deal with daily.”

Some changes are unavoidable, according Nordenberg.

In the past 10 years, Pennsylvania has seen slow growth or population losses in the western and northern regions of the state and comparatively fast growth in the southeastern region of the state. The state’s minority population also has grown, he said.

Some municipalities needed to be split because their population is too large to be put in a single district, he said.

In Pennsylvania, the task is complicated by the state having more than 2,500 municipalities, the third highest in the nation, and its House of Representatives has 203 members, the second highest in the nation, he said.

“Inevitably, to draw that many district lines through a state that has so many municipalities, then there are municipal cuts that will need to be made, and the challenge becomes deciding where those cuts should be made. A number of factors can enter into that decision,” he said.

School districts are not listed in the state Constitution as entities that should be protected from cuts. However, many believe they do represent “communities of interest” that should be protected from cuts when that is possible, Nordenberg said.

As a practical matter, the larger a school district, the more likely it is that it might be split. That same guideline probably applies to larger and more heavily populated municipalities, said Nordenberg, who is a graduate of North Allegheny.

In the letter sent to the commission in January, Grimm stated “attention should be paid to historic, economic, and cultural ties between communities within the proposed districts,” and the “goal should be that we hold communities together. The commission should look for the commonality between the communities within the district and maintain community integrity.”

“Hopefully, our letter made an impact,” said Michael Tarle, council president for McCandless.