Redistricting 98th District

I am grateful for the work being done by the LRC to reverse decades of gerrymandering. I wanted to take a moment to share and provide feedback on the current legislative map. For me, the 98th house district is another point of concern. While we appreciate having the Elizabethtown Area School District in the 98th, the current map gives us large areas of Lebanon County. We feel that it would be more appropriate to have the 98th district follow north along the Susquehanna River, as has been seen in previous years. Our last version of the district stopped short of Middletown, which shares much in common with Elizabethtown and Marietta. Many in our community believe that there is a common history and culture that connects river communities like Middletown in our district. However, the preliminary Senate map splits the Lancaster metro area into two Senate seats. This division of the community doesn’t give the whole voice of Lancaster’s residents. Lancaster and its nearby municipalities can easily be served by a single Senator instead of two Senators who share the city with districts who are very different in needs and thinking. The LRC can use this opportunity to look to nearby Harrisburg to find a model for how to better distribute citizens in a metro area. There is a single Senate district for the city and its northern and eastern suburbs. The district is likely to include constituents’ residences and their places of work, respecting that the area represents a community. Please revisit the Lancaster metro area in the Senate map and recognize it for the community of interest it is. The mapmakers at the LRC should treat Lancaster and its immediate suburbs as a community of interest and assign a single Senate seat to Lancaster and its neighbors instead of splitting the city in two and dragging the lines out to the neighboring rural towns. While the LRC’s preliminary maps make significant progress toward proportionality and representation - particularly in the House - it is important for the LRC to review and revise the Senate map over the next month. When making these decisions please look and understand that a fairer and more representative map would keep the city of Lancaster whole and include more of its immediate suburbs while grouping the rural areas with more like-minded outer suburbs. These are small changes that would dramatically improve the map in its representation and proportionality. Thank you for your time, Rebecca Young Lancaster County Resident