Bryn Athyn and eastern Montgomery County
I’m a volunteer with FDPA. I’ve looked at a number of maps over the past few years, and when I look at FDPA’s new People’s Maps, I’m astonished and delighted to see district borders lining up with county borders over and over, time after time, here there and everywhere. It’s beautiful. However, if the LRC considers basing its own maps on FDPA’s People’s Maps at all, I hope you will consider a modification in my small neck of the woods. I submitted testimony earlier (“Bryn Athyn” August 26) about the governmental ties between Bryn Athyn Borough and Lower Moreland Township. A late change to the People’s Map for house districts in eastern Montgomery County removed Lower Moreland from district 173, dividing it from Bryn Athyn. This change appears to have been made for the purpose of lowering the overall population deviation, but as I understand it, population deviations are acceptable if they are designed "to achieve some legitimate state objective.” I believe preserving and promoting the cooperative agreements between Bryn Athyn and Lower Moreland is just such an objective. (In addition to the areas of cooperation I identified in my earlier testimony, I should also point out that on one road—Sycamore Road—along the southeast border of Bryn Athyn, the municipality is Bryn Athyn but the school district is Lower Moreland.) If the removal of Lower Moreland from house district 173 achieved other good ends, that might justify the change anyway. Admittedly it removed a split that had been drawn into Horsham Township, which has been battling the federal government over the PFAS pollution of its water by the former Willow Grove Air Base. But the change resulted in new splits to Abington Township and Springfield Township—a net increase in splits. I wonder whether the reduction in population deviation was worth the cost. Thanks for considering these points.