{"id":184233,"date":"2026-03-09T14:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/184233\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T14:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:58:08","slug":"hearing-set-for-monday-before-tampas-election-maps-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/184233\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearing set for Monday before Tampa’s election maps decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission\u00a0is expected to make a final decision Monday on what the city of Tampa\u2019s new election maps will look like.<\/a><\/p>\n

The redistricting process that takes place every four years, due to population changes,<\/a>\u00a0leads to shifts in demographics across the districts. Four possible alternatives for new boundaries were presented<\/a> to the community in January, followed by a public hearing that took place in February.<\/p>\n

On Monday night, the second and final public hearing is set to take place followed by a scheduled vote. That meeting is set for 7:30 p.m. at the Frederick B Karl County Center at 601 E. Kennedy Blvd., on the 18th floor.<\/p>\n

City officials say more than 20,000 new residents have moved to the Tampa area since 2020. District 7, which includes the northwestern portion of Tampa, has seen the biggest population increase. District 5 which includes East Tampa, parts of downtown Tampa and a section of West Tampa is currently the smallest district.<\/p>\n

To make the districts more balanced, the four proposed maps shift a handful of precincts between districts. While the majority of residents will not be affected, those in communities west of Busch Gardens, in the Forest Hills neighborhood and in West Tampa could be the biggest changes.<\/p>\n

West Tampa resident Michael Randolph worries that his area could be split apart through multiple districts,<\/a> which he says could weaken political representation in one of Tampa\u2019s historically Black districts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very important that we\u2019re able to tell that politician that \u2014 hey you need to come to West Tampa and talk to us,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we split the community into different precincts\u2026 that would no longer be the case. It puts us in a position where we have little voice to say on what\u2019s going on.\u2019<\/p>\n

There\u2019s just over 410,000 residents of Tampa, and the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission says changes will impact just about 5% of people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission\u00a0is expected to make a final decision Monday on what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1564,28,276,2287,115,135,137,136,835],"class_list":["post-184233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-angie-angers","tag-florida","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}