DuPage approves ‘Fitzpatrick Finger’ map

DuPage will adopt a county board district map that carves out the so-called “Fitzpatrick Finger” from Lombard after weeks of bickering and accusations about the politics of the process.

The county board voted 13-4 Tuesday to approve a map proposed by District 2 representative Brien Sheahan that extends a portion of District 4 east into Lombard. District 6 representatives Dirk Enger and Bob Larsen, District 1 representative Rita Gonzalez and District 2 representative Pat O’Shea voted against it.

Jeff Redick, who also represents District 2 and had been identified as a key figure in the debate, supported Sheahan’s map. He said the county has long held that if a municipality is split in two districts, the ratio should be as close to half as possible.

Redick said Sheahan’s map does that more effectively than a map proposed by redistricting committee chairman O’Shea.

“Ten years ago, they wanted to achieve an equal split of municipalities, as close to half, 50-50, as possible,” he said about towns that were split between two districts.

Redick said he received a much louder outcry from people in Lisle Township, which would have been scattered across five districts in O’Shea’s map, than he did from Lombard residents, thousands of whom will be switched from District 2 to District 4.

A comparison of the new maps with the current maps shows very little change to the districts in Sheahan’s map, aside from District 4 reaching a bit further east. O’Shea’s map would have extended District 4, which encompasses predominately Wheaton, Glen Ellyn and Glendale Heights, further south into Lisle.

“You had people with little tiny bits of (Lisle),” Redick said. “When you have such a small area, there is less connection, less interaction. Between the two alternatives, (Sheahan’s) was the better of the two.”

Among the Lombard residents who have been shifted to District 4 is Laura Fitzpatrick, a Lombard village trustee who lost in the 2008 Republican primary to Sheahan by 186 votes. She previously said she would not run again if she were shifted to District 4. She could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

O’Shea said the new map will work against residents in that area.

“It does not follow any main line,” he said of the approved map. “It jots out in five or six different precincts. It cuts some areas in half, there are jagged edges. It is all done so that portion of Lombard is not in District 2 ... It does not accurately reflect the people of that area and their wishes.”

O’Shea said most of the district boundaries in the new map are straight lines and follow a natural path.

Redick made a procedural move at the meeting, against O’Shea’s protests, that resulted in the board voting only on Sheahan’s map.

The political bickering began in mid-May when Sheahan’s map surfaced and O’Shea said it was a blatant case of gerrymandering in order to remove Fitzpatrick as competition. O’Shea called it bad government and “not the way that the map is supposed to be drawn.”

O’Shea then came out with his own map, while Sheahan accused him of lying and saying that O’Shea had actually drawn the initial map that included what had been dubbed the “Fitzpatrick Finger.”