I stared at precincts every day this week, coloring them, measuring them, matching them up with people, candidates and causes. Some of them you know, many you will come to know. I have favorites.
There is Bronco, an almost perfect square.
and the one that looks like a three fingered hand.
That’s Laurel.
Canyon Springs is a Roman nose.
There is Fort McDowell. The culture which most respects the natural land we all now occupy becomes a stiff parallelogram.
Around the county, my all-time favorite is these two precincts near Chandler airport that look like the track of a Waymo that has been struck by lightning.
LD3 is lucky to have pretty good names for our precincts too. Most are rooted in nature.
To prove we don’t live in the flat part of Maricopa County, LD3 has names like Basin, 2 Canyons, Cave, Flat (okay, there is one flat name), Highlands, 3 Hills, Loma (mound), Mountain-Montana-Mountainside, lots of Peaks, a couple of Pinnacles, Sierra (mountain range) and a Valley.
Our birds are Dove and Paloma (in Spanish), Grayhawk, Eagle and Gavilan (sparrow hawk).
Fill your Powderhorn with Dynamite and you’re a Deadman.
We don’t have a single lake but there is a Creek, Springs, a Wash, a River, two Rios, and a really big Fountain.
We are fortified by Granite, Boulder, Stonegate, Palisades and an actual Fort.
Bronco, Coyote, and Wolf round out the animals.
Cactus, Laurel, Saguaro, and Sunflower form the plants. There are Verdes to prove some of our area is green.
The Tramonto (sunset) of our big Cielo (sky) can be seen from the Views and a Vista.
LD3’s most Democratic precinct is named after Republican Barry Goldwater’s congressional buddy John Rhodes.
Our most prolific names are the Ranches. Ranch, Ranch, Ranch, Ranch, Ranch and Rancho.
A bit of mining history remains with Golden, Goldfield, Silver and Mine.
We have one precinct named for a Native American nation. Hualapai, people of the tall pines (tall condos are more like it). And a Native American nation named after one of the most spectacularly failed Generals of the Union Army. Irvin McDowell came west after the Civil War to rebuild his reputation by killing those who were already here.
If you are hungry, there is always a Tortilla.
Can you find all these precincts in the map of LD3 below? Click the image to see a larger version.
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