Professional Overview

Ms. McCall is the firm’s redistricting specialist. Prior to joining BHDA in 1997, Sherry worked as a GIS and Research Specialist at the Texas Education Agency. Working with BHDA attorneys and staff, Sherry develops specific client districting plans to assist attorneys in analyzing population, citizenship, projections, voter registration, and Spanish Surname data. In cases involving litigation, she reviews relevant historical elections, develops exhibits, and has extensive experience working with experts. She routinely works with local governments on issues such as annexations, water/wastewater management, precinct realignments, and election preparation. She works closely with staff from the TCEQ, PUC, Secretary of State, Texas Legislative Council, Texas Education Agency, U.S. Census Bureau, and the U.S. Department of Justice.

*Not licensed to practice law.

Areas of Emphasis

Redistricting/Elections:

Ms. McCall is responsible for all redistricting functions, including operation of mapping in conjunction with Census Bureau data/TIGER Line files to create districting plans that comply with federal statute. Sherry develops and analyzes population data and prepares exhibits. She obtains, reviews, prepares and geocodes voter registration data. Sherry has performed voter analysis in contested elections cases; coded voter registration data to local and state jurisdictions for several Texas counties; and routinely used Census Bureau data sets for analyzing population and demographics.

Sherry has extensive experience working with citizenship data and frequently acquires other data from local, state, and federal governments to use in review of redistricting plans. She serves as a liaison with the Secretary of State’s Elections Division regarding Spanish Surname reporting and voter registration data and has prepared data for experts in voting rights cases.

Water:

Ms. McCall’s responsibilities include obtaining electronic mapping data from local, state, and federal government entities as well as submitting data to state and federal agencies. She prepares CCN maps required for the submission of an application to PUC. She serves as a liaison with PUC’s Utilities Mapping Division to resolve any issues regarding CCN applications.

Real Estate:

Ms. McCall prepares maps using county appraisal data, which includes reviewing sites for development. She correlates mapping data from various entities; reviews appraisal district data files and mapping data to analyze growth areas; prepares cost analysis of easement acquisitions for real estate transactions; and reviews legal boundaries for local government entities.

Public Finance:

Ms. McCall prepares bond transcripts for clients to obtain bond insurance.

Schools:

Ms. McCall prepares minor boundary adjustments; utilizes data from the Texas Education Agency’s PEIMs Database; reviews attendance zone boundaries and campus location planning; and works on detachments and annexations for school districts.

Key Experience

  • Over 20 years of experience working with ESRI mapping software and products, including extensive work with database files and geodatabases.
  • Experience and appropriate use of all state and federal mapping data products, to include appraisal district tax data, legislative boundary data, DOQs, NAIP, TXDOT files, CCN, and DRGs.
  • Experience using all education data from the Texas Education Agency’s PEIMS system.
  • Experience using USGS maps as base maps for delineating service area requests.
  • Experience creating and maintaining databases in Access to facilitate the development of attribute tables associated with electronic mapping data. Experience preparing voter registration and turnout databases used for analysis of elections.
  • Experience developing presentations, timelines, flow charts, and publications detailing complex legal matters.
  • Experience and demonstrated proficiency in all Microsoft applications, ESRI mapping applications, redistricting applications, Adobe applications, and software facilitating conversions, communications and research. SAS computer programming and SQL programming experience.

 

Former GIS and Research Specialist, Texas Education Agency

Former Research Assistant, Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Texas Education Agency (1997, January).  Results of college admissions testing in Texas for 1994/95 graduating seniors (Publication No. GE7 601 04).  Austin, TX:  Author.

Texas Education Agency (1996, July). Texas school counseling and guidance programs. Case Studies Report. (Publication No. GE6 601 06). Austin, TX: Author.

Texas Education Agency (1996, August). Texas school counseling and guidance programs. Final Study Report. (Publication No. GE6 601 09). Austin, TX: Author.

Texas Education Agency (1996, September). Results of college admissions testing in Texas for 1993/94 graduating seniors (Publication No. GE6 601 05).  Austin, TX:  Author.

Texas Education Agency (1995, December). Reporting Texas advanced placement examination performance: promoting a head start on the transition to college (Publication No. RE6 601 03). Austin, TX: Author.