Voter Redistricting (School Board): Needed or Not?
School board chairman, Ron Crawford, received some disagreement today from the Star-Banner editorial board for proposing to correct the voter-constituency coverage of the five school board districts. Crawford proposed voter redistricting after discovering he had 32,670 registered voters in District 5, which is 22,000 fewer voters than in board member Steve Hering's District 2.
It has been 10 years since the school board last redefined voting district boundaries. Rapid growth, especially in the southern portion of the county, caused Hering's district to grow far faster than the others since 1997.
The proposal would be to redefine voter districts to have the school district populations covered be more equal. Though voting is countywide, school board candidates must live within the district they represent. The redistricting would be completed without removing a school board member from his or her current district. Also, the redistricting process would not affect school attendance zones.
The school board has set a public hearing on the proposal.
What do you think? Does Crawford’s proposal have merit or is it just a waste of time?
posted by Blog Master @ 1:54 PM
20 Comments:
Crawford must have someone in mind to run for his seat that was not in his district without making change to it.
Two reasons for districting, one is for representation, single member districting, the other is for residency requirment so all members are not from same area.
No other reason! What do you think!
Crawford is an astute republican politician.
It does seem to be more approapriate and fair, also time to do it. Not really a problem doing it.
I don't see anything wrong with what Ron wants to do. What is the newspaper's beef with it?
I connected to your link to the newspaper editorials but there is no article or editorial about Crawford's proposition.
they're always behind on the weekend. they'll have it on monday.
The Blunder is most always against anything suggested by a Republican. If redistricting had been suggested by a Democrat it would have been the best idea in School Board history. Remember too that RC has never been a Blunder favorite. He takes no crap off them.
I thought the editorial was off point. Much of it talked about the problems with education in general. None of which has anything to do with whether or not redistricting takes place.
I also did not pick up any mention of one important advantage of redistricting: equal, or nearly equal, numbers in each District means a more balanced availability of candidates to run for the School Board, since a candidate must reside in their District. It might even cut down on some of the change of residency game playing that goes on.
Right now, at least one District seems at a disadvantage. I guess the Star Banner Editors don’t believe having a balanced supply of Board candidates by District is important. They are more content to criticize Mr. Crawford and hammer issues likely beyond the control of the local school officials.
Who Cares. A useless editorial--a useless blogger topic.
I like the suggestion to have the School Districts the same as the voting Districts established for the County Commissioners. A pretty simple solution. But simple doesn't always work for government. However, it may be that the Commission voting Districts are also ten years old.
The opinions and editorials of the Star Banner are about as irrelevant as the opinions of the bloggers on Politically Homeless.
To the blogger who e-mailed us and asked for a breakdown of current registered voters by school district:
District 1: Judi Zanetti, 38,944
District 2: Steve Hering, 53,748
District 3: Bobby James, 41,560
District 4: Sue Mosley, 33,513
District 5: Ron Crawford, 32,670
Dee Brown the Democrat Election Supv. is OK on the redistricting, so it isn't just some Republican plot as has been insinuated.
I really don't understand the S-B's beef about what Crawford wants to do. Looks pretty common sense to me.
Does anyone know if Marion Oaks is now part of B. James District? It is mentioned as being in it in the redistricting. If that’s a change it would be a good one to help him get elected in 2008.
I don't trust the redistricting. There is something that doesn't meet the eye that we don't yet know about.
Agree with you.
There is nothing sinister about the redistricting. It makes sense. End of story!
Gun nutt says...
It is unfortunate that the Federal courts have forced counties to even have these districts in the first place. I say get rid of single member districts and have each seat be "at large." The only way to do that is to replace the federal judges.
I believe the SB wanted to redistrict based on County Comm districts, but Judi Zanetti lives in a gated community and it was on the edge of Sue Mosley's district so they could not draw lines the same as the Commission seats. I think that was Ron Crawfords original intenet to balance the same as Commission. Nice try Ron, good work!
Why didn't they go ahead and use the Commission Districts and just grandfather the residency of any current School Board members until they leave office? What would be wrong with that?
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