Reapportionment of city wards begins

The process must be completed — including a 60-day period for approval by the U.S. Justice Department — by Aug. 29, which is when qualifying for the 2011 city elections begins. In city government, the mayor and council members from Wards 3, 4 and 5 will be up for election. School board districts 3, 4 and 5 will also be filled in the Nov. 8 election.

“Joel has already done one map, but it may not satisfy y’all,” observed city manager Clarence Bryant at the city council’s work session Monday night.

By law, the city must divide its populace into equal election districts. A five-percent deviation is allowed. Since the 2000 Census, three of Commerce’s five wards have grown out of kilter with that requirement. Wards one and three are in compliance, but Ward 2 is under-populated by 172 voters, Ward 3 has 263 too few voters and Ward 5 has 410 too many voters.

City officials planned to meet with Logan Friday morning. They will bring back a map for the council — and presumably school board members — to consider.

Logan’s initial effort managed to keep all of the incumbents in the same wards/districts, always a primary political consideration.

Ideally, city officials would like to clean up the wards to better define district boundaries. Ward 5 is the major issue.

“We had to create Ward 5 for Richard Massey,” recalled Mayor Charles L. Hardy Jr., referring to the late long-time city councilman.

As a result, Ward 5’s boundaries are the most jagged and hard to follow, jumping across the railroad tracks.

Although city council members are elected by wards and school board members by districts, the wards and districts have the same boundaries.