FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 10, 2012
Contact: Mike Kanarick
802.735.7962
City Council’s Special Committee on Ward Redistricting Announces Meeting and Invites Community Input
Burlington, VT – Mayor Miro Weinberger and the City Council’s Special Committee on Ward Redistricting today announced that the next meeting of the Committee will be held on Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at 6pm in City Hall’s Contois Auditorium and that the public is welcome and encouraged to attend and share its input.
“We welcome and encourage Burlingtonians to join us and share their thoughts and ideas at this important meeting and at future public forums as this process continues,” said Weinberger.
Redistricting is the process of adjusting electoral district boundaries to meet US Constitutional requirements of “one person, one vote” by ensuring approximately equal representation. Redistricting often occurs in response to population changes determined by the results of the decennial US Census. Based on the 2010 US Census, the City has determined that Wards, 1, 4, and 7 are outside the limits for approximately equal representation. Therefore, ward boundaries for all seven wards must be re-drawn. As part of its responsibility to redraw the wards, the Committee is considering changing the number of wards, councilors, and school board members.
The Committee members are:
- Mayor Miro Weinberger, mayor@burlingtonvt.gov
- City Council President Joan Shannon (Ward 5), jshannon@burlingtontelecom.net
- City Councilor Sharon Bushor (Ward 1), sharon.bushor@vtmednet.org
- City Councilor Paul Decelles (Ward 7), pdecellesw7@aol.com
- City Councilor Rachel Siegel (Ward 3), rsiegel@burlingtonvt.gov
To learn more about Burlington’s ward redistricting process, please visit http://www.burlingtonvt.gov/CityCouncil/Ward-Redistricting/.
If a plan is selected at tomorrow’s meeting, it will be referred to the City Council for consideration of the proposed redistricting charter change at its December 17, 2012 meeting, during which members of the community would be able to comment during the meeting’s public forum. Thereafter, the next opportunities for public comment on ward redistricting would be during two January formal public hearings to discuss the selected version.
The goal is to have the public vote on new wards on the March 2013 ballot.
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