Ward residents: don’t get too comfortable in the confines of your ward boundaries.
City officials are beginning the process of redrawing ward boundaries for 2013, as a result of new population estimates from the 2010 Census.
Karen Goldman, deputy city clerk, briefed members of Aurora City Council’s Management and Finance Committee on April 5 on the process.
“We realize that it’s important to minimize ward disruption,” Goldman said.
Drafts of the new ward maps will be presented to the full council at a study session in the summer. Final drafts will be completed by November.
Aurora’s population according to the 2010 Census is 325,078, and the city is divided into six wards with population distributed as follows:
Ward I – 56,496 people
Ward II – 50,878 people
Ward III – 53,128 people
Ward IV – 51,765 people
Ward V – 55,254 people
Ward VI – 57,557
State law mandates that the population disparity between the largest and smallest wards is about 5 percent. Currently, there’s a 12 percent difference between the smallest ward, Ward II, and the largest, Ward VI. The target population for each ward is about 54,180 people, Goldman said.
Goldman said the city’s Election Commission will be cognizant of neighborhood organizations and associations, as well as communities of interest, when deciding how to redraw the boundaries.
But some changes may be inevitable.
“It’s the people who live on the edges of the wards who are always affected in this process,” she said. “They’re the ones that end up being moved if need be.”
Goldman said city staff will also refrain from moving council members out of their own wards.
“The Election Commission has agreed to do as few changes as possible,” she said.
The last time ward boundaries were redrawn was in 2009, and Councilwoman Renie Peterson said things got a bit contentious.
“Last time they tried to split up my neighborhood,” Peterson said. Many council members were up in arms with the initial proposal to redraw the boundaries, she said.
Some people were forced to leave the Election Commission because of the stress associated with the population distribution puzzle.
Councilman Bob LeGare said the maps are a touchy issue for council members.
“You might want to think about talking to ward council members before you bring this to a study session,” he told Goldman.
Mike Hyman, assistant city attorney, said redrawing ward boundaries should be a priority.
“The broader the deviations between ward populations, the greater risk you have of having those boundaries challenged under the Constitution,” he said. “When you start seeing the deviations we’re starting to see based on the 2010 Census it would really not be a good idea for me to say you can just leave (the wards) as they are.”
To find out which ward you are currently in and to se maps of each ward, visit auroragov.org/CityHall/Maps/WardMaps/index.htm
Reach reporter Sara Castellanos at 720-449-9036 or sara@aurorasentinel.com.