One week after a controversial redistricting map was adopted, the chairman of the Pierce County Council proposed Tuesday asking voters to reduce the number of council members from seven to five, which would require redrawing boundaries again in 2012.
Chairman Roger Bush said cutting two council positions would save the county more than $500,000 a year and resolve some issues with the map that was drawn to chart Pierce County’s political future for the next 10 years.
The council’s two Democrats criticized Bush’s move and said reducing the size of the council is an issue for the next charter review commission to take up in 2015 with a more extensive public process.
“To do this in this manner is a huge disservice,” said Councilman Rick Talbert, calling Bush’s proposal a “bad idea.”
To take on the issue less than four months before voters would decide is too quick, said council member Tim Farrell.
“I think it is a mistake,” he said.
But Bush, a Republican, said he’s entitled to make a recommendation before he’s term-limited next year. And he said the change would reduce the partisan nature of council positions.
“I think it takes it down quite a few notches,” Bush said.
In the short term, Bush said, he’s certain his proposal will elicit plenty of public comment to the council.
The council voted 5-2 Tuesday along party affiliations to move the proposal forward to its three-member rules and operations committee Monday. That committee will vote whether to send the proposal to the full council Aug. 9, where five votes would be required to put the charter amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot.
On Tuesday, the council is expected to decide whether to put two other charter amendments on the November ballot. They would make County Council positions and the county executive position nonpartisan.
If Bush’s proposal is put on the ballot and approved, a transitional districting committee will have to start drawing five council districts no later than mid-January 2012 for the new boundaries to become effective Jan. 1, 2013.
Each of the new districts would contain about 159,000 residents.
The map adopted July 12 by the Pierce County Districting Committee aimed to redraw seven districts with 113,600 residents each.
Some Republicans said that map heavily favored Democrats by spreading out Tacoma’s population so the city would have a majority or near-majority in three districts.
It also drew University Place Republican Stan Flemming out of District 7 with three years left on his term. Bush’s proposal resolves that problem by abolishing Districts 6 and 7 and having Flemming represent District 4 starting in 2013 for the last two years of his term. Flemming lives in what is now District 4.
Bush said he’d been thinking about the idea for a while and informed County Executive Pat McCarthy about the possibility a couple of weeks ago.
“This isn’t a rush thing,” Bush said.
His idea drew praise from fellow Republicans Dan Roach and Flemming, who both called it “bold.”
Council member Joyce McDonald, a Republican whose District 2 now includes Puyallup, is the only council member up for re-election in 2012.
McDonald said she likes the idea of saving and re-allocating money. But she also wonders what boundaries her district would have.
“Who knows what I’d be running for?” McDonald said. “I do want to look at how it will affect me and my district.”
Bush said his proposal would produce savings in the millions in just a few years that could be spent on more sheriff’s deputies, more deputy prosecutors or the health department.
He also said a five-member council would be more visible and more accountable.
“I think five is OK for the size of the population we’ve got,” he said. “Sometimes less is more.”
Steve Maynard: 253-597-8647
steve.maynard@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/polibuzz
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