Panel commences work on city's new ward map
TWINSBURG – Some city residents could find themselves in different wards starting in January 2023 after a recently appointed districting committee recommends a new ward map and Council approves it.
A committee of five appointed residents – one from each ward – began the districting process May 12. A handful of additional meetings are planned – the next one being May 31 – before the panel recommends a new map to Council in a few weeks.
The members of the districting committee are Sue Clark (chairman), Ward 1; Leonard Taylor Jr. (vice chairman), Ward 2; Paul Levine, Ward 3; Lori Steward, Ward 4; and Mark Little, Ward 5.
The city charter mandates the city redistrict its wards approximately every five years to keep close to the same number of voters in each ward, according to Law Director Matt Vazzana. The new boundaries will become effective Jan. 10, 2023.
Vazzana explained to the committee that each ward must not differ in size by more than 10 percent of the voters in the smallest ward, based upon registered voters in the November 2021 election.
“No other city in Ohio might deal with districting the way Twinsburg does,” said Vazzana, noting most of them review and possibly change ward boundaries every 10 years after the U.S. Census.
Once the panel completes its duties, a report consisting of a map and description of the wards will be drafted and presented to Council as a proposed ordinance.
“The new map then will determine from where voters pick their elected Council representatives,” Vazzana said. The charter provides that Council must be made up of one rep from each ward and two at-large reps.
Voting precincts are set up by the Summit County Board of Elections based on the ward boundaries.
“Council Clerk Shannon Collins has reached out to the Board of Elections, and we’re outside of that 10 percent variant,” said Vazzana. “So we’ll have to make some adjustments to the map to conform to the charter; we can’t just keep it as it is.”
The registered voters breakdown used when the current ward map was drawn is as follows: Ward 1, 2,349; Ward 2, 2,488; Ward 3, 2,731; Ward 4, 2,590; and Ward 5, 2,427.
The breakdown the panel will have to deal with when shifting census blocks to stay within the 10 percent variant this time around is as follows: Ward 1, 2,666; Ward 2, 2,729; Ward 3, 3,075; Ward 4, 2,937; and Ward 5, 2,818.
Vazzana added the last time the districting process took place – in 2015 – the Board of Elections kicked back the approved map because it did not conform to the census blocks the board relies upon to set up voting.
Thus, more work on the map was necessary, and the current boundaries were not approved until 2017.
Vazzana said the wards must remain contiguous, and usually follow main highway and natural features. “You can’t just shift half a street in the same census block, and you can’t create islands within a ward,” he said. “Essentially, you can’t gerrymander.”
Vazzana said he and Collins will work with the committee, and the city’s GIS specialist will provide revised maps as the members shift the census blocks around.
“Once we arrive at a map concensus, we’ll probably send a draft to the Board of Elections and ask it to make sure we’re not missing something, because we don’t want to face the same situation we faced in 2015,” Vazzana said.
Contact the newspaper at twinsburgbulletin@recordpub.com.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Panel commences work on Twinsburg's new ward map
