Clatsop County Board Of Commissioners Approves Redistricting Plan At June 22 Meeting

Thursday, June 23, 2011

BOARD APPROVES NEW COMMISSIONER DISTRICT BOUNDARIES

The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday approved new boundaries for the county’s commissioner districts.
The new map leaves the five districts in their same general locations, with some shifting of households between districts to account not only for changes in population but also the new method used for counting residents.
The map adopted Wednesday is the same one approved in May by a citizen committee convened by the County Clerk.
Local jurisdictions are required to redraw legislative districts every 10 years to account for shifts in population revealed in the U.S. Census. The board’s vote affects only the commissioner districts – boundaries for Oregon House and Senate seats are set by the state legislature.
Under the county charter, commissioner districts must have close to equal population, and be contiguous and as compact as possible.
The new boundaries were drawn based on total population, versus the number of registered voters used to establish the former districts. For that reason, census blocks were used to tally the population instead of voter precincts. Census blocks generally do not follow the same boundaries as voter precincts, and in cases where a census block was divided by a district boundary, the line was redrawn to move the entire block into one district, resulting in some households switching from one district to another.
In Astoria, some areas formerly in District 4 in the eastern side of the city are now in District 3, while on the western part of the city some blocks moved from District 3 to District 1, and vice versa. Parts of Olney also moved from District 3 to District 4.
In Warrenton, the DeLaura Beach area shifts from District 1 to District 2.
In Seaside, areas in the southwest part of the city, including the Cove area, switched from District 2 to District 5.
The districts and general areas they cover are:
District 1 – Warrenton and western Astoria.
District 2 – Gearhart, Clatsop Plains and portions of Seaside.
District 3 – Miles Crossing/Jeffers Garden, Lewis and Clark, Olney and central Astoria.
District 4 – Knappa/Svensen, Westport and eastern Astoria.
District 5 – Cannon Beach, Jewell, Elsie, Hamlet and portions of Seaside
To see both the new and old district maps, go to “Redistricting Plan” at http://www.co.clatsop.or.us/.

Released by:
Tom Bennett
Community Relations Coordinator
(503) 325-1000