[Vision2020] County Commissioner Terms and Districts

[Mark Solomon]

Donovan,

All good points that with one exception (district boundaries) are 
written in state statute and out of the hands of local 
decision-makers. I'd be reluctant to advocate changing the election 
cycle as it guarantees that a majority of the board is up for 
election every two years allowing reasonably quick voter response to 
commissioner action/inactions.

Regarding the commissioner districts, while I was commissioner we 
re-drew the district boundaries for the first time in at least 40 
years to more accurately reflect the changing county population 
densities. As part of that action, we invited public comment on how 
we should draw them: pie shape to include some of Moscow and the 
rural county in each district or make two districts essentially 
Moscow districts. The pie shaped form was the original. My preference 
would have been to make districts that reflected demographic groups 
(Moscow and rural county) rather than the existing pie shapes, but 
there were no public comments supporting a shift resulting from the 
extensively advertised public hearing process.

Mark Solomon

At 8:40 PM -0700 8/16/04, Donovan Arnold wrote:
>One of the things that bothers me about the Idaho County 
>Commissioner Election and Districts is that they are about as 
>confusing as you can get for the general public.
>
>For starters the Commission seats are for four years, then two 
>years, then four years then two years. This gets confusing. You 
>cannot remember who is up for election at what time.
>
>Second, the districts are drawn with no common interests. The county 
>is cut up like a pie. With each district being about 1/3 Moscow and 
>2/3 County. So nobody can really identify what district they are in.
>
>What I think should be done is that we elect one County Commissioner 
>during the General Presidential Election and the other two during 
>the Idaho Governor Election. This way people can keep tract of who 
>is up for election.
>
>For Districts, I think they should be drawn up on the basis of 
>geographical interests. For example, if the City of Moscow has 66% 
>of the population, it should contain districts one and two, and the 
>third should be the outer part of the county where their are more 
>farmers and other with similar interests.
>
>Does this make more sense to you then a system where the seats are 
>two years then fours, and districts that are drawn up with no 
>economical, regional, social, or demographical commonality? What do 
>you think?
>
>Donovan J Arnold
>
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