Election may have solved redistricting

Sito Negron

Friday, June 25, 2004 | 9:37 a.m.

Las Vegas City Council may have solved two problems with this week's special election: Filling the Ward 2 seat left vacant by the appointment of Lynette Boggs McDonald to the Clark County Commission and figuring out a way to redistrict without disenfranchising voters in four precincts.

That's because those precincts, just north and east of Rainbow Boulevard and U.S. 95 and south of Washington Avenue, last voted in the 1999 elections when they were part of Ward 1.

In 2002, they were moved to Ward 2, which just had an election the year before. The next opportunity for them to vote in Ward 2 would have been in 2005, but if they were moved back to Ward 1, which next has elections in 2007, they would have gone eight years without a chance to vote.

Boggs McDonald strongly objected to moving those residents, and that could have been a sticking point for redistricting, first proposed by Councilman Michael Mack in late 2003.

Mack said he was pushing the idea because of rapid growth in his ward, which has more than 100,000 people, 21 percent more than the 79,000 in the landlocked wards 1, 3 and 5.

The city charter calls for redistricting to occur following every census, with each district to be within 5 percent of the population of the others. The charter allows, but does not require, redistricting in between the federal census counts, which take place every 10 years.

Now that the Ward 2 residents just voted in the special election -- the first time the council has broken its tradition of appointing people to fill vacant slots -- it clears the way to move the four precincts back to Ward 1.

Mack said that was not a factor in the council's decision to have the special election although he said that "after the fact, it was appealing."

He said that wards 2, 4, and 6 likely will shift north, and some of Ward 3 would have to move west.

He also said preliminary maps could come out as early as next week, and that council might hire retired judge Fred Kessler, who previously has worked on redistricting plans for the city, to "take some of that political process out of the staff's hands."

Councilwoman Janet Moncrief said she didn't care which precincts were added to her Ward 1, saying she understood the need for redistricting. "I am so new. I've only been in a year," Moncrief said. "I don't care where I go. My thought is that I treat everyone the same."

Steve Wolfson, who won the 12-person race and will attend his first council meeting July 7, declined to address the issue.

"It's (one of the) things I'm looking at and educating myself on," Wolfson said.