Friday, Sept. 10, 2004 | 9:17 a.m.
Three Las Vegas City Council members would represent portions of downtown under a redistricting proposal spurred by rapid growth in the northwest. The proposal is to be presented at the council's meeting Wednesday.
The council hired retired judge Frederick Kessler of Wisconsin to draw up the map, which puts more constituents into Wards 1, 3, and 5. It also gives Ward 3 Councilman Gary Reese a piece of downtown north of Fremont Street.
"It's an area I represented before. I used to represent all of historic West Las Vegas at one time," Reese said, a council member since 1995 when the body had only four representatives and the mayor. The council was expanded in 2000 to its current six members and mayor.
Ward 5 Councilman Lawrence Weekly, who is giving up the north side of Fremont Street but keeping the 61-acre parcel the city is hoping will become the centerpiece of downtown, said he's "kind of getting a piece of everybody."
Weekly, who initially expressed concerns about the timing of the redistricting when it was first proposed by Councilman Michael Mack, whose Ward 6 is the fastest-growing in the city and accounted for close to half the population growth in the city, said the process worked out in the end.
"I didn't oppose it. I just had concerns about how it will be divvied up. But I'm past that. Let's get it on and get it over with and meet our new constituents," Weekly said.
"Redistricting is what it is," he said. "It's a process. I wouldn't even be surprised if we go through this again in another couple of years. The city is growing too fast."
Ward 1 Councilwoman Janet Moncrief kept her portion of downtown, generally south of Fremont Street.
"I think that's good, to have three council members (representing downtown) as our city grows. I kept what I had previously and I'm real happy with all of it," Moncrief said. "I think the whole council is happy with the redistricting."
The redrawing of boundaries will adjust ward populations from the current range of 80,202 in Ward 1 to 116,840 in Ward 6. The new ward populations will vary from 92,000 to 94,000.
One sticking point for council members was the Ward 2 problem of voters who had missed several elections.
That's because several precincts, just north U.S. 95 and east of Rainbow Boulevard, 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.
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.
But Ward 2 residents just voted in Steve Wolfson during a special election in June -- the first time the council has broken its tradition of appointing people to fill vacant slots. That clears the way to move the four precincts back to Ward 1.
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