City looks at 8- and 10-district possibilities

As promised at Tuesday’s council meeting, the City has released maps showing how the City might look with eight or ten council districts instead of five. Here’s the explanation:

The Ad Hoc Committee of the City Council on Redistricting conducted several public meetings regarding criteria and possible maps for new boundaries of five City Council districts. The boundary changes are required to have nearly equal districts based on the 2010 Census data. Map 12 was selected by the Committee as an example of what the boundaries could be like for five districts. For five districts, the goal of each district was 23,001 people with a maximum deviation of 5% [21,851 to 24,151].

In response to recent discussion at a neighborhood forum in the West Bluff, the Administration has prepared maps with either eight or ten districts as examples of what that number of districts could look like. Note that for each map staff used the criteria of:

  1. Nearly equal population with a maximum deviation of 5%, with the lower range of population in those areas planned or expecting growth
  2. Compact
  3. Contiguous
  4. Keeping together neighborhoods
  5. Using major thoroughfares as boundaries, with more weight on keeping together neighborhoods

Please find attached six maps that are examples of how the City could be divided into either eight or ten districts….

  • Maps 14 – 16 are examples of eight districts, with the goal of 14,376 people with a maximum deviation of 5% for a range of 13,657 to 15,095.
  • Maps 17 – 19 are examples of ten districts, with the goal of 11,500 people with a maximum deviation of 5% for a range of 10,926 to 12,076.

Note that these maps, along with minutes and recommendations from the Committee, will be scheduled for discussion at a future Council meeting.

Any questions or comments about the maps may be addressed to the City of Peoria Planning Department, 309?494?8600 or planning@ci.peoria.il.us.

And here are the maps (PDF): 072911-Redistricting-MapsикониПравославни икони

7 thoughts on “City looks at 8- and 10-district possibilities”

  1. I like the 8 District maps, especially Map 14. I believe the City would be best represented with 8 District councilmen, and 2 at-large councilmen. The currect council, with 5 at-large seats is ridiculous. I was told that we are one of the only cities in the country with this type of bizarrely configured council.

  2. When you have a bad distrcit council person, then one tends to rely on the at larges. At Larges can be good positions. Unfortunately, the council views them as 2nd class representatives.

  3. Mr. Moss,
    I agree with checking for details, i have had to go to Councilmen at large. Most of your Neighborhood leaders who know their way around will go to staff first, then and only if you can’t get help, call your District Council person, if they don’t return your call, Go to at large. I hope the city never gets rid of Council at large.. I have always had great luck with at larges..

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