City Council digs into redistricting
Councilors will host ward meetings tonight to discuss the boundaries of the city’s three wards. Tomorrow night, they’ll meet with local lawmakers to examine boundaries for legislative districts.
Redistricting is the topic of the week for the Laramie City Council. And it’s not difficult to see why: necessary changes to the political boundaries within and around Laramie could radically alter how residents are represented, both at city hall and in the state capitol.
Tonight, city councilors will meet with their constituents during three concurrent virtual ward meetings.
The ward boundaries within Laramie will have to be altered following the 2020 Census. To ensure equal representation, the wards are supposed to be roughly evenly divided. In Laramie, that means each ward should have around 10,400 people. City Councilor Erin O’Doherty said her own ward, Ward 3, is now too big while Wards 1 and 2 are too small, according to the U.S. Census figures.
But there are a number of things to consider as one begins to draw new lines.
“One thing I think all the councilors are interested in is keeping the future dorm location and the present dorm location in the same ward,” O’Doherty said. “That’s the biggest census block in the state. That little strip that has the dorms in it has 1,600 people. So as soon as you move that into one ward or another, it shifts the balance.”
Some councilors would also like to keep neighborhoods together, especially neighborhoods like the west side, which have a strong sense of identity. O’Doherty would also like to see diversity within the wards, so that all councilors are representing both residents of mansions and residents of mobile homes.
“I think that’s desirable — to have a mix instead of having expensive houses in one ward and the least expensive ones in another,” she said.
The three ward meetings take place tonight from 6-7:30 p.m. Zoom meeting details are available on the city’s website. So is a map of the current city wards.
But ward boundaries aren’t the only political lines being discussed this week. The county’s dividing lines for state house and state senate districts are also “in play” as the Wyoming Legislature prepares to redistrict the state.
Councilors will meet with local lawmakers and the Albany County Commissioners during a work session Wednesday, during which representatives from all levels of government will discuss redistricting plans for the county.
Local lawmakers have put forward their proposal for new political boundaries within Laramie. That proposal shifts every local house district — and even moves House District 13 completely — but the area most likely to be of interest to the council is West Laramie.
Brian Harrington, a Ward 1 city councilor, said West Laramie has long struggled to be seen as a part of Laramie and not as a separate entity.
“I’d love some consideration for a map that includes West Laramie in House District 45,” he said. “I think removing that neighborhood is bad for the overall perception of West Laramie being a part of Laramie.”
Under the current proposal from local legislators, most of West Laramie, which is cut off from the rest of the city by a river and a railroad, would be transferred from HD-45 to HD-46. That means residents of West Laramie would be represented by the same house member who represents rural county residents south and west of the city, and no longer represented by a house member who represents city-dwellers in the downtown and tree neighborhoods.
The councilors, commissioners and legislators will meet via Zoom tomorrow at 6 p.m.