City council redraws Laramie’s political lines

Council approved a map that will split Laramie into north, south and east wards, dividing West Laramie between north and south. Also advanced: an affordable housing ordinance for single-family zones.

The Laramie City Council voted to split West Laramie, the west side neighborhood and the downtown area in its final redistricting vote Tuesday.

The three neighborhoods are currently grouped together in Ward 1, but will now be split between Wards 1 and 2. Councilor Andi Summerville sought to increase the number of councilors with West Laramie constituents and proposed the map advanced by councilors at their latest meeting.

Summerville said dividing West Laramie’s population between the north and south wards would give them six councilors, rather than three. Others objected, saying the move would “crack” West Laramie, diluting the neighborhood’s representation by placing every one of its citizens in a ward where they are in the minority. Still others objected, saying West Laramie should not receive special treatment above other neighborhoods where the population has been packed into one ward or cracked between two.

Councilor Summerville admitted the map she championed was not perfect.

“The city council really needed one more meeting to hone in on a good map,” she said. “I feel like, unfortunately, we were forced into doing this in two weeks, in a hurry, because of a lot of factors that were out of our control … the timing of this process has not allowed us to do a good job.”

The local redistricting process was delayed by the state redistricting process, which — despite its early start last year — dragged on through the State Legislature’s budget session and even beyond.

Albany County was one of the few locales to get an early start on redistricting, and in November, its state legislators united around a specific map proposal, long before the rest of the State Legislature met this winter.

Debate continued through the 2022 budget session, as plans were submitted, rejected, reworked and thrown out. State lawmakers finally signed onto a state map in mid-March, sending a controversial proposal to the governor in the final hours of the session.

Gov. Mark Gordon did not sign the map into law, so it became law only after his veto window passed. (He did, however, write a letter detailing his reasons for taking no action during those ten days.)

During this time, the Laramie City Council was left in limbo.

Just as state legislators were tasked with updating Senate and House districts across Wyoming, the Laramie City Council was tasked with updating its three council wards, seeking to achieve nearly equal representation in light of new census data.

Laramie’s ward lines do not have to follow Wyoming’s district lines, but ward lines do have to be crafted with an awareness of those district lines. (If ward lines are drawn without taking district lines into consideration, it could result in “sliver” precincts, threatening the privacy of the vote.)

So, in its first redistricting vote, the Laramie City Council advanced a “placeholder” map — one it had no intention of eventually passing.

On the map’s second reading, the placeholder was swapped out with another map. The new map was the first to split West Laramie and kicked off the first debates about “cracking,” or gerrymandering a community of interest by dividing its population between multiple districts or wards.

On what should have been the map’s third and final reading, discussion was postponed when some councilors identified problems with the favored map, and as Councilor Erin O’Doherty suggested an alternative map that would keep West Laramie whole.

On the map’s second attempt at a third reading, the vote was postponed again. But this time, it was clear what map the council would approve. Councilors voted to swap out the map previously advanced with a slightly different version ironing out some of the issues identified earlier. The new map still split West Laramie, as well as the west side neighborhood and the downtown area.

The councilors directed city staff to prepare a written description of the new map — an essential component of the process for writing the map into the city code — and it was this map, with the newly crafted description, that appeared before council Tuesday night.

Councilors approved the map and its description on a 6-1 vote, with Councilor O’Doherty opposed. Mayor Paul Weaver and Councilor Brian Harrington were absent from Tuesday’s meeting and did not, therefore, vote on the final map.

Now, Albany County Clerk Jackie Gonzales will submit the new map to local party chairs and advertise it in the Laramie Boomerang. She will also present the map to the Albany County Commissioners in early May, before candidate filing begins May 12.

Gonzales objected to the splitting of West Laramie in a letter to council two weeks ago.

“We believe West Laramie is a community of interest with overwhelmingly overlapping interests in representation,” she writes in the letter. “While we do appreciate and respect the idea of establishing a greater number of ties between West Laramie and city representatives, this does not necessarily increase the quality of these ties.”

Single family zoning and community grants

The Laramie City Council also advanced city code changes in single-family zones. If these changes pass a third and final reading, they will give developers more flexibility to build denser housing in single-family zones, while giving homeowners in those zones greater ability to rent out “accessory dwelling units” — attached or detached residential units, like a renovated garage, basement apartment or standalone unit in the backyard.

The potential changes are part of the council’s multi-faceted push to increase affordable housing availability in Laramie.

The council also awarded $210,000 to its “community partners” — nonprofits and quasi-governmental organizations that support social services and community enrichment. The community partners had requested more than $315,000 but the pot was limited and the cash was awarded by averaging individual suggestions from all of the councilors.

The community partner funds come from “5th penny” sales tax revenue and the $210,000 in awards are contingent on the funds being available and the passage of the city’s biennial budget in June.

The council postponed planned discussions about the city’s 5th penny tax, and about bike regulations, to future meetings. The council also debated Laramie Recreation Center fees and permitting for small daycare businesses.