It should be pointed out that S.1111 is sponsored by GOP Sen. Chuck Winder of Boise and GOP Rep. Joe Palmer of Meridian. It makes some needed revisions in the poorly drafted legislation passed last year. I suggest reading the bill before posting some knee-jerk reaction to Ms. Baker’s letter.

WHAT?
Let’s start here:
“All one has to do is take the total population,”

From 2010?

So use the 2010 population to divide up today’s Boise? There are a lot of people and neighborhoods here now that were not here in 2010. Granted, that is the law, but certainly not the intent.

Does ACHD use data that is 10 years old? Looking at parts of Cloverdale would suggest yes. But imagine going to the Board now and asking for road improvements based on data from 2010. Denied!

But whatever works, let’s just get a map of Boise and make some lines. Anyone got a crayon? It’s not rocket science.
I bet that message would go over real-well at the Commission for Reapportionment.

And make the effort twice within 2 years?

The former ACHD clan must want to get into Boise City Hall. Ha!

Sara, with all due respect, just saying stuff doesn’t make it true. Nobody cares about “rice bowls,” the serious people who are working on this care about how to implement this law in a way that will not result in lawsuits and expense.

That’s why Senator Winder and Representative Palmer (the sponsor of the original districts bill, remember!) are now sponsoring these amendments. I can tell you’re frustrated, and I can see you feel strongly, but the facts don’t care about your feelings. The uncaring facts are that the original bill was a poorly-thought-out, impossible mess and now people — the very same people who wrote the original bill! — are trying to fix it.

Anyway. To move the conversation along, here are two much bigger and more interesting questions about districts in Boise:

1. Right now Boise voters get to vote for all six council seats, and they get to vote every three years. After this is fully-implemented (yes, in 2025), every Boise voter will only be allowed to vote for ONE council person, and only once every SIX years. In other words, 5/6 of the city would have NO vote and NO say in whether, for example, Lisa Sanchez gets to retain her seat. How will people feel about that? I predict they will hate it.

2. Did the Idaho Legislature just give the political left more power in Boise? The left is more organized, and more neighborhood-specific than the right. Localized groups of lefties (for instance, NW Boise, SE Boise, the North End, and possibly the bench) may now get political control over “their” seat.

I think number 2 is likely and I think voters will be very upset when 1 dawns on them, but I could be wrong. Both of those topics are more interesting than Sara’s self-serving guest article and her willful blindness as to what S.111 is about, and why it’s being passed.

HB 413 was incomplete. During its formulation I said as much on many occasions. However, I didn’t want that to get in the way of getting the bill killed.

It is the case that the bill was lacking a provision to describe how and who should draw the new districts. I believe that the proposed solution to this issue is problematic. For those who do not know, the bill would allow the cities to create their redistricting procedure by city ordinance. There are many reasons why doing so could be ripe with conflicts of interest.

Instead, I have proposed that council districts be drawn by three people appointed by the county commission in which the city resides. I’d give one appointment to each commissioner. That would adhere more closely to the way we redistrict the legislature and congressional districts.

The sooner the North End monopoly ends the better.

This whole thing is just stupid, and reminds me about all the complaining about the mayoral race…

If there is truly a “silent majority” that resents North/East End control of Boise (and please note, I don’t live in either of those areas), I would think they could find some decent candidates who wouldn’t have any trouble gaining support.

Take a look at the count of people who vote in what precincts for city elections, and I think you’ll see the real problem is that lots and lots of people in Boise don’t participate. Drawing lines is only going to result in council members who get elected with very small amounts of support, because people aren’t engaged.

Solve the engagement problem, and the “need” for districts in the city would disappear!

I strongly supported the original bill and still do. However the city did not and came up with a myriad of reason to not implement it. In the end yes, they could have found a way to implement the bill. It would not really have been that complicated. Now we have an amendment to correct all the “in justices” of the first one. I have not read it yet. To Boise Lawyer it really does not matter how many times you get to vote, if you’re voting into a large pool. The candidates know very well where their votes come from. The current locations of our current councilors mirror that very well. The expense and effort required to run a citywide campaign is very daunting. Those from outside of the north end don’t really stand a chance. Where as candidates in a smaller geographic pool stand a better chance, voters have a local representative, it costs less. Our current legislative process works very well, I see no reason it won’t for city council either. Yes you will end up with a different mix of political ideology, but that’s the way is it supposed to be.

EDITOR NOTE–For the record, we support district residency with citywide vote just like we do with County Commishes. Conversely, would you want councilors to be limited to voting on issues and amounts only within their geographical district rather than the entire city? The council is such a small group–as opposed to congress or the legislature–that the actions of all should be subject to the entire electorate.

The amendment addresses the delayed census — allows the districts to use this new census, and completes districting, and district elections for the entire cities of Boise, Meridian, and Nampa, by 2023. It avoids needing to truncate any current City Council term to two years, which may have been a poison pill, and it gets districting completed two years earlier than other plans thrown out there. All good.

I am not surprised by this when they mayor of Boise refers to white water park as WEST BOISE?

And an Idaho Press reporter referred to the Ustick/Cloverdale area as being in ‘Central Boise’