Woodside seeks to balance Town Council districts Woodside seeks to balance Town Council districts (May 04, 2005)

By Andrea Gemmet

Almanac Staff Writer

The Woodside Town Council will be grappling with a little-known side effect of incorporating the Ward/Greenways neighborhood into the town -- redistricting.

Woodside is divided into seven political districts, and each of the seven Town Council members represent one of the districts.

Although Town Council candidates are elected in a town-wide vote, they must reside in the district they represent, as do Planning Commission members, who are appointed by the council.

With the addition of a small neighborhood near Woodside High School in September 2003, town officials are now obligated to rejigger the districts so they contain roughly equal populations.

Currently they vary by as many as 140 over and 158 under the average of 785 people per district.

To complicate the task, town officials must also try to make boundary divisions as geographically logical as possible and not divide up cohesive neighborhoods.

And, according to state elections code, they need to do it by July 26, 90 days before the November election, said Town Manager Susan George.

In November, at least three of the seven council seats will be up for election: those now occupied by Deborah Gordon in District 2, Joe Putnam in District 4, and Carroll Ann Hodges in District 6.

The election may also include Dave Tanner's District 1 seat. Mr. Tanner recently announced that he plans to move out of his district to a new home in District 4, which requires him to resign his council seat.

"I think one of the goals is to impact as few districts as possible, so we don't have to redraw the whole thing," said Ms. George.

The Town Council directed staff to come up with several options in time for a public hearing set for the May 10 Town Council meeting.

"It's going to be a tough task," said Mayor Paul Goeld. "It's really going to be a nightmare."

He said that besides the difficulty in trying to keep neighborhoods cohesive, sitting council members and planning commissioners could end up in a new districts and be forced to give up their seats.

"If it looks as though any of the recommended versions are going to boot you out of your district, I will let you know ahead of time," promised Ms. George. "I'll keep everything in mind, (but) I'm not going to do an obvious gerrymander."

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