News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Jackson County Commissioners will need to make minor moves county-wide to accomplish redistricting.
The changes will not include changes in the number of districts or the number of commissioners. Mayor Randy Heady said that model he and CTAS consultant Ben Rodgers presented to the committee Tuesday was the cleanest model they could come up with.
“Randy and I worked on it,” Rodgers said. “Again you’re the committee, it’s not Randy and Ben’s plan, but what happens is a lot of committees ask us to get with the mayor or the (Administrator of Elections) and develop some plans so they can look at and change. So all the work’s done.”
Heady said that the changes included increasing the populations of Districts 1 and 2, and decreasing the population of Districts 3 and 4. The model presented had no changes to those in District 6. He said he hopes to have redistricting finalized by the commission’s October 25th meeting.
Heady said that the biggest concern with these changes is an increase in travel time for some voter precincts.
“The worst thing that can come out of this is if somebody doesn’t go vote,” Heady said “So you move them and it puts them in position to a point where you made it a disadvantage where they say ‘Since they moved me there, I don’t care about driving all the way to that place to vote.’ That’s what we don’t want.”
Heady said that once the redistricting is finalized, those in new districts will be notified. He said that a solution to new precinct disadvantages is to partake in early voting at the county courthouse.
