News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Putnam County Redistricting Committee reviewed another plan Tuesday that would divide the county into seven districts.
CTAS Consultant Ben Rodgers said in this plan, each district would have about 11,400 people and three commissioners, making a total of 21 elected positions.
“Our deviation is a little over seven percent, seven and a half percent almost through this plan,” Rodgers said. “Now, it’s not perfect, but we worked a lot of hours on considering city limits and everything.”
Rodgers said the city of Cookeville would be divided between five different districts. Rodgers said Baxter would make up district three. District four would include Monterey and Algood.
“When you go seven districts, you’re adding a lot of land mass to a district, so if y’all have other ideas we can work on it,” Rodgers said. “This was just our best effort after six of hours of work.”
Committee member Jimmy Neal said, “I personally think if you guys put six hours of work into this, and you got it this close I don’t know much more we would be able to do to improve on that.”
After a brief discussion on possibly dividing the seven districts into 21 districts, the committee agreed to keep the seven district plan as presented for further review. Committee Chair Bob Duncan said he would like to view a physical map before a recommendation was made to the county commission to consider.
“So we can take a view of them instead of trying to view exactly where the lines are on the screen,” Duncan said.
Assistant 911 Director Brandon Smith has worked on the mapping throughout the redistricting process. Smith said he would be able to have copies available for committee members to view by the end of the week.
The committee now has two options on the table to present to the full commission in the future. A 12 or seven district division of the county. The 12-district plan was also discussed Tuesday but no changes were made.
The committee will meet again on October 26th at 6:30 p.m. to continue work.
