Herald Writer
LAKE STEVENS — It’s easy to see that Lake Stevens sits at the crossroads of Snohomish County politics.
With county council elections a month away, street corners and farm fields sprout a rainbow of signs promoting one candidate or another.
While such signs are everywhere, Lake Stevens gets a surplus because two council districts share the city.
That would change under a plan to redraw the county’s political boundaries.
The new proposal, designed to adjust for population shifts in the 1990s, would end the split of Lake Stevens between council districts 1 and 5, pushing District 1 farther north and moving all of the city and surrounding area into District 5.
That’s the most dramatic change in a process that can shake up the political landscape.
Redistricting can change a district’s political leanings, force politicians to acquaint themselves with new constituents and change which council member a person can turn to for help.
None of the changes will bump current or aspiring council members out of their districts, something that can happen during redistricting. The process takes place every 10 years, after the release of new census results.
In the politically sensitive juggling act, the redistricting commission sought to balance the population in each district while putting cities completely within one council district, said Dorothy Zimmerman, a commission member.
The commission, made up of two Democrats, two Republicans, and a chairman appointed by the other four, received the plan from an Olympia computer mapping firm, Marshall and Associates. Zimmerman is a state committeewoman for the Snohomish County Republican Party.
Each party nominates commission members. The county council makes the decision.
Despite the partisan split, Zimmerman said the commission was unanimous in its support for the proposal.
Commission member Kent Hanson, chairman of the Snohomish County Democratic Party, echoed that sentiment.
He said he didn’t expect the boundary moves would produce any significant political shifts in a district.
"It is my impression that the changes were essentially a wash," he said.
The commission plans a public hearing about the proposal tonight, and then will consider whether to approve or change it. Any amendments would need the support of at least four commission members. The plan would then be sent to the county council, which can accept or reject it, but not tinker with the lines.
The new boundaries would be in place in 2002, with the first county elections using the new boundaries scheduled for 2003. It will not affect the November county council elections in districts 1, 4 and 5.
Council members expressed some surprise at the changes, but no immediate opposition.
"Wow, they really moved me north quite a ways," District 1 councilman Mike Ashley said.
Ashley and other council members said they generally supported the effort to keep cities within a single district.
"It seems that Lake Stevens should go one way or the other, just so there’s some consistency there," he said.
To achieve a new population balance, the fast-growing districts 1 and 5 needed to lose population, while districts 3 and 4 needed to gain. District 2 remained largely unchanged.
Other major changes in the new proposal include:
You can call Herald Writer Warren Cornwall at 425-339-3463 or send e-mail to cornwall@heraldnet.com.
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