LITTLE ROCK — Pulaski County election commissioners adopted new ward boundary lines for Little Rock on Wednesday despite a request from one city director to delay the approval.
Election commissioners, who also approved county Quorum Court districts, said they were satisfied with Little Rock’s map because it had the support from nine of Little Rock’s 10 city directors.
The new lines reflect westward growth in Little Rock. The capital city grew from 183,133 residents in 2000 to 193,524 in 2010, with west Little Rock gaining the most new residents.
West Little Rock’s Ward 5 had to shrink whereas Ward 1 in downtown Little Rock had to pick up thousands of new residents, pushing its boundaries farther west into Ward 2 on the south side of Interstate 630.
Ward 1 City Director Erma Hendrix told commissioners Wednesday that she thought the wards had been gerrymandered to protect several city directors from having to run against one another and that Ward 1 continued to have the smallest population whereas wards including the city’s more affluent neighborhoods had more people.
Hendrix asked for more time to work on the map because “we only knew about these numbers on Oct. 12.”
The city had three public meetings a week before city directors voted Oct. 25. Hendrix was the only city director to vote against the map.
A quirk in state law gives the three-member Election Commission final say over Little Rock’s ward map. Arkansas Code 14-160-109 gives the election commission the job of dividing the territory of cities using the city manager form of government.
City Manager Bruce Moore told commissioners Wednesday that the map was legally defensible. State law mandates equal populations within wards but allows for a 5 percent variance. Moore said the new boundaries met that requirement, with each falling within 5 percent of 27,646 people.
“That was the first litmus test and the most important,” he said.
At Hendrix’s request, the city this week reviewed the number of voting-age residents in each ward. Ward 1 had the fourth-highest voting population of the seven wards under the redistricting plan, Moore said.
Throughout the process, Hendrix mentioned the possibility of legal action to force changes. Asked Wednesday about her plans, Hendrix said, “I have to wait and see what the people in the ward want to do.”
Commissioners also adopted new boundary lines for the Pulaski County Quorum Court.
Justices of the peace varied on which of eight proposals they favored. Four proposals would have seen at least one justice of the peace moved from his district and forced to face a fellow incumbent during re-election. Four more-recent proposals, however, would see no justice of the peace removed from his district.
Similar to what happened in Little Rock, the county’s westernmost district, District 1, grew from about 25,000 people to nearly 35,000. Its easternmost District 11 went from about 25,000 to 19,800.
Justice of the Peace Judy Green favored the proposal that would have united Wrightsville, which is split between two justices of the peace.
Doris Reed, the wife of Justice of the Peace Doug Reed who could not be at the meeting, said her schoolteacher husband favored the map that kept western Pulaski County in one district.
“We have an interesting issue going on out in that area. I’d prefer those people have one JP instead of two,” Doris Reed said.
Property owners in the area are concerned about the county’s proposed land-use regulations that would limit the number of houses built in a subdivision as part of an effort to protect the water quality of Lake Maumelle. Planning commissioners are expected to take up the land-use plan soon, with the Quorum Court having final say on adopting the regulations, which would also ban certain developments in the watershed, such as a landfill or trash transfer station.
After going back and forth on which proposal involved the fewest boundary changes, commissioners chose Plan 4A.
The plan kept western Pulaski County together in one district, but the small city of Wrightsville remains split.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 11/03/2011