Orange prepares districts

Voters will decide whether to change how county commissioners are elected

CHAPEL HILL -- It's now up to Orange County voters to decide in November whether to change how the Orange County Board of Commissioners is elected.

After much disagreement on how to change the make-up of the board, the commissioners approved a map and a proposal that divides the county into two voting districts and adds two seats to the current five-member board in 2008.

Four of the commissioners would be elected in 2008 and three in 2010.

Three of those seats would be designated for residents of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area south of Interstate 40. Two of the seats would require candidates to live in the second district, or the rest of the county.

For the five seats with residential requirements, primary election voters would vote only for candidates who live in their district. Two additional seats would be voted on by all primary election voters.

In the general election, candidates still must meet residency requirements of the voting districts, but would be elected countywide.

The board began discussing options for changing the election process after they received a petition in January 2005 signed by about 1,200 residents, mostly from the rural northern area of the county, who felt the lack of voting districts prevented a rural representative from being elected to the board.

But the commissioners had trouble agreeing just what option would please county residents.

Commissioners Moses Carey and Alice Gordon supported a map with a district border drawn at the Chapel Hill Township lines. Carey argued that residents just north of Chapel Hill are in a quickly growing area and should be included in the higher-density southeastern district. "Rural people don't think their needs are being adequately addressed by this proposal," Carey said.

Commissioner Barry Jacobs argued that the rural buffer north of Chapel Hill more closely identifies with the rural part of the county. He did not approve of Carey's map because a majority -- four seats -- would have been designated for candidates who live in the Chapel Hill Township.

In the end, commissioners Stephen Halkiotis, Valerie Foushee and Jacobs voted for the map approved Tuesday. Gordon and Carey voted against it.

Gordon warned that the map is flawed because the districts might have to be redrawn if the next census shows the populations have shifted.

County Attorney Geoffrey Gledhill said he, indeed, would recommend redrawing the lines if the standard deviation from the ideal population count for each voting district reaches 5 percent. On the approved map, Voting District 2 already has a deviation of 4.48 percent.

"I really think this is just a recipe for disaster, and the folks of Chapel Hill will vote it down," Gordon said.

Halkiotis challenged Gordon to be more positive about the approved changes instead of giving it "the kiss of death" before it reaches voters. "This is an experiment. We're all buying into it. Let's go out and sell it to the citizens," Halkiotis said.