Lake County Board's Remap Committee met yesterday. There was a fly on the wall. It sent us a report. "The purpose of the committe, it was said, was to start creating a "fair" new map for county board districts. The committee consisted of five Republican board members (Chair Diana O'Kelly, Aaron Lawlor, Steve Mountsier, Linda Pedersen and Brent Paxson) and two Democratic members (Mary Ross Cunningham and Bill Durkin). Wait...five to two from a board almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats? Ah, magic already!
Much discussion ensued about the state's requirement that districts be 1) equal in population, 2) represent the interests of minorities as far as possible and 3) be compact. Several members brought up that the County Board was sued last time around for failing to abide by the first two provisions. (And lost.)
Then the board moved on to the most important business on the minds of several members: reducing the size of the board. This is fairly obviously being done so that the Republican majority can reduce the number of pesky Democrats on the board. Redistrict them and get them to run against each other. Easy, peasy!
But the move had to be justified. State law says county boards need to be reduced to 18 if county population reaches 800,000. "We might get up to that number in the next ten years," said member Mountsier, "so we should start shrinking now." Huh? You start planning now for a hypothetical situation that might never occur? When do governments ever do that?
So the plan is to reduce the board to 21 members. Of course, since the population of Lake County increased dramatically since 2000, each district will be significantly bigger in the remap. Republican plan, apparently: fewer districts, less representation.
Another member mentioned that two Republican county board members were retiring anyway. As if it is Republican seats that are going to be eliminated.
But the last word was had by Brent Paxson. 'I think we should do this because it's good government even though we probably won't hit 800,000 [population] in ten years.' He means there's no darned reason to limit the size of the board to 18 or 21 or 2, but they're going to do it anyway.
Exactly. The Board is going to do what it wants. Who needs any stinkin' legal justification? In the end, the vote to reduce the number of members to 21 was typical of the Lake County board.
COMMITTEE: Aye.
O'KELLY: All opposed?
COMMITTEE: [crickets]
So get ready for a map that (like magic) pits two Democrats against each other (four Dems in all) in two of the new districts. Wouldn't it have been nice if the County Board had considered going non-partisan instead? Nah, that would be too much like voodoo."
