Trustees keep their districts in Lombard remap
A remapping required by the 2010 census has resulted in one that keeps all six incumbents of the Lombard village board in their current districts.
From 19 options presented Thursday, the village board chose the layout two trustees called the most similar to the map designed after the 2000 census. The new one is “pretty much identical to the districts we have now,” Trustee Bill Ware said.
“When you look at the map itself, it really does the most minor changes to our current map,” Trustee Peter Breen said.
The chosen map manages, though, to keep Trustee Keith Giagnorio in District 2 by extending a one-block wide section of it north two blocks into an area surrounded by District 6. Trustee Zachary Wilson said it looked “gerrymandered” and trustees suggested some alternative designs Thursday, but none of them retained the necessary population balance.
Redistricting is required after the census each decade to ensure a municipality’s population is divided equally among districts or wards that are drawn with compact, contiguous borders, Village Manager David Hulseberg said.
In Lombard’s case, District 3 on the south side of town grew considerably in population since 2000, so other district boundaries had to be shifted to balance the totals.
Trustees first discussed two possible redistricting maps in an open meeting June 7, but decided to delay any decisions until a later date. After discussion June 21 that amounted to arguments about whether to address redistricting in a workshop or a special village board meeting, trustees met separately with staff members and a total of 19 maps were developed.
Ten of those maps were eliminated quickly during Thursday’s discussion because they drew borders that did not keep the six sitting trustees’ homes within the districts they now represent.
The new map keeps districts 1 and 4 on the North side of the village, split by Main Street with District 1 West of Main and District 4 East of it. District 5 remains in the central section of Lombard East of Main with District 6 South of it, crossing over to the West side of Main to include 18 blocks between Washington Boulevard, Finley Road and Wilson Avenue. Districts 2 and 3 remain on the South side of the village, with District 2 encompassing the Southwest side and District 3 the Southeast side.
Each district contains between 16 and 17 percent of Lombard’s 43,321 population, or about 7,200 people.