Winfield headed for vote on electing by district?

Newly seated Winfield Trustee Tim Allen appears to have the votes needed to ask voters if they want to elect village board members by district.

By placing the question on the November ballot, the village could move toward ending its political hostilities in town and offer more balanced representation on the board.

An informal poll of trustees by the Daily Herald shows that at least four of the six would support letting residents decide if the town should be split into districts in future elections.

Allen said even if he did not have the votes, the issue is important enough that he would have circulated a petition through town to get it on the ballot.

“It is of vital importance that Winfield has districts,” he said. “It’s the only way to get peaceful elections in Winfield, to get groups that work together for the benefit of the entire town. I want to see that.”

At the end of his first meeting as trustee, Allen added the topic to the agenda of the next committee of the whole, which will meet May 19. If districts were implemented, Allen said campaigns would not be as vicious because candidates would concentrate on their own portions of town. This would mean less expensive campaigns that would allow anyone to print out leaflets and distribute them in their respective district, Allen said.

“My goal is to see good, quality people who can get elected with $500 or less,” said Allen, who acknowledged that he has been part of some of the more vicious and expensive campaigns.

Allen has the support of Jay Olson and his fellow newly elected trustees, Jim Hughes and Tony Reyes. Recently appointed Trustee Erik Spande said he has no strong opinion either way and will wait until he sees more details about the plan.

As of now, he says, he has compiled a list of pros and cons for each side.

“I expect to hear some very strong opinions on this from all sides,” he said.

Allen led a petition drive last year to get the question on the ballot. But a procedural mix-up forced him to drop the effort. During the campaign, he pledged to revisit the issue.

Olson said he signed Allen’s petition, which reached the required amount of signatures but missed a filing deadline, but only to place it on the ballot and let voters decide.

“I support the right of the voters giving the village guidance on whether districting is something they would be in favor of,” he said.

However, Olson stopped short of supporting the actual plan because, he says, he needs more details.

Hughes said the greater conversation is still forthcoming.

“It is a decision the people should make,” he said. “But the big question will come when we talk about how to do the districts and how many we will have ... It will be interesting.”

Allen says under normal circumstances, Winfield would be too small for districting. But the political climate in town, which has seen years of angrily contested elections, makes it a unique situation ripe for districting, he said.

“It is undeniable that we have anger management issues in our politics,” Allen said. “We need to sit down and start thinking about what we can do to build a better democracy here. If things were going along fine, I would say, ‘Yeah, Winfield is too small to need districting.’ But what we are doing now is not working.”