Lane County commissioners to consider controversial redistricting changes next month

Over the past year, a volunteer committee has developed several proposals to amend the Lane County Charter.

In a vote Tuesday, county commissioners rejected several of their own committee’s revisions and asked the group to consider an outside proposal instead.

The committee’s proposal included new district names and an independent redistricting commission.

The outside proposal, from a local attorney, Stan Long, would severely limit the number of people allowed to serve on the commission. The proposal also calls for new maps next year to permanently enshrine some district boundaries in the charter — though it’s unclear whether commissioners will consider Long’s full proposal, or just parts of it.

The charter is similar to a constitution and county commissioners can only amend it with voter approval.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Commissioner Pat Farr said he preferred parts of Long’s proposal to the committee’s. He argued it reduced political influence in the map-drawing process.

“The Board of Commissioners should not be involved – or should be involved as little as possible – in the selection of the redistricting committee,” Farr said.

Commissioner David Loveall said the move was intended to ask voters whether they wanted to change the redistricting process, not to conduct “redistricting by stealth” as critics have described it.

“I’m a little irritated by the comments that something unhealthy is going on,” he said. “My intention is to keep this momentum going and not push this matter back for another four years.”

Commissioner Heather Buch opposed the change, saying neither the charter review committee nor the public will have enough time to provide input.

She and Commissioner Laurie Trieger, who also opposed it, said that legally the county can change how it redistricts at any time between now and the next census.

“It’s really confusing, unless there’s some other intention after the election,” Buch said. “And I would like to have the best opinion of my colleagues, but right now, that’s not the case.”

Some members of the charter review committee and the public have also expressed concerns about Long’s proposal, saying restrictions on who can participate in redistricting would exclude young people and people of color.

Long’s proposal requires committee members to be registered voters for three years and to have voted in two recent elections. It also bars people whose family members are lobbyists, who have run for paid political office or who have worked for a political campaign in the past four years.

The charter committee will review Long’s proposal and provide a report by Aug. 6, when commissioners will decide whether to send the proposed revisions to Lane County voters.

The commissioners unanimously voted to put three proposals to repeal the charter to a vote. These proposals from the charter review committee, which have been the subject of much less discussion and controversy, would simply remove obsolete language.

The repeals include rules on how to manage a park that the county no longer owns and a tax that the county does not collect.