Woodbury Council redraws city precincts

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• New precinct boundaries

In the wake of legislative redistricting, Woodbury has had to redraw its own precincts.

Changes will have minimal impact on voters because all council members serve at large, but there will be some shifting to accommodate the new 2012 redistricting as well as population growth.

Woodbury City Council passed a resolution Wednesday to change the city’s precinct boundaries as well as to re-number them.

A judicial panel issued new congressional and legislative plans in February. The changes resulted in Woodbury being in U.S. Congressional District 4 instead of 6 and 2.

Woodbury now has new Senate District 53 virtually to itself, with representatives from districts 53A and 53B.

The city has to redraw its own boundaries because under state law, no precinct can have more than one legislative district.

“After reviewing the new congressional legislative boundaries, it was determined that a few minor shifts in population were necessary to accommodate these new boundaries,” said Kim Blaeser, city clerk.

Precincts were shifted to the west and a new precinct, 16, was added in the west as well.

Polling places will mainly remain the same. Blaeser said residents will be notified of the changes once they are established by May 16.

Additionally, the census block in school districts 834, 833 and 622, do not match. Therefore, new boundary lines were drawn to even them out, Blaeser explained.

Population in precinct 14A was shifted to the west and population from 3A was shifted to precincts 4 and 5. In other words, those in district 834 will have their own precinct, precinct 3A, which once encompassed portions of districts 833 and 622.

However, instead of having precinct 3A all the way to the east, while keeping precincts 1 and 2 to the west, the City Council recommended re-numbering the precincts.

“So that if you’re in 53A, you would be precincts one through six,” Council Member Christopher Burns said. “And then correspondingly, re-number 53B the higher numbers.

“I think it would be easier for the political caucuses to communicate to folks,” he added.

Council Member Amy Scoggins agreed and said that change would not impact residents.

“It seems like polling places are going to be the same for people,” she said. “A lot of people maybe don’t remember what precinct number they’re in but they know ‘Oh, I always go to the high school to vote.’”

Redrawing precinct lines will also take into account the future development of the southern portion of the city.

Blaeser said the former Congressional District 2 used to be precinct 3 in Woodbury.

That part of the city, south of Bailey Road from Century Avenue to Manning Avenue, has been divided into three separate precincts.

“This was necessary due to the change in congressional boundary as well as the growth and future growth in this area,” Blaeser said.

The city also took into account visible and recognizable physical features such as streets, parkways, rivers, streams and drainage ditches to draw new precinct boundaries.

Valley Creek Road, Lake Road, Woodlane Drive, Queens Drive and Woodbury Drive are a few of the major dividers, according to the new map.

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