County Redistricting Vote May Be in Question

The new boundaries of Jefferson County’s council districts may prove less controversial than the process used to approve them.

Facing a deadline to approve or reject a proposal by the county’s redistricting commission, the county council on Monday voted 4-1 to approve changing the Antonia No. 2 voting tabulation district (VTD) from Council District 4 to Council District 7, and splitting the Pevely Outside No. 2 VTD between Council Districts 4 and 5.

Those changes will affect few voters, said Tony Becker, chair 
of the county’s redistricting commission and will bring the districts into compliance with the county charter requirement that no more than a 10-percent difference in population exist between the districts.

At issue is whether the county council approved the changes according to the county charter language.

The charter requires any redistricting proposal be accepted or rejected “by the affirmative vote of all council votes,” which the charter idefines as “the number of votes that would be cast by council members on any matter if no council members seats were vacant and all council members were present and voting.”

County council members voted to approve the changes with
 five of the seven council members present.

Councilman Don Bickowski and District 7 Councilman Kelly
 Wayman were both absent from the meeting.

Retired attorney Michael Turley, who helped write the charter, advised council members at Monday’s meeting that “all council votes” meant all seven council members.

But County Counselor Wes Yates said the language was
 ambiguous.

“As much as (the charter commission) tried, it’s not really clearly defined,” Yates said. “It’s ambiguous and open to interpretation.”

District 2 Councilwoman and Council Chair Renee Reuter cast 
the lone vote against approving the proposal.

District 3 Councilman Bob Boyer, District 4 Councilman Charles
 Groeteke, District 5 Councilwoman Teresa "Terri" Kreitler and
 District 6 Councilman Cliff Lane all voted in favor of adopting the proposal.

County Executive Ken Waller declared the measure passed.

Waller said his interpretation, based on Yates’ counsel, is that all votes referred to a majority of the full council as though no members were absent. Under that interpretation, he said, that the redistricting proposal passed because the four-vote majority was a majority of the full seven-member council, not simply 
a majority of the five members present.

“It was just to me a difference of interpretation,” Waller 
said. “There are some things in the charter that are so precise, so spelled out that it’s black and white, but there are some things in the charter that aren’t spelled out. It’s a little vague. This is one of those things, in our opinion, that are a little vague. This is our interpretation of what the charter says and that’s what we went with.”