The three Byrnes Mill wards may have a new look when the April 2 general municipal election rolls around.
Mayor Rob Kiczenski said the city has updated its ward maps, which were shared with the public at a hearing on Dec. 6.
According to the new maps, the wards are better balanced and more representative of the city, he said.
The Byrnes Mill Board of Alderpersons is expected to vote Dec. 20 to approve the ward maps, City Clerk Melinda Benedict said.
While the population in each ward is more evenly distributed according to the new maps, most residents will remain in their current wards, Kiczenksi said.
He said the realignment was necessary.
“We were way out of balance,” he said. “That occurs through people moving in and out, new builds going on and various other things like that occurring.”
Byrnes Mill’s current population is 3,173, and the city can have no more than 3 percent deviation in the number of residents per ward. According to the maps shared at the public hearing, Ward 1 will have 1,053 residents instead of the current 902; Ward 2 will have 1,057 instead of 689; and Ward 3 will have 1,063 instead of 1,582.
“We want to make sure that it’s an equitable distribution of the population,” City Attorney Craig Smith said. “We also want to avoid relocating any incumbent alderperson, so we made sure that we didn’t draw someone out of their district into a different district.”
Kiczenski said all the major Byrnes Mill subdivisions will be kept within their current wards.
The last time the wards were changed followed the 2010 Census, Kiczenski said.
Municipalities are required to redraw districts once every decade after receiving updated population information from the U.S. Census Bureau. However, no state or federal statute dictates exactly when a city must redraw its districts.
Jefferson County Clerk Jeannie Goff said following the release of the 2020 Census results, most cities within the county redrew their districts before the April 2022 election.
Kiczenski said it took a while before Byrnes Mill received the 2020 Census data, which stalled redistricting plans.
“We got word of (the data) last year, and we started doing it, and it’s just something that didn’t get completed until now,” he said.
“Really, there is never a bad time to redistrict,” Smith said. “There’s not a firm deadline. I wasn’t the city attorney until earlier this year. I don’t know why they didn’t look at it (in 2022). The most important thing is that the city of Byrnes Mill has undergone this redistricting to ensure that each person is appropriately represented across our wards.”
Smith also said the process of redistricting is labor intensive and takes time to complete.
Next steps
The details of the new wards were sent to the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office following the public hearing, Kiczenski said.
Goff said the county will generate a new map of the three wards and notify voters of the change before the April election.
“They needed to get that information to us as soon as possible because we have to finish up all of our mapping before the April election,” Goff said. “I told them I would like a mapping along with all of the street addresses and house numbers and what ward they were in and what ward they will be changed to.”