Newstrack: Reducing size of Linn County board could bring redistricting vote

CEDAR RAPIDS - After spending just a decade with a five-member Board of Supervisors, Linn County voters in November voted to reduce the board's size to three representatives.

Residents pushing for the reduction targeted supervisor wages - the county's supervisors, as well as the county auditor, recorder and treasurer, all make the same six-figure salary - and argued a smaller board would save money. Each of those officials earn $103,888 this year.

However, supporters of maintaining a five-member board said more supervisors offer more government representation to rural residents.

In the end, the resolution passed - by fewer than 2,000 votes - and set in motion a handful of events that will need to take place before the November 2018 election, when Linn County voters choose members of the three-member board.

What's happened since

Linn County currently is divided into five districts with voters in each selecting a supervisor who lives in the district.

That will have to change before the board reduces to three members, so the county will need to create a temporary commission to establish new district boundaries by Dec. 15.

Gary Jarvis, assistant county attorney, said the redistricting process can take close to four months and the Board of Supervisors decides when to create the temporary commission.

But there are two events that could change things for the county.

The first happens if supervisors decide to change the county's representation plan.

Iowa code allows for three types of plans.

There's the county's current district plan.

Another option has voters countywide picking supervisors who must live within designated districts.

Then there's a plan for at-large supervisors elected by voters countywide - doing away with designated districts within the county.

The only option that doesn't require redistricting is the latter one - the at-large representation plan.

Jarvis said he hasn't received any indication that the board will actively redistrict.

But a petition being circulated by Coggon resident Kevin Kula, who advocated for reducing the size of the board, could force the issue.

Kula's petition seeks a public vote on the three representation plans. It must be verified by June 1 to force an August special election.

Such an election would shift the redistricting deadline to Feb. 15, 2018.

Kula said he is close to collecting the required signatures - 10 percent of the most recent election, or about 11,700 signatures - needed on the petition.

'Right now we have somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 signatures ... we're real close,” he said.

l Comments: (319) 339-3175; mitchell.schmidt@thegazette.com