Some Time Check Neighborhood residents unhappy with shift to east-side-heavy council District 1

CEDAR RAPIDS - Linda Seger, Northwest Neighbors president, told the City Council this week that a number of residents in and around the Time Check Neighborhood would prefer to stay in a west-side-only council District 4 than be moved into an east-side-heavy council District 1.

The odds would be small, Seger argued, for a west-side resident to win the council seat in the slightly altered District 1, which will now go from east-side-only voting precincts to a district with one west-side precinct and eight east-side ones.

Nonetheless, the City Council unanimously approved a new council district map this week that makes a few boundary changes in the five council districts - the most notable is the one Seger addressed - to account for the city's population changes in the 2010 Census.

The council's vote this week, which changes a city ordinance, requires two additional votes. The council first said at a June 20 meeting that it liked the proposed new district map, which was one of two final options provided by the Linn County Auditor's Office.

At this week's council meeting, at-large council member Don Karr said he grew up in the Time Check Neighborhood and he landed on the City Council, and he said he thought a west-side resident in the new District 1 could win election in that district, too.

District 4 council member Chuck Wieneke said the city's population has changed and the council needed to account for that in a way that follows state rules that require compact districts.

Back in 2005, the Home Rule Charter Commission and the City Council both said that a council district with voting precincts on both sides of the river would help bridge the perception, real or not, of an east-west divide in the city.

Council District 3 continues to have voting precincts on both sides of the river - five east-side ones, one west-side one and two precincts that straddle the river in the new map - and it is now joined by Council District 1 as an east-west council district.