The Deaver Community Center will be the site of a meeting next Tuesday to discuss voting boundary and legislative district plans for the northern Big Horn Basin, Rep. Elaine Harvey announced this week.
The meeting featuring Harvey, Sen. Ray Peterson and Rep. Dave Bonner is scheduled for 6 p.m. Oct. 4 at the community center in Deaver.
Harvey explained that a Wyoming Supreme Court decision many years ago requires the Wyoming Legislature go through a redistricting process every 10 years following the census under the principle of “one person, one vote.”
“That’s why there are no county lines anymore (for legislative districts),” Harvey said. “Every legislator represents a similar number of people.”
When she first took office, Harvey said she represented around 8,000 people, but now she represents nearly 9,000 residents.
The ideal, based on the state population, is 9,394 people, and the court allows a deviation of plus or minus 5 percent. Under a plan worked out among legislators in the Big Horn Basin, Harvey said she would represent 8,964 residents, which is a deviation of 4.6 percent.
We’ve worked really hard to try and maintain six representatives and three senators in the Big Horn Basin,” Harvey said. “To do that, House District 28 has to reach into Fremont County to get enough people. It will have a minus-4.9 percent deviation, even with Shoshoni and Lysite and parts of Meeteetse and Willwood south of the Shoshone River.
“Lorraine (Quarberg, R-Thermopolis) will have constituents in four counties.”
District 28 also includes Basin and Burlington and part of Emblem south of U.S. 14-16-20, Harvey said. House District 27 includes Washakie County and part of Big Horn County including Manderson, Hyattville and the Nowood area east of the Big Horn River.
House District 25 has excess population due to growth in Powell, so Harvey said her district – 26—will now encompass a different part of Park County, under the current plan. She said the legislature established guidelines to follow that include “communities of interest.”
“I asked for the Park County side of Deaver and Frannie, following the fire and cemetery district line,” she said. “I got that. I also had to go into the rural Garland area.”
The redistricting proposal will be explained to citizens at a series of meetings, beginning with Tuesday’s meeting in Deaver. Future meetings will be held Oct. 5 in Cody, Oct. 12 in Basin, Oct. 13 in Thermopolis and Oct. 17 at the courthouse in Basin when the plan will be explained to county clerks from the basin. Harvey said an attempt is being made to have the redistricting follow the boundaries of special districts in the basin.
Maps will be displayed at the meetings showing the proposed redistricting process and where individuals can vote.
The redistricting proposal will go before the legislature’s Corporations Committee, which will draft a bill to be debated in the upcoming budget session of the Wyoming Legislature.
“They will draft the bill to establish the lines,” Harvey said of the Corporations Committee.
Harvey also announced that the Deaver public meeting Tuesday will be followed by a presentation before the Deaver Town Council by Dennis Danzik of Ridgeline Energy Services Inc. and Danzik Applied Sciences LLC, who is proposing a water purification plant to be located in Deaver.
By David Peck
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