Proposed County Redistricting Could Move More of Redmond to District 6

The King County Districting Committee has released four alternative plans for redrawing County Council districts, according to a Monday news release.

Much of the proposed change is designed to accommodate a larger population in District 3, which represents the fast-growing Sammamish Plateau and is currently the district that contains most of Redmond. Each draft plan uses a different approach in order to meet the redistricting requirements in state law and the county charter. 

Three of the four proposed scenarios involves adding Redmond neighborhoods that are located west of Willows Road into District 6, which is currently represented by vice chair Jane Hague, with "Draft 4" also proposing to shift some of unincorporated Redmond into District 1, which is currently represented by Bob Ferguson.

"Draft 2," meanwhile, would keep Redmond's boundaries as they are, with most of the city and unincorporated Redmond in District 3 and represented by Kathy Lambert. All of the plans are posted on the committee website at www.kingcounty.gov/districting.

Before beginning work, the committee held public hearings in Seattle, Kirkland, and Kent to gather community input. The new target size of a county council district, in terms of population, is approximately 215,000 people, up from 193,000 in 2005 when the county reduced the number of council seats from 13 to nine.

The districting committee will host four public hearings to discuss the plans and gather input:

Wednesday, June 29
6:30-8:30 p.m.

Shoreline City Hall
Council Chambers
17500 Midvale Ave N
Shoreline, WA 98133

Thursday, June 30
6:30-8:30 p.m.

Bellevue City Hall
Council Chambers
450 110th Ave NE 
Bellevue, WA 98004

Thursday, July 7
6:30-8:30 p.m.

Highline Community College

Building 7
2400 S 240th Street
Des Moines, WA 98198

Tuesday, July 12
6:30-8:30 p.m.

Van Asselt 
Community Center
2820 S Myrtle Street
Seattle, WA 98108

Community members can also provide written testimony on the committee website or by writing to Districting Committee, 516 Third Avenue, Room 1200, Seattle, WA 98104. 

Following community input and further study by the districting committee, the draft plans may be revised, combined, or one proposal may be adopted as is.

Candidate eligibility for the King County Council races this fall will remain unaffected by the changes, but if an elected official lives in a community that is redistricted, they must run for the district in which they live in the next election cycle. A single, final district plan must be approved by the committee by January 15, 2012.

By law, council district boundaries must be redrawn after each U.S. Census to make each district as nearly equal in population as possible. The county charter places sole responsibility for redistricting with the independent, citizen districting committee.