Hillsboro voters prefer equal wards
By
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To the editor:
Joseph Hiestand was the state representative for the district that included Hillsboro back in 1970. That's the Republican Hiestands in Highland County.
It's true he didn't cast a vote for nor against House Bill 994 when it first went through the Ohio House of Representatives, but he did vote in the affirmative for HB 994 to concur with the Ohio Senate changes to the bill before it came law.
Could you have asked for a more rock-ribbed member of the Party of Lincoln to have voted for the law requiring wards to be substantially equal in population (Ohio Revised Code section 731.06)?
You don't have to believe me on this, you can look it up your self in the Ohio House Journal. You may want to pay particular attention to the July 16, 1970 entry.
Now, I hear you have a candidate for mayor who concerned about outdated city ordinances. Well, as near as I can tell, a new count of the people makes any old count of the people outdated so any ordinance based on an old count of the people becomes outdated when you have the new count published. I believe that what former State Representative Hiestand was getting at.
The tool for all this is America Fact Finder 2 courtesy of the Census Bureau. Some of the useful files http://www2.census.gov/census 2010/01-Redistricting File-PL 94-171/oFILE STRUCTURE.pdf, the oGEOID_Consturction_for_Matching.pdf found at http://www2.census.gov/census 2010/01-Redistricting File-PL 94-171/oGEOID Construction for Matching. pdf, and the pl94-171_tech_doc.pdf at http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/doc/pl94-171.pdf.
Any high school social studies, history, mathematics, or computer class that finds someone interested in this is probably going to want to drill down to the census block level within the city limits of Hillsboro. Then, you just take the current map and run the numbers to see what needs corrected. Then you can figure out how the lines need moved to get things more equal. The hard copy method is to get a map from the Ohio Department of Development for a census map of Hillsboro and a table of the population of each census block.
I'll just repeat that when Hillsboro voters, the people for whom the city is supposed to be organized, were asked the question, they voted by 59% in favor to 41% opposed to have wards drawn within 5% of the ideal population for a ward which is just the 2010 census population of the city divided by four.
The rationale I put forward for allowing that variance (and only that variance) is that city blocks don't come with uniform populations and you might have a big one somewhere. But the numbers I cranked back then didn't suggest a need there'd be any need for any variance from the ideal.
So you see, I've just been trying to be a good Republican. Of course, I don't know how a Democrat could claim to be a member of the party of the people and oppose treating people equally for election districts for council seats. And the fact my parents and a sister still live in Hillsboro certainly gives me good reason to take some interest in affairs there.
Sincerely,
Kelley Walker[[In-content Ad]]
Joseph Hiestand was the state representative for the district that included Hillsboro back in 1970. That's the Republican Hiestands in Highland County.
It's true he didn't cast a vote for nor against House Bill 994 when it first went through the Ohio House of Representatives, but he did vote in the affirmative for HB 994 to concur with the Ohio Senate changes to the bill before it came law.
Could you have asked for a more rock-ribbed member of the Party of Lincoln to have voted for the law requiring wards to be substantially equal in population (Ohio Revised Code section 731.06)?
You don't have to believe me on this, you can look it up your self in the Ohio House Journal. You may want to pay particular attention to the July 16, 1970 entry.
Now, I hear you have a candidate for mayor who concerned about outdated city ordinances. Well, as near as I can tell, a new count of the people makes any old count of the people outdated so any ordinance based on an old count of the people becomes outdated when you have the new count published. I believe that what former State Representative Hiestand was getting at.
The tool for all this is America Fact Finder 2 courtesy of the Census Bureau. Some of the useful files http://www2.census.gov/census 2010/01-Redistricting File-PL 94-171/oFILE STRUCTURE.pdf, the oGEOID_Consturction_for_Matching.pdf found at http://www2.census.gov/census 2010/01-Redistricting File-PL 94-171/oGEOID Construction for Matching. pdf, and the pl94-171_tech_doc.pdf at http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/doc/pl94-171.pdf.
Any high school social studies, history, mathematics, or computer class that finds someone interested in this is probably going to want to drill down to the census block level within the city limits of Hillsboro. Then, you just take the current map and run the numbers to see what needs corrected. Then you can figure out how the lines need moved to get things more equal. The hard copy method is to get a map from the Ohio Department of Development for a census map of Hillsboro and a table of the population of each census block.
I'll just repeat that when Hillsboro voters, the people for whom the city is supposed to be organized, were asked the question, they voted by 59% in favor to 41% opposed to have wards drawn within 5% of the ideal population for a ward which is just the 2010 census population of the city divided by four.
The rationale I put forward for allowing that variance (and only that variance) is that city blocks don't come with uniform populations and you might have a big one somewhere. But the numbers I cranked back then didn't suggest a need there'd be any need for any variance from the ideal.
So you see, I've just been trying to be a good Republican. Of course, I don't know how a Democrat could claim to be a member of the party of the people and oppose treating people equally for election districts for council seats. And the fact my parents and a sister still live in Hillsboro certainly gives me good reason to take some interest in affairs there.
Sincerely,
Kelley Walker[[In-content Ad]]