photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Douglas County commissioners listen to public commenters during their Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022 meeting.

The Douglas County Commission adopted a new five-member commission district map on Wednesday — after some on-the-fly adjustments — and voted to recommend that those new commissioners not be elected until the 2024 general election.

The commission voted unanimously to adopt the map, which needed to happen before Jan. 1, 2023, according to state statute. From here, the recommendation to wait until the general election will be sent to Gov. Laura Kelly, Douglas County Administrator Sarah Plinsky said.

The new map is a slight variation on a map crafted by Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew and county mapping staff using feedback from last week’s discussion, specifically regarding values commissioners said they wanted to see reflected in a new map — giving Eudora and Baldwin City their own districts and splitting the southern portion of the county from east to west rather than a north-south split.

photo by: Douglas County

The Douglas County Commission adopted this map as the county’s new five-member commission districts Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022.

Shew told commissioners Wednesday that simultaneously achieving those values proved difficult.

“After you met on Wednesday, we tried to take everything that has happened over the past several weeks, including the values that you discussed on Wednesday, to come up with one map,” Shew said. “I’ll be completely honest with you that (last) Wednesday night, I thought that was impossible. There are competing values that kind of restrict the way the map can be drawn, so this is what we came up with.”

But Commissioner Shannon Reid came into Wednesday’s meeting with concerns about the first version of the map, specifically that her district had been significantly changed while the two other existing districts had changed less, and she wanted to “spread out the change” if possible.

Reid even came to Wednesday’s meeting with another map she worked on herself — which hadn’t yet been shown to the public or other members of the commission — that she said would address her concerns about how her district was affected.

Commissioners eventually agreed that considering a second map Wednesday night would probably mean they’d need to meet again before the end of the year to allow time to examine it properly. Instead, they decided on having Shew and the county’s geographic information system manager, Tyler Fleming, adjust some precincts in the first map while the meeting continued.

That adjusted map doesn’t stray too far from the original, Shew told commissioners after a 30-minute recess. It just shifts some precincts between Districts 2 and 4 in order to keep the downtown Lawrence area more intact.

As for other features of the newly adopted map, it includes two districts, Districts 3 and 5, with less than 80% of their populations located in an incorporated city. There’s also only one district located completely within the City of Lawrence, but each of the five districts takes in at least a portion of Lawrence.

The map also divides the county using existing neighborhoods and other boundaries as guides. In Lawrence, that includes using Iowa Street as a boundary between District 1 and Districts 2 and 4, for example. And as Iowa Street turns into U.S. Highway 59 south of Lawrence, it serves as a border between parts of Districts 3 and 5.

Commissioners seemed to have already decided last week that they weren’t interested in a special election, and they reaffirmed that on Wednesday. Going with that option would mean a special election would need to take place between 60 and 90 days after the commission’s resolution adopting the new map, and commissioners were concerned about the quick turnaround. A group of 10 public commenters at Wednesday’s meeting, however, said that the public had made it clear that it wanted a special election in order to get the two new commissioners seated as quickly as possible.

If the governor approves the commissioners’ recommendation, the next time there’s an election for County Commission, it will be for nearly all of the districts. The new Districts 4 and 5 and the existing Districts 2 and 3 would all be up for election in 2024.