Four years ahead of schedule, the Clark County Commission will consider plans next week to redraw commission district boundaries.
The seven commissioners on Tuesday will consider three redistricting proposals, one of which county officials hope will take effect next year.
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The plans shift up to a quarter of the county's residents into different districts. If the plan goes through, some Clark County residents will cast votes in commission races in November for candidates that won't represent them when they take office in January.
Redistricting usually coincides with release of new census figures, which will occur next in 2010.
However, county officials warned that if commissioners wait until the next census to redraw boundaries, population imbalances among districts will continue to increase, creating unequal representation for residents.
The population disparity between the largest and smallest districts currently is 45 percent.
Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, who is running for the District E seat against Commissioner Myrna Williams, questioned whether the county should be able to redistrict halfway through the decade.
"If you let counties go in every two or three years they could be really gerrymandering," she said.
The rate of growth is so rapid, she said, the new districts' populations would be disproportionate by the time they were implemented.
Gerrymandering is the redrawing of boundaries to grant an advantage to a party or elected official.
County officials said they have legal precedent behind them and need to redraw the lines to correct gerrymandering that occurred in 2001.
Don Burnette, the county's chief administrative officer, pointed to the outline of District B, which includes an awkward protrusion that pokes District D and cuts into a heavily populated Hispanic area.
"Local legend has it that that feature was put in late into the 2001 plan to account for Mary Kincaid-Chauncey's house that she had purchased and obviously she needed to remain in her district. But it also created some significant problems which we think all three plans address," Burnette said.
Kincaid-Chauncey, who was indicted in 2003 and is on trial on allegations of accepting cash bribes from strip club owner Michael Galardi, lost her seat the following year to Commissioner Tom Collins.
Collins said the three redistricting proposals still need more work. The districts should be more rectangular, extending east and west, he said.
"More time and thought needs to be put into this or wait until the census is done, that'd be the right way to do it," he said.
He's in favor of exploring redistricting, but he said the final map should be adopted in a 7-0 vote or no change should take place.
Commissioners Bruce Woodbury, Myrna Williams, Lynette Boggs McDonald and Rory Reid said they favored redistricting, but had not yet seen the three proposals.
Woodbury's District A stands to lose about 65,000 residents after redistricting.
Having the largest district, "it makes the citizen's vote worth less at each election if they're in a district that has a much higher population than another. It's more challenging to represent because you have to attempt to meet the needs of a huge number of people," Woodbury said.
County Manager Thom Reilly said he wants the commission to chose one of the three proposals Tuesday. He said he hoped to have a new plan in place before May 1, the day candidates begin filing to run for office.
Under the three proposed plans, Republicans would gain a majority in District F, in addition to Districts A and C where they currently outnumber Democrats.
District F also would lose more than half its Hispanic population under the new plans.
Boggs McDonald -- a Republican who is seeking re-election in District F, a majority-Democrat district -- said she was ambivalent about the proposed increase in Republicans in her district.
"I don't think about it because when a citizen calls me I don't ask them if they're a Republican or a Democrat, I just take care of business," she said.
In the past, redistricting was conducted behind closed doors with a judge consulting commissioners to develop boundary lines, Reilly said.
This time, commissioners adopted guidelines. There were public meetings to collect comments and a nonpartisan group, National Demographics Corp., drafted the plans.
Two of the proposed plans, dubbed X and Y, attempt to balance populations to within 1 percent.
A third plan, Z, accounts for expected growth in the fast-growing outlying areas. What are now the smallest districts become the largest under the plan, creating a difference in population of about 5 percent.
All three proposals leave current commissioners' residences in their districts.
Giunchigliani also lives in all three versions of District E, where she's running against Williams.
"I want to make sure the communities of interest aren't broken. There is a great deal of diversity in my district," Williams said.
Giunchigliani went to two public meetings on redistricting.
She said that she and her husband were the only people in attendance at one. Three other people in addition to herself attended the other meeting.
"People were not in tune with it so it gives me some concern about why they need to do this now," she said.
