County Population: 28,545
Ideal Board of Supervisors district size (population / 5): 5,709 (districts need to be within 10% to survive Justice Department review and any possible court challenges)
Current District Population:
| Bowling Green district | 4,641 |
|---|---|
| Madison district | 9,818 |
| Mattaponi district | 4,988 |
| Port Royal district | 4,435 |
| Reedy Church district | 4,663 |
Not many surprises there, Madison had obviously grown significantly over the last ten years. Only real surprise to me is that I thought Mattaponi would have grown more than it has.
The real question is where are the districts going to go to make up the necessary population. The Bowling Green District can’t go very far south otherwise Supervisor Floyd Thomas will end up in that district and I have heard no indications that he isn’t planning on running for reelection at this point.
If the Bowling Green goes north, which was the consensus among the Board from what I had heard, it still needs to add 1,000 people and I don’t know if Port Royal and the surrounding area has enough people. It would probably need to take everything east of Route 2 to the Spotsylvania County line too. Unfortunately, given the limited amount of data that the Census Bureau has released, and its complete user-unfriendliness when it comes to accessing it, it is hard to tell right now.
The “Port Royal district” would then become the “Woodford district” and cut into the current Madison district and so on for the Mattaponi and Reedy Church Districts.
Cross-posted at Virginia Virtucon.
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