Hearing set on proposal to have council set ward boundaries

LACONIA — Residents will have an opportunity in two weeks to speak for or against a special procedure to deal with redistricting for the city’s six wards.

At a special meeting Monday, the City Council voted unanimously to schedule a public hearing during its regular meeting on Sept. 13 on the plan to authorize the City Council to alter ward boundary lines in order to equalize the populations of the city six wards based on the 2020 census.

The special process is being proposed because the release of the 2020 Census data was delayed about five months due to the COVID pandemic.

According to the raw census data which has been released, Laconia’s population grew to 16,871, an increase of about 900 people from the 2010 Census. The new population figure means each ward, were population evenly distributed, would have 2,812 people. However, the population of the wards as they are now constituted varies considerably, from 2,429 people in Ward 3, to 3,069 in Ward 6.

Normally, a referendum spelling out proposed ward boundary changes would be submitted to the voters at the municipal elections in November. However, the detailed breakdown of population clusters within each ward — called census blocks — will not be available for another month, meaning there will not be enough time to schedule a public hearing on the specific changes and then prepare the referendum language in time for it to be printed on the ballot for the Nov. 2 election.

City Manager Scott Myers said allowing the council to authorize the new ward lines — which would require a two-thirds majority to pass — will eliminate the need to hold a special election, most likely in January, which would mean additional costs for the city associated with staffing all six polling places, and which almost certainly would produce a very low voter turnout.

Myers said the Legislature needs the new ward boundaries as soon as possible because it uses the information when it tackles redistricting for state House and state Senate districts.

The council hopes to identify what changes in ward boundaries it will be considering before November.

“The idea is to have the changes to boundary lines known in advance, so the voters will have a comfort level when they go to the polls,” Myers said.