Indiana Borough Council puts redistribution issue on its website

Indiana Borough is seeking comments on its plans to redistribute its neighborhoods.

A website, www.indianaboro.com/municipal-reapportionment, references the maps that were presented Tuesday evening by Council Vice President and Ad Hoc Committee Chair Kaycee Newell, offers links to media coverage of the process and reminds readers of what the state borough code requires:

“All neighborhoods in the borough are to be numbered and composed of a compact and contiguous territory as nearly equal in population as officially possible and finally declared in the last official census.”

Or, as Newell proposed on Tuesday night, the Indiana Borough Council is elected by district and therefore must distribute the districts so that each contains approximately the same number of people according to the last United States census.

Unfortunately, she continued, the current map of neighborhoods and distribution of representation does not adhere to this, or the basic principle of one person, one vote.

To solve this problem, she said, the council must pass an ordinance that changes the wards (districts) and the size of the council.

So in May 2022 an ad hoc committee was formed to study the structures of similar municipalities across the Commonwealth.

Newell worked with Chairman of Board Administration Poom Sunhachawi-Taylor, Advisors Sara Steelman and Luke DeBuyser and Chairman of the Board Dr. Peter Broad in an ex officio role.

The committee will meet again Aug. 9 at 9:30 a.m. in the council chambers of the George E. Hood Municipal Building, 80 N. Eighth St., Indiana.

The webpage offers a timeline for the redistribution process, features the slide show Newell offered at Tuesday’s council business session, and poses these questions to the visitor to indianaboro.com:

• Where do you live? Choices are “outside Indiana Borough” or in existing Ward 1 (north of Philadelphia Street, east of Seventh Street), Ward 2 (south of Philadelphia, east of Seventh Street) , Ward 3 (south of Philadelphia, west of Seventh) or Ward 4 (north of Philadelphia, west of Seventh).

• Which proposed card do you prefer? A general map, one showing a proposed division into two wards and another with a proposed division into three wards, is offered.

• How many board members do you think there should be? The choices offered are 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.

The webpage, administered by the borough’s communications and grants coordinator, Kyle Mudry, pointed out that “Municipal redistribution applies to Indiana borough electoral districts. The results of this decision will not affect routine operations such as curbside garbage collection and recycling.

The poll will be open until August 16, when the board will hold its next business meeting at 7:00 p.m.

“We will have posts via social media over the next two weeks,” Mudry said.

Indiana Borough Council puts redistribution issue on its website | New