BERRIEN COUNTY TO DRAW NEW COMMISSIONER DISTRICT LINES

By DEBRA HAIGHT

ST. JOSEPH – While the number of Berrien County Board of Commissioner districts will remain the same, people can expect to see new boundaries for the districts. That news came last week from Berrien County Clerk Sharon Tyler at last week’s county board meeting.

Tyler outlined the process of determining the new district boundaries to county commissioners including the final four proposed plans. A day later, the Apportionment Commission which she chairs met and chose one of the four plans as the one they preferred.

That plan will be voted on again in late October before becoming final. It primarily changes district boundaries in the central and southern parts of the county and has been dubbed the “coastal communities” version.

The biggest changes come in the boundaries for the ninth and 10^th commission districts. The eighth commission district will also change some to include all of Oronoko Township as well as Baroda Township.

The ninth district had previously included the New Buffalo, Three Oaks and Galien areas and will now be concentrated along the shoreline from New Buffalo north to Bridgman. The 10^th district had gone north from Buchanan to Berrien Springs and will now include Three Oaks and Galien and not Bertrand Township and the Berrien Springs area.

Tyler told commissioners that the redistricting at the county level is governed by a county committee and not the non-partisan statewide redistricting commission put in place after a 2018 statewide ballot initiative. The statewide commission is redrawing state legislature and U.S. congressional district boundaries.

She noted that she’s not totally comfortable with the county’s 2020 census numbers, saying that the census process was all online, it occurred during the pandemic and there was a lot of confusion.  “We had a decrease in population but actually an increase in second home owners so commissioners are actually representing more people,” she said.

The five-member county apportionment committee is made up of Tyler, the county treasurer, the county prosecutor and one representative each from the two major political parties. She said the committee began meeting in late April but has been hampered by the delay in getting 2020 census results until August and confusing guidance from the state.

Tyler and Election Coordinator Sheila Reitz said the committee’s goals have been to keep the number of districts at 12, to make sure the districts have as equal a population as possible, keep them as square as possible and to divide townships, villages and cities only as necessary.

Reitz noted that the current county board district map cannot be used as it has too wide a variance with today’s numbers. Four proposed maps were considered including the coastal communities proposal and one that is fairly similar to the current one.

Tyler said local clerks appear to prefer the map that keeps nearly all the townships whole and has only one split where a township precinct is linked to another municipality. That split would be in Niles Township in the area near the airport where it would now be joined in with the city of Niles which is next to it.

As for statewide redistricting effort, controversy appears on the horizon there. Buchanan City Manager Heather Grace reported that she’s heard from U.S. Rep. Fred Upton and State Sen. Kim LaSata who are concerned about the independent commission’s latest draft maps.

For example, one draft map would change the boundaries of LaSata’s current district to take away the north half of Berrien County and to add two counties to the east along the stateline.

Upton and LaSata informed her that the latest draft maps would divide Berrien County into four separate sections. Grace said that would generally dilute the county and the region’s political power. She said that people are being encouraged to contact the redistricting commission with their concerns. The commission’s website is https://www.michigan.gov/micrc.