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Washington County’s Commissioner District Reapportionment process is moving forward with two proposals for the redrawing of district boundaries to be discussed on the next Board of County Commissioners work session.
The board came to an agreement after a staff presentation on community input at the board’s work session on September 27. The board chose to further discuss proposal 4 and proposal 5 at the next Board of County Commissioners work session which will be held on October 18th. At this meeting, the board will receive the final reapportionment report from Portland State University (PSU) and will consider directing staff to draft an ordinance to implement the selected plan.
For each proposal under consideration, the board came into agreement to follow these guidelines as much as possible:
- Keep each district contiguous;
- Use existing geographic or political boundaries;
- Not divide communities of common interest;
- Keep each district connected by transportation links;
- Keep each district equal in population;
- Not draw the districts to favor a specific person or partisan concern;
- Not draw the districts to dilute voting strength of any language group or ethnicity;
- Consider Park Districts, School Districts, Urban Growth Boundary, Urban Service Agreements, Urban Reserves and keep Aloha and Beaverton in one district;
- Maintain District 1 as the only district that is exclusively urban/suburban;
- Provide an option that includes rural areas in each district;
- Consider socio-economic status; and
- Consider rural/urban divide.
Washington County is realigning the boundaries of its four Commissioner Districts based on the results of the population changes from the 2020 census. Working with Portland State University, the county came up with five proposed maps to ensure each district is approximately the same population.
Stay up to date on the Commissioner District Reapportionment process at wcor.us/reapportionment. Visit the Board of County Commissioner agenda webpage for all upcoming public meetings or watch the livestream on our Washington County YouTube channel.
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