WEST WINDSOR — The Vermont House Committee on Government Operations will hold hearings this week on legislative redistricting proposals for the House, one of which would divide the town of West Windsor.
Two plans came out of the seven-member Legislative Apportionment Board’s work last year. The majority plan, approved in a 4-3 vote, created single-member House districts, while the minority plan, supported by three members of the board, would maintain multi-member districts, including Windsor 1, with West Windsor, Hartland and Windsor.
The committee has already held hearings on the single-member plan but will consider additional feedback as well as comments on the minority plan and HB 589, which recommends the multi-member district plan, though changes are possible. The committee has scheduled hearings for Windsor and Orange counties on Friday in Montpelier.
West Windsor and Windsor have expressed strong opposition to the single-member district plan because it divides West Windsor and splits up the Windsor 1 House seat, which currently has two representatives, and creates two single-member districts. Hartland and part of West Windsor would be one district, and the rest of West Windsor and Windsor in the other district.
The multi-member plan maintains the district as it is with all three towns together and two representatives. Those seats are currently held by Democrats John Bartholomew of Hartland and Elizabeth Burrows of West Windsor.
“It is a Vermont tradition to respect town boundaries,” West Windsor Town Administrator Martha Harrison said. “We are one town and want to be represented as one town.”
Both Bartholomew and Burrows told the West Windsor Selectboard they would advocate for the town’s position before the committee.
In a letter this month to state Rep. Sarah Copeland Hanzas, D-Bradford, chairwoman of the committee, the West Windsor Selectboard urged the committee to support the minority map that leaves the Windsor 1 district intact.
“The (majority) plan is detrimental to West Windsor and of dubious value to the state,” the letter said.
With the letter was a petition signed by 170 residents, stating that with the single-member plan, 80% of the town would be added to the Hartland district and 20% to the Windsor district.
“Contrary to the Apportionment Board’s opinion, this division of our town is detrimental to our representation in Montpelier, and we oppose it,” the petition states.
Also weighing in against splitting West Windsor was the Windsor Board of Civil Authority, which proposed a single district with Windsor and West Windsor, something that existed in the past.
The Windsor BCA noted the two towns have “strong community ties” sharing municipal services including fire, police, emergency response and a wastewater disposal system as well as the recently formed Mount Ascutney School District.
Tom Little, of Shelburne, Vt., chairman of the Legislative Apportionment Board, said the board determined an ideal district size, based on the 2020 census, would have a population of 4,287.
Combining West Windsor, whose population grew 22% in the latest census, with Windsor would create a district of 4,903, a deviation of 14%, greater than the ideal district size, Little said. The largest allowable overshoot the would be only 8.8%.
“There are too many residents (in West Windsor and Windsor) for a single-member district,” he said.
The minority map has maximum deviations, plus or minus, of 7.5% and 7.9% respectively.
Little also explained the board majority’s rationale for supporting single-member districts across the state.
“In their view, it isn’t fair that those in a single-member districts vote for one representative and others in two (or more)-member districts can vote for more than one representative,” Little said.
In a letter to Boards of Civil Authority in the state, the House Committee on Government Operations explained it is seeking feedback on the proposed district lines in the various maps as well as suggestions for subdividing two-member districts into two single-member districts (if desired) as proposed in HB 589, which has been approved and includes the minority plan.
State Rep. John Gannon, vice chairman of the committee, stressed that officials are at a starting point in deciding the final look of the redistricting map the committee will support and the recommendations under HB 589 could change.
A plan needs to be approved by the Legislature by April 1, Little said.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
