PEORIA -- Statehouse legislators may be yelling at each other over redistricting but the Peoria County Board committee charged with redrawing County Board districts has worked out the lines satisfactorily. The committee unanimously approved the map at its meeting on May 25.
Democrats control the County Board and the committee, but Republicans are satisfied, committee member Steve Morris said. He met with committee chairman Allen Mayer several times, he said, to work on the map.
It was a more amicable process than previously. "I've heard it was painful ten years ago. It was deemed to be partisan," Morris, A Republican, said.
"We tried to depoliticize" the process, by not pitting current board members against each other. "It's (been) a fair, acceptable process. I support the map," Morris said.
the committee worked with software that helped to draw the map so that each of the 18 districts has about 10,361 people. The map follows city and township borders as much as possible. Two districts have a majority of African Americans. Many of the districts don't change very much.
Morris jokingly called District 8 a "two-fanged terodactyl," because of its shape, but Mayer said it merely follows city of Peoria boundaries.
The map is posted on the county's website, with the board to vote on it at its June meeting.
-- Elaine Hopkins
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