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Directors debate ZIP-code, zone and high‑school boundary options and equity for unincorporated residents
Summary
Board members debated whether to base representative seats on ZIP codes, city boundaries, high-school attendance areas or district-wide zones, raising concerns that ZIP-code-based rules could leave unincorporated residents without fair zonal representation.
Board members spent substantial time debating how to define the geography for representative seats, weighing city-based seats, ZIP-code groupings, multi-member zones and using high-school attendance boundaries as a starting point.
Several directors warned that ZIP codes reflect postal infrastructure rather than coherent communities of interest and that relying on ZIP codes could disadvantage Fox Hills and unincorporated neighborhoods. “If you live in Fox Hills, you're not guaranteed anyone that lives in your community,” one director said, arguing for a zone cut that covers the entire district so all residents are included under the same framework. Another director proposed using high-school boundaries as a simple, publicly understandable overlay to launch the change and revisit lines after the decennial census.
The board also discussed whether to keep seats as named positions (position 1, 2, 3) or to run elections as at-large or by zone with designated seats; most directors favored keeping discrete seat numbers (positions) to simplify filing. Staff cautioned that population equality requirements and precinct/GIS constraints from the county clerk might limit how fine-grained the district can draw zones.
