Small communities push for caucus seats, geographic representation
Several members urged a guaranteed voice for small towns and proposed methods including caucus selection, geographic quadrants, or application-and-caucus voting to choose rural representatives on the governing board.
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Small-town representation became a sustained point of discussion as members raised concerns about bandwidth and equitable voice for rural residents. One participant proposed a geographic approach: "we could divide the county into 4 quadrants excluding the main urban areas, and then maybe have 1 representative from each of those 4 quadrants," to ensure residents outside Cedar Rapids and Marion could connect to a named representative.
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