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DISTRICT ELECTION OF COUNTY CONINIISSIONERS <br />Ivloses Carey said that a group of residents in Northern Orange County petitioned to change the current at large <br />system of electing county commissioners to one of electing commissioners by district. A couple of public <br />hearings were held in August. There t~•as momentary diversion with a bill that t~--°as submitted in the Legislature <br />to impose a specific plan on the residents in Orange County and we exerted a lot of energy to keep that from <br />being imposed on us. We have heard input from residents from both ends of the County. Next step is for us to <br />discuss several options on district election of County Commissioners in an October 17tH in a work session. The <br />commissioners will act on one of the options before the end of November. One option for changing the system <br />includes a countywide referendum on any option that the County Commissioners select for implementation. <br />Alice Gordon said the major issues are: Who votes? How many districts will there be? Do only the people who <br />live in districts vote or does everyone vote for them? One method is to ask those that vote if they want the <br />change. Even though Conmlissioners are distributed well geographically, people in rural parts of the County <br />want to elect someone who shares_their philosophy. The commissioners are on track to come to some kind of <br />solution this year. <br />Barry Jacobs said they were afive-member board and asked if a smaller group is more or less etTective. <br />Joal Broun stated that she would not want the membership of the County Commissioners to be too large. She <br />stated that Guilford County has an 11-member board and it is a very dysfunctional county commissioner <br />system. There is no core vision for the county. <br />Jacquelyn Grist said that five members are too small; it is not enough to caY-ry the load of work. Five members <br />are too small for the level of decision that has to be made. <br />Jim Ward said that he has heard that five is a small number to deal with all the work of the board. Chapel Hill <br />does fine «~ith nine, but «~•ould do fine «-•ith seven. Five is too small. <br />Mark Kleinschmidt said he feels it is about workload sharing. t74'e set up our government on purpose to slow <br />down. If we divided Chapel Hill into wards, it we would be a much more contentious council. If you live in the <br />northern part of the County, there is no way to get someone on. He said that the commission needs to be larger <br />than five membersit doesn't necessarily need to be divided up into districts. <br />Mark Chilton stated that he has worked on boards with nine and seven members and either one would be tine, <br />but he would lean towards the notion of seven members. Do districts have to be defined by townships? He <br />stated that he is persuaded that the north end have some districts of some kind. <br />Jacquelyn Gist stated that it might be better if the Chair of the County Commissioners was elected, instead of <br />being appointed by the Board. <br />Joal Broun said there would have to be enabling legislation to change the way the County Commission Chair is <br />elected. <br />[Alex Zaffron left the meeting due to a work commitment.] <br /> <br />