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a. Next Steps on District Elections for the Board of County Commissioners far a <br />November 2006 Referendum <br />The Board considered providing 1} an opportunity for the Board to consider the public <br />comments made at the March 2, 2006 Board meeting on district elections for the Board of <br />County Commissioners for a November 2006 referendum: 2) to provide the Board an <br />opportunity to consider the content of a Resolution calling for the referendum; and 3) to give the <br />Board the opportunity to provide comments, questions, and any further direction to staff. <br />Geof Gledhill said that the information in the agenda abstract tells the history of this <br />process and at the last Board of County Commissioners meeting he was directed to come up <br />with a transition plan and process for them to direct a resolution on a referendum on proposal 5. <br />After public comments at the last meeting, the Chair and Vice-Chair asked staff to redirect <br />proposal 3, which is another variation of a district/at-large system with seven County <br />Commissioners -four of them from districts. They are putting forward proposal 3 with statistical <br />data and maps and he has drafted a transition plan for aseven-member Board for <br />consideration. <br />Chair Jacobs said that the reason they put this an the agenda with proposal #3 is <br />because he wants to make a motion far staff to prepare a resolution, a map, and a transition <br />plan to be sent fo referendum in November 20Q6, far aseven-member Board of County <br />Commissioners, with two members from residential districts in rural Orange County, and at /easf <br />two members and not more than three members from a residential district in Chapel Hill <br />Township, with the remainder being at--large members. These seven Commissioners would be <br />nominated and elected at-large. This proposal is reflected in Proposal 3, but need not be <br />Limited exactly to the district designs in Proposal 3. <br />He said that he does not think this is about preserving their power, people's criticisms, <br />threats, or campaign promises. He said that this is about democracy with a small `d', listening <br />to the citizens, and balancing sometimes competing concerns to do what is best in the long term <br />interest of Orange County. <br />Commissioner Halkiatis seconded the motion, <br />Commissioner Gordon said that the transition plan labeled as hers on page 3 started out <br />as her plan, but it has been edited by the County Attorney. <br />Commissioner Gordon said that she wanted to clarify where they were before this <br />meeting. She made reference to page two and what they did at the February 16th work session. <br />The first thing is that the Board decided that there would be a total of five members on the <br />Board of County Commissioners in a district plan. She recalls that Chair Jacobs did not want <br />five, but seven. All of the other four Commissioners agreed on five members. The next thing <br />that was determined was that the district map would be the one designated as proposal 5. The <br />third thing was that they decided that members elected from district 1 or district 2 must reside in <br />their respective district, but the qualified voters of the entire County would nominate all <br />members of the Board. This was where there was a split 3-2 vote. The three people that <br />wanted the representatives to live in the district but everyone in the County vote for them were <br />Chair Jacobs, Commissioner Halkiotis, and Commissioner Foushee. The other two wanted the <br />people to reside in the district and be nominated in the district. <br />Commissioner Carey said that he has been consistent in his position about five or seven <br />Commissioners, and he has heard members of the Board raising concerns about unintended <br />consequences early on in the process and using that concern as a reason not to do anything on <br />this matter. He has been consistent about the fact that something should be done, but he still <br />does not support going to seven Commissioners because, if you go to seven Commissioners <br />immediately, you cannot go back to five. He said that if they go to seven County <br />Commissioners and elect all of them at-large in both the primary and the general election, it <br />does not move them closer to what the citizens asked for in the district system. He said that <br />what the citizens wanted, in his opinion, is to have one or two districts that da not include <br />