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Chapel Hill Township. He said that if this concept of aseven-member Board does not include <br />nomination within the district, then he would vote against it. If they go to seven members, he <br />would like to consider map #2 because it will protect more rural areas and separate them out <br />from the urban areas. He said that he was not aware that the Chair and the Vice-Chair were <br />going to bring these decisions up again that were made already until he saw the agenda <br />package. <br />Commissioner Gordan said that she supported proposal 5 with two Commissioners <br />being elected in one district and one in the other district and those would be nominating <br />districts. She echoed what Commissioner Carey said -that the most important thing being <br />brought forward to the public was that they wanted to be able to vote for people only from their <br />district. She thinks that afive-member Board is a more efficient Board. She explained the <br />difficulty in drawing a map that follows the one person, one vote principle while also keeping the <br />mostly rural districts separate from the mostly urban districts. She said that the only <br />mathematically simple system is to make Chapel Hill Township one district, and to make the <br />other six townships another district, because the population is almost perfectly in a two to one <br />ratio. She argued that if they go to a seven member Board it would be hard to draw the map <br />without putting some of Carrboro into a primarily rural district. She said that if they do that, the <br />people of Chapel Hill Township will not vote far it. She hopes that if they vote for the motion, <br />that they will change the map and the number of commissioners that will come from the mostly <br />rural districts and from the mostly urban districts before they let the public vote on it in the <br />November referendum. She does not agree with the details of Commissioner Jacobs' proposal. <br />Commissioner Halkiotis said that the current system has worked well and has more <br />diversity than it has ever had - it has two African Americans, two women, and two ethnic men <br />from the northeast. He said that the Board is here because the majority of citizens voted them <br />in. He does not want to go back to the "balkanization" of Orange County politics. He is <br />opposed to nomination by district because that person would only care for that district and not <br />the rest of the County. This is not haw to address the challenges of the 21St century. He said <br />that when he hears that the rural areas are not represented, he is personally offended because <br />he lives in a very rural area. He thinks that people want different political philosophies, and not <br />necessarily rural representation. He said that this becomes a red state and blue state issue. <br />He said that he heard the citizens say very clearly that they wanted seven representatives. He <br />said that this is an expansion of democratic opportunities. <br />Commissioner Foushee apologized to the citizens for not being present at the March 2, <br />2006 meeting. She said that her initial commitment was to the seven-member Board, and her <br />commitment is again to aseven-member Board. She said that the minutes reflect that the <br />majority of the public wants them to move to seven Commissioners. She supports district <br />representation, but she believes that it can be accomplished by more than one strategy. <br />PUBLIC COMMENT: <br />Ann Medenblik -had to leave early. <br />Bill Faison lives in Cedar Grave. He said that he represents the majority of the County <br />by land area, if not by population. He said that the residential plan put forward is not a district <br />election plan and does not allow anyone in the more rural part of the County to elect or even <br />nominate anyone to represent their community on this Board. He said that the essence of what <br />is being sought is that they need to give the more rural part of the County the ability to elect <br />someone to serve on this Board. They would recommend that the County Commissioners <br />accept the proposal that was already given, by increasing the Board to seven, with four of those <br />elected from the Chapel Hill Township, one elected from the Efland/Hillsborough and <br />surrounding areas, one elected from the rest of the County, and one elected at-large. He said <br />that what is proposed now is an at-large election, which has nothing to do with one person, one <br />vote because it is all at-large. He said that the idea of having representatives from various land <br />