Berkley

Berkley adds new voting precinct, changes old boundaries

By Jeremy Selweski
C & G Staff Writer

» Click on image to view full size « File photo by David Schreiber The Berkley City Council voted on Feb. 6 to add a new voter precinct and modify the city’s existing precinct boundaries, although the changes will not go into effect until August. Voters in Precincts 3 and 7 will both cast their ballots at Berkley High School, pictured here. File photo by David Schreiber The Berkley City Council voted on Feb. 6 to add a new voter precinct and modify the city’s existing precinct boundaries, although the changes will not go into effect until August. Voters in Precincts 3 and 7 will both cast their ballots at Berkley High School, pictured here.

BERKLEY — Some voters in Berkley may have a new polling location starting this August, when changes to the city’s precinct boundaries go into effect.

At its Feb. 6 meeting, the City Council unanimously approved the new borders proposed by City Clerk Cheryl Printz, which also include increasing the number of precincts from six to seven. According to Printz, the purpose of redrawing the boundaries was to try to create better balance between each precinct.

“I sat down with the (Geographic Information System) of Oakland County,” she told the council, “and we tried to come up with precincts that were similar in size and uniform in shape as best as possible … to provide better service delivery for our elections. This will give us a more even distribution of our voting precincts.”

Under the current boundaries, Berkley’s precincts vary in size from as few as 1,386 registered voters to as many as 2,809. However, the new borders would significantly narrow that range to between 1,483 and 1,766 registered voters per precinct. The city’s third precinct, its largest by a wide margin, will be split almost in half, while all except for the fourth precinct will experience at least some minor changes.

Although the city is creating an additional precinct, there will still be only six polling locations: Berkley City Hall, Rogers Elementary School, Berkley High School, the Berkley Community Center, Angell Elementary School and Pattengill Elementary School. Voters in the new seventh precinct will also cast their ballots at Berkley High School, which, as Printz explained, will help the city keep its costs down.

City Manager Jane Bais-DiSessa pointed out that state law allows municipalities to redraw their precinct lines in conjunction with the redistricting that is currently happening statewide in response to the 2010 U.S. Census results.

“(We) want to make sure that we’re providing efficient services to our residents, especially based on our large turnout during presidential elections,” she said. “Whenever we have a large election, there are usually long lines that sometimes wrap around some of our buildings.”

Bais-DiSessa noted that by working closely with Ferndale City Clerk Cherilynn Tallman, Printz was also able to acquire some free election equipment. Because Ferndale is consolidating its own voting precincts, one of the city’s electronic voting machines recently became available. Tallman offered to give the machine to Berkley at no cost, as it was purchased using federal funds and thus could not be sold or thrown away.

On Dec. 12, 2011, at Tallman’s recommendation, the Ferndale City Council voted unanimously to reduce the number of voting precincts in the city from nine to seven. The decision came just four years after Ferndale officials decreased the city’s precincts from 16 to nine.

The 2010 census results indicated Berkley’s population, like that of Ferndale, showed a slight decline over the previous decade. With those reduced numbers in mind, Councilwoman Lisa Platt Auensen wondered why the city was choosing to add another precinct in order to compensate for its oversized third precinct.

“Is there a reason why we didn’t just take Precinct No. 3 and redistribute it to some of the surrounding precincts that have lower numbers and keep us at six precincts?” she asked.

“Because the concentration of voters was so high in that one precinct, it was hard for one or two other precincts to absorb that difference. And it made sense since we were changing to make better service delivery for all the precincts, instead of just increasing the (service) delivery in one precinct,” Printz explained.

Printz stressed that Berkley voters will be well-informed about these changes. As she told the council, city staff will notify residents via required mailings that will also alert them about any changes to their voting districts for U.S. Congress, the Michigan House and Senate, and the Oakland County Board of Commissioners. In addition, they will educate voters during the Feb. 28 Republican presidential primary election and via the city’s website, online newsletter and cable TV station.

Members of council expressed their support for the new precinct boundaries, contending that they will ensure a better voting process for all residents by eliminating the size discrepancies between the current precincts.

“Those (larger precincts) are where you see a lot of congestion right now, especially during presidential elections,” said Councilman Dan Terbrack. “We’re moving to seven precincts … that are much more evenly split. This should provide for a lot more efficient voting, and it will help our poll workers not be so slammed at the end (of the night) when they’re trying to get everything in.”

Added Mayor Phil O’Dwyer, “This brings some order to the (precinct) map as well, in terms of the street demarcation. This looks much more orderly than how it used to be.”

New Councilman Jack Blanchard praised Printz for taking the initiative to make these upgrades. “Thank you for all the hard work you did on this,” he said. “I think you did an excellent job of putting this together.”

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Jeremy Selweski at jSelweski@candgnews.com or at (586)218-5004.