New law makes Boise, Meridian, Nampa pick councilors by district. What will voters face?
The just-released U.S. Census data for Idaho make it clear: A new state law that forces Idaho’s largest cities to elect city council members by district will apply to Nampa and Meridian.
But not this year, city officials say.
The law, passed by the Idaho Legislature last year, requires cities with populations that exceed 100,000 to end at-large, or citywide, elections.
According to the Census Bureau, Nampa grew 22.9% from 2010 to a population of 100,200 in 2020, and Meridian grew by 56.7% to 117,635. The Census Bureau ranked Meridian fourth among the fastest-growing cities in the U.S.
Boise’s City Council, knowing that the capital city’s population was already more than twice the 100,000 threshhold, made a plan to end at-large elections on this November’s ballot even before the census came out. Municipal offices will be on voters’ ballots this November in cities all over Idaho.
But Nampa and Meridian decided not to change anything this year. They’re sticking by that decision despite the new census.
The two cities say timing of the release of the census made the law impossible to implement, because they had to wait on the results to determine if they crossed the 100,000 threshold, and they need more time to draw the districts.
November 2021 city council elections for Meridian and Nampa will be the same at-large elections residents are accustomed to. This is because the law says: “Districts shall be established no later than 120 days prior to the general election following the date that election precincts are established …”
To comply with the 120-day requirement, districts would have had to be drawn and passed by city councils in July.
“Since the census results came out within this period, it was too late for us to establish and publish districts based on census data available at the time,” said Amy Bowman, spokesperson for the city of Nampa, by email.
The city of Meridian agreed.
“The Census Bureau is still providing data in the coming months which may impact how districts and precincts at the state and county level will get redrawn,” said Dave Miles, chief of staff to Meridian Mayor Robert Simison, in an emailed statement. “The state and county need to follow their process before the city can undertake the districting effort.”
All three cities have six-member councils. Their mayors, who preside over council meetings and will continue to be elected citywide, vote only to break tie votes.
Bowman said Nampa will begin working to create council districts based on the census tract data that is expected to be released in late September. Census tracts are small subdivisions of a county or city that are updated by local census workers and generally have populations between 1,200 and 8,000, according to the Census Bureau.
“Based on what we currently know, Nampa Council seats 2, 4, and 6 would be the first to be elected by district in 2023,” Bowman said. “In November 2025, seats 1, 3 and 5 would be elected by districts.”
In Meridian, Miles said Council seats 1, 3 and 5 would likely be the seats that are first impacted with elections by districts.
In June, the city of Boise created six new geographic districts for its council elections. It put three seats on the November ballot.
Rachel Spacek covers western Ada and eastern Canyon counties. Have a story suggestion or a question? Email Spacek at rspacek@idahostatesman.com.
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 12:52 PM.
