Eufaula resident and Barbour County commissioner Frank Straughn asked Eufaula City Council members to table their vote on the city’s redistricting plan at Monday’s regular meeting.
Under the redistricting changes approved in September, Straughn and many of his neighbors on the east side of Country Club Road and Fox Ridge Road will move from District 4, represented by Bob Powers, to District 2, represented by Johnny Knight. Straughn said he preferred to stay in District 4 and asked the council to sit down with him and discuss possible ways of keeping him in the district.
But council members decided that changing the district proposal would take too much time and money, especially in an election year when many council members are trying to relearn their districts.
“If we do it for one,” said Knight, “we’ve opened the door to everyone else. I’ve lost a whole side of Gammage Road…most of my friends have been on Gammage Road for 50 years.”
Council members seemingly agreed that using a third party like the University of Alabama’s cartography department to redraw the lines takes the politics out of the process.
City Attorney Jimmy Calton said, “It has always amazed me that I have never seen this council or the ones before it play politics over district lines.”
Calton said he believes the council makes their decisions based on the whole city, not pitting one district against another.
Straughn said he was disappointed but when he left the meeting, he said he wasn’t mad.
“I’m a little disappointed,” said Straughn. “I know we get involved in the process when it comes to the county. You say it’s politicking but you’re politicians.”
Read more on this story in the weekend Tribune.
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