Letter to the Editor

MRNRD redistricting

Monday, November 17, 2008

Dear Editor,

I found it interesting that the MRNRD manager didn't say anything in 2006 about electing board members by sub-district from equally-populated sub-districts when four new members from the northern counties were elected to the NRD board.

This year, Rick Spencer from Culbertson was already on the board, along with Joe Anderjaska from Hayes Center. Gayle Haag from Bartley was replaced by his son, Buck Haag. Stan Moore from Bartley and Jerry Mustion from Culbertson were replaced by James Uerling, and Rick McConville of Indianola which is in basically the same area. I believe that the new members ran on the policy of sustaining the aquifer rather then deplete it.

Dan Smith, MRNRD general manager as reported by the McCook Daily Gazette, outlined a proposed sub-district map that would give Red Willow County five members, Hayes/Hitchcock counties two members and Frontier/Lincoln counties three members. Electing board members by sub-district would allocate them from equally-populated subdistricts. I'm thinking this was looked into quite a while back and was not done because of the fact of where the directors would be from.

The problem with Dan's proposal is that the 2000 census reported 19,302 people in the whole district. Red Willow County has 11,448, Hitchcock has 3,111, Frontier has 3,099, Hayes has 1,068, and the part of MRNRD in Lincoln County has 576 People.

As the statutes state; "In redistricting, requirements of approximately equal numbers in each district as provided by this section should be met."

That means for every 1,754 people, there should be a board member representing them. Red Willow County alone should have 7 directors (actual number 6.52) instead of 5.

A suggestion would be combine Red Willow and Hitchcock together because of similar irrigation interest with shallower aquifers and surface irrigation, with 8 directors. Frontier County could have 2 and Hayes County and the MRNRD part of Lincoln County have 1.

Claude L Cappel

McCook

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