Board of Selectmen Approve Redistricting Map for Town Meeting

The Board of Selectmen voted 5-0 to approve the map showing the new redistricting of Town Meeting precincts in Burlington during their meeting on Monday, May 23.

The map was presented by Town Clerk who explained the town needed to add a seventh district due to population growth. She said Massachusetts state law prohibits a town from having a district with over 4,000 residents and Burlington's population numbers from the 2010 U.S. Census showed the town had grown beyond the six precinct number.

"This whole project started about ayear ago when we started reviewing things to be ready," Warfield said. In March we got The Federal Census numbers which took us to a 24,498 population."

Warfield said the town has been working with the Massachusetts Secretary of State to come up with new precinct lines that would give each precinct as equal a population as possible while not breaking up neighborhoods into separate precincts.

Board Chair Walter Zenkin applauded the results, pointing out that the precinct with the highest population had 3,571 residents while the precinct with the lowest population had 3,455. 

The new precinct map doesn't go into effect until Dec. 21, 2011 and the actual change in Town Meeting won't be seen until the town election in April of 2012. The September, 2011 and January, 2012 Town Meetings will have the current Town Meeting members.

The change in the number of precincts will increase the body of Town Meeting to 126, or 18 per precinct. It was originally discussed by the Town Meeting Reapportionment Committee to decrease the number of Town Meeting members to 105, or 15 members per precinct, but , a majority of who supported increasing the number rather than losing seats, the committee decided to change it's recommendation.

It was also decided by the Town Meeting Reapportionment Committee, again following discussion with members, not to require every Town Meeting member to be up for re-election following the change in precinct number. Only those members who are being moved to either the new district or have their district changes, 12 in total, will have to run for re-election due to the precinct changes. Any member whose term is up next year will also have to run again as normal.

See the map of the new precincts on the right.