At first, 3,677 of the town’s 37,819 residents would have been shifted, but now that number has been reduced by 146 to 3,531.
AMHERST - The Select Board voted to approve the final redistricting proposal submitted by the District Advisory Board, a proposal which reduces the number of people who will change precincts from an initial proposal.
At first, 3,677 of the town’s 37,819 residents would have been shifted, but now that number has been reduced by 146 to 3,531.
The advisory board presented its final report to the Select Board Monday for approval. Town Clerk Sandra J. Burgess needed to submit the official map of the redrawn precincts, a legal description and the precinct populations along with a certified vote of the Select Board to the Local Election District Review Commission through the Secretary of State by Wednesday.
The advisory board had to do some tweaking to the map presented to the Select Board last month after a member of the local review commission was concerned about two precinct lines that “were particularly uneven.”
The advisory board was able to address one but not the other. If it moved the other so-called protrusion, the board would have made the anomalies worse.
Carolyn Holstein, chairwoman of the advisory board, said they wanted to minimize the number of changes to the neighborhoods and to distribute students through the town’s 10 precincts as evenly as possible. The town is home to Amherst and Hampshire colleges and the University of Massachusetts.
Also no precinct could be larger than 4,000 people.
What made the job difficult in particular was that 31 percent of the town’s population lives on just 2 percent of the total land area, Holstein said.
The largest shift is in precinct 9 where 1,665 will be shifted into precinct 2. Another 75 from precinct 9 will be shifted to precinct 6.
“You’ve done amazing work,” Select Board chairwoman Stephanie J. O’Keeffe said.
The Local Election Districts Review Commission has the final approval on redistricting plans and changes are effective Dec. 31, Burgess said in an email Tuesday.
Every registered voter whose polling place is changed must be notified by mail of the new polling place, she added.