Thurston County Commissioner Carolina Mejia and County Manager Ramiro Chavez updated the Lacey City Council on the proposed expansion of the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) during the council’s work session on October 13.
If the ballot proposition receives majority voter approval in the November 8 elections, the BOCC will increase from three to five board members.
Chavez explained that the BOCC and the Port of Olympia formed a Redistricting Committee to work on the said proposal while achieving an equal population of about 60,000 per district.
Redistricting timeline
The BOCC and the Port of Olympia will hold a separate public hearing on the approved draft of the five new districts on November 15 if the proposal gets a majority vote.
The public will then be able to review the published proposal on district boundaries on Monday, November 21. Then both parties will hold another public hearing on the final draft on Tuesday, November 29.
The redistricting committee will convene again on December 2 to consider public comments. The Port of Olympia will provide its final approval on December 12, while the BOCC will finalize its decision on December 13.
Both parties will submit the final approved boundaries to the County Auditor on December 20.
RCW 36.32.055 authorizes any non-charter county, like Thurston, with a population of 300,000 or more and less than 400,000, to cause a ballot proposition at a general election on whether to authorize BOCC to increase its members to five.
Based on the latest data from the Office of Financial Management, Thurston County has a population size of 300,500.
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TonyW33
Personally I voted for the County Commission to add 2 members and against the Port proposal. The county has become to large and complex for three people to manage. The Port of Olympia is still wasting too much of the taxpayers money to allow them to get any bigger, in my opinion.
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