The meeting will be held in the third
floor’s executive conference room. This will be the council’s
second meeting on the subject. Oklahoma City residents are currently
represented by eight wards.
Ward 4 Councilman Pete White suggested
the city expand its eight wards to 10 so residents would have better
representation. Currently, each council member represents about
73,000 people.
Increasing the number of wards could
potentially add more minority representation to the city council,
which would be reflective of OKC’s growing Hispanic and Asian
populations, White said in a previous interview.
According to the
2010 U.S. Census, Hispanic residents comprise 17.2 percent of OKC’s
population while Asians make up about 4 percent of all city
residents. The Census shows whites make up 56 percent of OKC’s
population.
Six of the eight council members are
white men. The only minorities on the council are Ward 6 Councilwoman
Meg Salyer and Ward 7 Councilman John Pettis, Jr.
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2014.