The Oklahoma County Commissioners unanimously approved new district boundaries Monday that moved several municipalities across more evened-out district lines, as no cities now are divided among two districts.
At Monday morning’s meeting, District 1 Commissioner Willa Johnson and District 2 Commissioner Brian Maughan traded respective cities Choctaw and Nicoma Park (from District 1 to 2) and Del City (from District 2 to 1) across new district lines, per state law that requires evened district populations.
The city of Edmond, part of which was in Johnson’s district as well, is now entirely within Commissioner Ray Vaughn’s northern-northwestern District 3.
Most of western-county Warr Acres has also moved to District 3 from District 2.
State statutes require county commissioners to redistrict every 10 years after the U.S. Census Bureau publishes its census results. Each county in the state must be reapportioned into three districts that are equal as practical in population size.
DIVIDING DISTRICTS
Oklahoma County Engineer Stacey Trumbo said the commissioners’ task forces cleaned up their boundaries in an attempt to keep the population differences among the districts within 1 percent, as well as prevent the smaller cities from being divided across districts.
The small cities depend more on the county government for public works and funding, he said.
Click here to download the map with the new district boundaries printed above.
“I think what’s really important to those communities is that they’re in one district, not split into two or three districts,” Trumbo said. “That’d be really confusing for them.”
He said the most population growth since 2000 occurred in Vaughn’s District 3, which includes downtown OKC, Edmond and formerly Luther, thus calling for the commissioners to pare down the district’s boundaries.
According to the 2010 census data, Oklahoma County grew in population by 8.8 percent since the 2000 census, with more than 718,000 residents.
It is still the largest county in the state, followed by the counties of Tulsa, with 603,403, and Cleveland, with 255,755, according to the data.
Click here to download the map as it appeared before the redistricting.
