The Custer County Board of Commissioners approved the new district lines during its regular meeting Monday morning.
Since the 2020 Census numbers have been finalized, the board was tasked with reworking the county district lines to ensure each district has equal representation.
The Census revealed Custer County has a little more than 28,000 residents, and each district would need to have about 9,500 residents with a 5 percent margin for error, positive or negative.
Before the redistricting, District 1, which consists of Custer City as well as parts of Arapaho and Weatherford , was 1.93 percent below, well within the margin of error. However, District 2, which consists of Thomas and part of Weatherford, was 10.5 percent above the 9,500 goal and District 3, which consist of Butler and most of Clinton, was 8.63 percent in the negative. This is due to the county’s population moving eastward.
With the new map, District 1 has a population of 9,494, which is a deviation of negative 0.11 percent. District 2 has a population of 9,850, which is a deviation of 3.64 percent. District 3 has a population of 9,169, which is a deviation of negative 3.52 percent.
District 1 Commissioner Wade Anders began working with the House Redistrict Office, located in the Oklahoma State Capitol Building, to create several redistricting options. These were presented at last week’s commission meeting.
After examining the new maps, the board chose a preferred option and Anders discussed it with the Custer County Election Board to ensure it would work with voting precincts. However, this week, Anders reported the favored map would not work-because a new precinct would need to be created in Arapaho.
This week, he presented another map which took this into consideration.
After a brief discussion, the board approved this new map. Voting precincts will be tweaked to account for the new boundaries.
In other news, the board approved a contract with Emblem Strategies for American Rescue Plan Act money reporting. The board chose option one for a 6-percent fee of the ARPA funds, which means Emblem representatives will handle each step of the process. The county received about $5.6 million from ARPA.
The board also approved a resolution to create a separate account for the ARPA funds, which was a recommendation from Emblem.
The board approved a resolution to change AirMed care benefits for county employees. Now the benefits will be available once the employee has been with the county for one year.
The board approved the surplus and disposal of office furniture for the OSU Extension Office and office equipment for the health department.
The board approved minutes for the previous month as well as monthly officers’ reports, alcoholic beverage certificates and appropriations. The board also approved blanket purchase orders and purchase orders for payments.
The board approved a transfer for the OSU Extension office from free fair to free fair capital outlay. The board approved a second transfer for District 1 - $1,000 from M&O to Travel.
The board approved the new emergency evacuation and response plan for the county. Emergency Manager Mike Galloway said minor changes were made, mostly due to changes in personnel.
The board also reconvened into the meeting of the Custer County Law Enforcement Center Trust. During this meeting, the board approved minutes for the last meeting and received the trust update report.
The board approved one claim payable - $1,470 to reprogram the generator.
The board had no update on the roof project. County Treasurer Janet Roulet said representatives from Edward Jones were working with their legal division to “iron out” the detail regarding investing money from the law center trust.