The City of Starkville has completed redistricting its ward system after the 2000 Census results and a lawsuit caused the addition of a new ward.
Ward 3 Alderman P.C. McLaurin, chairman of the reapportionment committee, said the population sometimes shifts during the 10-year period between censuses.
Ward 2 Alderman Frank Davis said each ward must be close to equal in its number of citizens, which has caused some wards to be adjusted.
Some wards have grown more than others so they lost some of their population to other wards, McLaurin said.
Along with the redistricting of the wards, the NAACP filed a lawsuit in April 2002, arguing that the current ward system violated voting rights laws, Ward 6 Alderman Roy A. Perkins said.
The current ward system includes a board of six elected aldermen, each of them representing one ward, as well as one alderman at large.
Davis said the new plan is based on fairness to minorities, and it will reflect the population of Starkville appropriately.
“We have a very fair and just representation of all our people,” Davis said.
The 2000 Census counted 21,869 as the population of Starkville, and about 30 percent of this is African-American, said Perkins, currently the only black alderman.
The city settled the lawsuit with the NAACP by reaching a consent decree, which would replace the alderman at large position with a seventh ward district and alderman position, Perkins said.
The consent decree required that two of the seven wards must have a majority of at least a 63 percent African-American population, which would be in accordance to the percentage of the African-American population in the city, Perkins said.
“We greatly need this ward plan for the city of Starkville because it gives a unique opportunity to elect two blacks to the Board of Aldermen,” Perkins said. “Only one black on the board is an inadequate representation of the African-American population.”
The city spent three years working on the plan, allowing the public to become involved through the media coverage and public hearings, McLaurin said.
The city had to submit all the information for the reapportionment of the wards to the U.S. Department of Justice because of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended and extended, which requires Mississippi (among a few other states) to get any voting changes approved by the federal government, McLaurin said.
The Department of Justice wanted to make sure there was no discrimination in this new ward plan, Perkins said.
The plan was approved on Jan. 27, McLaurin said.
“Now that the process is virtually complete, the city will have the fairest and most equitable apportionment of wards that it has ever had,” McLaurin said.
The only thing that must be done is to assign people to a different ward on the voting roles if their ward has changed, an operation that will be performed by the election commission, McLaurin said.