Nelsonville residents learn how to draw proposed ward maps for the new city government
By: Joshua Hoerner
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — Nelsonville residents can now draw their own ward maps to be considered for the final proposed plan.
At Thursday’s ward map meeting at the Nelsonville Public Library, Trevor Martin introduced a program to Nelsonville citizens called Dave’s Redistricting that allows them to play around with different ward boundaries.
Martin is with the Ohio League of Women Voters and is tasked with helping the city through the mapping process. His goal is to keep the Nelsonville citizens as involved as possible.
“Something that is transparent, open and involves the public,” Martin said. “That puts the people of Nelsonville as main decision makers in this process.”
Under the charter government, all City Council members serve at large, meaning they each represent the entire city. Under the statutory government, four of the seven council members will be elected by and represent the residents of a ward.
In addition to helping draw a new ward map, citizens also will have the opportunity to comment publicly on any issues with the ward drawing process.
“This is basically what democracy is all about,” Martin said. “Representation and making sure those representatives are out there advocating for you and your priorities and making sure that they’re held accountable to those priorities that they were elected to address.”
The City Council is remaining neutral in this process, giving citizens the final say in how the ward maps are drawn. Martin is hoping to have a map to present to the council in July. However, it will be up to the new council members elected in November to approve or reject the proposed wards after they take office in January.
Nelsonville resident Dakota Saul attended the meeting and was encouraged by the process.
“I think we’re improving,” Saul said. “I’ve lived here almost two years now, and I will say in the last few months, I do feel like there is action being taken.”
At the same time, Saul said he still has concerns because of divisions within the city.
“That is actually the biggest question I have at hand is what is the community priority over what is individual priority,” Saul said. “I would really like to have a clear, united vision from the community for council to act on.”
The next meeting for ward drawing will be on June 16, the same day the city of Nelsonville was founded in 1818.