“Hey ho, don’t worry. You know you can’t win. No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.” — The Bonzo Dog Band
I hear tell there’s been some wailing and gnashing of teeth over proposed redistricting for Allegan County Commissioners’ districts.
For those not in the know, political district boundaries are amended every 10 years to reflect population changes. The redistricting we hear most about is at the state and national levels, where Democrats and Republicans fight over how their constituents are represented. And, of course, we hear a lot of complaints about gerrymandering, the process by which one party wins deliberately unfair advantages over the other.
But what I saw on Facebook not long ago was a complaint that someone was unfairly drawing the new districts for the Allegan County Board of Commissioners. Even if the charge is true, “There ain’t nothin’ you can do about it,” with apologies to the Supremes and the Vanilla Fudge.
I have a sordid story to tell about a proposed redistricting plan for Barry County Commissioners.
Barry County once had seven commissioners’ districts, but somehow bumped that number up to eight. It isn’t often that a legislative body has an even number on its board. No problem, proponents argued, you’d still have to have a majority, this case five, to pass anything. The other side of that argument is why not let four be the majority and save the cost of an extra commissioner?
I was fascinated by the unlikely political redistricting scenario that followed.
Barry County Republican Party Chairman Mark Englerth (later to become county commissioner and Yankee Springs Township Supervisor) came up with an agreement with Democratic Party Chairman Mel Goebel to reduce the number of commissioners from eight to five, thereby saving the county perhaps as much as $70,000 a year.
The rules for county redistricting insist the two party chairs be joined by the county treasurer, county clerk and county prosecutor in deciding on district boundaries and on how many.
The county prosecutor was Gordon Shane McNeill, county clerk was Deb Smith and county treasurer Sue Vandecar, all elected Republicans.
So Englerth and Goebel were going rogue on the established order by suggesting three commissioners’ jobs be eliminated, much to the consternation of GOP regulars. Englerth told me all three county elected officials would be hard pressed the hold the line against a proposal that would save Barry County a lot of money each year.
But they did. All three voted in a final tally of 3-2 to continue the eight-person Board of Commissioners. Englerth and Goebel were turned away.
I later learned that the reason for eight districts was that the City of Hastings wanted one full district all to itself. A reduction to five would force the city to take in some land and voters outside the city. Hastings wanted to vote in one block.
Though the money savings was a good idea, it failed, even with bipartisan backing.
It was as though the established order fervently believed in the old reminder by late comedian George Carlin: “The game is rigged… But nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”
