Too many questions still to answer

The districting of Windsor for Town Board elections is completed. And we need to say thank you to the five men and women who put the boundaries together.

It was not an easy task.

Dividing a town of 18,000 into six distinct, contiguous districts, each with a nearly equal number of voters, looked to be nearly impossible.

How can one divide a town without dividing its residents? The number of registered voters was skewed, with 85 percent of Water Valley registered while only 35 percent of old town residents see fit to vote each election. Trying to draw lines without pitting one subdivision against each other was one of major discussion.

Michael Fassi, Larimer County; Jose Valdes. Jr., east of Weld County Road 13 and north of Colo. 392; Susan Carey, central Windsor (east of Weld 13); Susan Kelly, Water Valley; and Matthew O'Neill, Windsor Planning Commission, under the guidance of Ian McCargar, town attorney; Cathy Kennedy, town clerk; and Tom Carter, town geographic information specialist, need to be commended for working it through and coming up with what they thought was the best possible scenario under the rules they were charged with.

But there are still a lot of questions, and no one is clear about who can answer them.

There were a lot of things the five-member panel had to look at to make sure everything was legal and fair under the U.S. Constitution, the Colorado Constitution and the Windsor Home Rule Charter.

The districts had to be contiguous. They had to have an equal number of people with only a small margin of difference to consider. The 2000 census was the last time real numbers of "bodies" was counted, but the town has grown so much since then -- the Larimer County side of Windsor had 294 people living in it in 2000; 6,000 unofficially live there now -- another documentable option had to be found. So registered voter rolls were used. But in Weld County, there is a 61 percent difference in registered voters between the largest precinct and the smallest. The acceptable difference is less than 15 percent.

And, finally, three seats are not up for re-election. Richard Drake, Nancy Weber and Michael Kelly are all seated until 2010. So making sure everyone's constitutional rights are not infringed on for re-elections is another hurdle to jump.

The commission has handled its task wonderfully. All options were considered, and what it came up is the beginning to a viable, workable plan.

We say beginning because Windsor Now still isn't convinced this was the right thing to do -- at least not divided into so many different districts, smaller number may have worked better. We do believe this panel of residents took their job seriously and passionately. And we want to applaud them for working together to do what was charged of them by the Home Rule Charter and doing it a professional and timely manner.

Now it's up to the residents of Windsor to find someone to answer two very tough questions. If, as the map appears, Weber and outgoing town board member Mark Weeks are in the same district, how can Windsor constitutionally take away Weeks' right to run for re-election. We believe this is a backdoor effort to recall Weeks.

Secondly, in two years, Drake and Kelly, who are also in the same districts now, are up for re-election and the same problem is presented here.

Before this is allowed to move forward, there needs to be some serious discussion of if we want to see Windsor government tied up in a huge constitutional legal battle for a long period of time.

Windsor residents united to bring this issue before the voters. Now it's time for Windsor residents to unite to make it a constitutionally fair effort.