Oconto County redistricting gets preliminary approval

The Oconto County Board of Supervisors has approved a preliminary redistricting plan that keeps the board at the maximum 31 members allowed by state statutes, but not before swatting down an attempt to adjust the new district boundaries to benefit a potential candidate.

The work was done at a special meeting Sept. 16 because of the shrunken timeline created by late release of U.S. Census data and Gov. Tony Evers’ veto of a bill that would have extended the deadline for redrawing local maps.

That combination condensed what usually is a six-month process down to 74 days, County Administrator Kevin Hamann told the board.

New maps are required by law every 10 years to ensure that voting district populations are more or less equal, he said. The 2020 data indicates that the average population among Oconto County’s 31 districts needed to be about 1,257.

That meant, for example, that the City of Gillett with a 2020 population of 1,289 could now stand alone as its own district. The number is a 7% drop from 10 years ago. The city has shared two districts with the towns of Gillett and Underhill in recent years.

As a result, the county won’t need to prepare as many ballots, County Clerk Kim Pytleski said.

“Now for supervisor districts, we won’t have two separate ballots (for Gillett) when it comes to an even-year April election,” she said.

The executive committee met Aug. 26 and Sept. 9 to review and recommend maps that Hamann had drawn.

The committee directed the administrator to come up with maps that were as compact as possible and, more significantly, did not take into account where incumbents live.

“Years ago, we made some changes because of where county board members lived, and some of our districts were a little bit stretched out and weird,” Hamann said. “The Executive Committee directed me by making a motion to not consider where county board members live when I drew the maps.”

That turned out to make a difference when Supervisor Buzz Kamke made a motion to adjust the border slightly between the districts he and Supervisor Bart Schindel now represent in the Oconto Falls area.

Kamke said he is planning to retire from the board next April, and he recruited Oconto Falls Mayor Brad Rice to run for his seat as a potential successor.

It turns out Rice lives on a street that forms part of the boundary between the two districts, but on Schindel’s side of the road.

“He was 20 feet away from being in my district,” Kamke said.

Kamke made a motion to swap two census zones with similar-sized populations so that Rice’s house is in the district Kamke represents.

That, however, did not sit well with most of the board members — including Board Chairman Paul Bednarek.

“You know, when we started this, we wanted to completely eliminate gerrymandering, and that’s what Kevin was directed to do,” Bednarek said. “Keep that in mind when you make your decisions on what we should do here.”

Recently appointed Supervisor Theresa Willems said because she is new, she doesn’t really know anybody yet, so her comments are not personal, but she was “a little bit uncomfortable” with the motion.

“What does that look like if an election is held and someone that lines were designed for is not actually elected? What is the process for this?” Willems asked.

Supervisor Al Stranz said Kamke’s motion is exactly what the Executive Committee wanted to avoid.

“This takes into consideration someone who isn’t even elected yet,” Stranz said. “I don’t think that’s right. I think it’ll open a whole can of worms … everybody else is going to want their lines changed, too.”

Kamke’s motion was defeated 25-4, getting support only from him, Schindel, John Matravars and Leonard Wahl.

Rice, who attended the meeting, said he was OK with the board’s decision.

The board then approved the recommended maps by an identical 25-4 vote, this time with dissent from Supervisors Schindel, Wahl, Rose Stellmacher and Kenneth Linzmeyer.

The maps now go to the county’s city, town and village boards for their review and comments. Final approval must be given in early November so that the maps can be published in the county’s official newspapers before nomination papers begin circulating Dec. 1 for the April election.

Hamann said clerks in the cities of Oconto, Oconto Falls and Gillett, and the villages of Suring and Lena, gave positive reactions to the proposed maps at first glance.