By John Schwing

WESTPORT — Representative Town Meeting members, in a brief Tuesday night session, crossed boundaries.

The boundaries in question, however, apply to a revised map for the town’s nine RTM districts.

The legislative body gave quick and unanimous approval to a redistricting ordinance, which makes minor changes to several RTM districts. The reconfiguration, required by the town charter, partially reflects population changes recorded in the 2020 U.S. Census.

The RTM district map is reviewed every decade after new census data are released, Town Clerk Jeffrey Dunkerton told the meeting in Town Hall. Standards for local election laws are encoded by a town ordinance to conform with representation guidelines set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The latest census numbers have been under review by the Town Clerk’s Office since last fall, Dunkerton said, following revision of the voting map for state legislative districts.

The numbers used for changes in RTM district boundaries, he noted, reflect the overall population and not the number of registered voters.

Two election law requirements, Dunkerton said, were the primary factors driving the recommended changes: 

• Voters should use the same polling place for all elections.

• There should be no more than a 10 percent difference in population between the largest and smallest districts.

As a result, three changes to the RTM district map were approved:

Districts 2 and 3: The border between the two RTM districts on the western side of town is being adjusted to “eliminate confusion” over the polling station for voters in a northerly section of District 2, Dunkerton said.

Under the old district map, some District 2 voters cast their ballots at Saugatuck Elementary School in local elections and Coleytown Middle School for state and federal elections.

By reconfiguring the border so the local voting districts align with state districts, 41 residents on Barry Lane, Wilton Road and Newtown Turnpike are being moved into District 3, Dunkerton said.

Those people now will cast ballots in all elections at Coleytown Middle School.

Districts 6 and 8: The RTM district with the largest population, using 2020 Census data, is District 6 with 3,230 residents and the smallest is District 4 with 2,878 residents, Dunkerton said.

That population differential is about 12 percent, he said, falling outside the charter requirement that the number of residents in the largest and smallest districts vary by no more than 10 percent.

Westport’s total population, as reported by the 2020 Census, is 27,123 residents, so under the current nine-district format of the RTM, the “ideal,” or average, number of people in each district would be 3,014.

To address the imbalance, the revised map moves 106 residents from District 6 into District 8. The change affects residents living on sections of Cross Highway, Pleasant Valley Lane, Kensington Place, Abbotts Lane, North Avenue, Peach Lot Place and Melon Patch Lane.

With that revision, RTM District 7 now has the biggest population, Dunkerton said, about 9 percent larger than District 4, but within the required 10 percent threshold.

Districts 7 and 8: The border between the two districts has been reconfigured to follow private property lines rather than Deadman Brook. By following the brook, the old district boundary had bisected several properties between the two districts.

The revision, however, does not change the number of residents or their polling stations in either district.

The redistricted map, which had been discussed at the RTM’s last meeting in March, was adopted by a unanimous vote Tuesday night with no discussion.

John Schwing, the Westport Journal consulting editor, has held senior editorial and writing posts at southwestern Connecticut media outlets for four decades. Learn more about us here.