Court orders county to revisit redistricting plan

A major thrust of the Trout Lake residents’ argument was that the board of county commissioners acted without regard to the community’s natural boundaries and did not attempt to preserve existing communities of mutual interest, which is one requirement governments must take into consideration under state law when redrawing voter district boundaries.

Krog, during an April 8 hearing, agreed with the petitioner’s main argument: “It is clear that the board failed to consider this criterion at all during this process… Since no due consideration was given, it is clear that petitioners have met their high burden to show that action was arbitrary and capricious.”

The public meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, April 19 at 1:30 p.m., after press deadline. It is not yet known whether residents will have the opportunity to voice input during this meeting; County Clerk Lee Snell said that the board of county commissioners has the discretion to allow or forbid public comment during a public meeting.

The 2021 redistricting plan, approved in December, makes no changes to an already controversial set of voting district boundaries. The previous plan, in effect from 2011-2021, partitioned the community of Trout Lake into Districts 1 and 2. Around that time, 89 voters signed a petition opposing the “division of Trout Lake precinct for redistricting purposes,” according to the lawsuit.

Trout Lake residents Linda Roland, Jon Nakae, Christine Nakae, Mary Calahan, and Candice Shuman are listed as petitioners to the civil suit.

Counties are responsible for periodically redrawing electoral boundaries under five criteria, and the petitioners centered their argument around two of these criteria — that each commissioner district be as nearly equal in population as possible, and that the district boundaries coincide with existing recognized natural boundaries and preserve existing communities.

“We feel that (the board’s) omission to talk about any of those criteria was basically that … they were not of consequence in their decision at all,” Jon Nakae said during an April 8 hearing. “It was the perpetuation of the status quo without examination of those issues without even considering that at all … it’s basically somewhat ludicrous given that there was 10 years worth of time for things to change.”

Krog, in an April 13 order, rejected the petitioners first argument, finding that the county considered population data in their approval of the redistricting plan. However, he found merit to the petitioner’s second argument that the county did not properly address the criteria requiring the governmental body to draw the boundaries in a way that parallels natural boundaries and preserves existing communities, saying that he found no record of discussion surrounding the redistricting process within that criteria.

During the hearing, Roland said that the Trout Lake community shares common interests and community institutions, and that for the past 10 years since the adoption of the 2011 redistricting plan, “there has been evidence of harm experienced by the community.”

She said that the Trout Lake community is unique as it is the only community in Klickitat County that interfaces with the U.S. Forest Service. The community depends on the community council to work in tandem with elected officials to advocate their needs, she said.

“Formative discussions surrounding these needs and concerns should and must include our commissioner,” Roland said. “These preliminary and formative discussions can only happen effectively when one commissioner participates — and I stress the one commissioner. The presence and participation of a second commissioner complicates a community-initiated forum by creating a board of commissioner quorum.”

She later argued that the division of a community dilutes their voting power, which she contrasted with the state requirement to preserve communities of related and mutual interest.

In response, County Prosecuting Attorney David Quesnel, who represented the board of county commissioners before the Superior Court, stated during an April 8 hearing that population data is “the primary motivator for any redistricting process.”

Quesnel said that the population data showed “relatively even growth (throughout the county), and actually brought the three districts closer in alignment than had previously existed.”

In 2012, The county calculated the gap in population between the three districts at 6%, while this year, the figure was lowered to 3% discrepancy.

“The maintenance of the status quo was a reflection of the fact that the population did not warrant a substantial change, because we are closer aligned on population,” Quesnel said.

Despite the public reasoning for the status quo being due to delays in the processing of U.S. Census figures, as previously reported, Jon Nakae dismissed that notion, pointing out that the board and staff received census data in May of 2021 and underwent training that August, but argued that the board “did not do any meaningful work on the plan until early December 2021.”

He later told the court April 8 that he felt the public commenting period provided by the board was “merely perfunctory or expressed no intentions of seriously entertaining any changes to the proposal.”

Quesnel acknowledged that the process was “relatively expedited due to numerous factors that affected just about every process in this state at this county in the last few years.”