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People in the Adna, Claquato and Ferrier voter precincts will have new representation on the Lewis County Board of Commissioners starting next year.
On Tuesday, all three Lewis County commissioners voted unanimously to approve a few tweaks to its commissioner district and voter precinct map due to new data made available by the 2020 decennial U.S. census.
The board chose Option No. 3, which was favored by Commissioners Sean Swope and Lee Grose for its exchange of voter precincts in the northwest part of the county and which hands off more communities soon to be represented by the 19th Legislative District over to Commissioner Lindsey Pollock.
Commissioner District 1 — represented by Swope — will give up Adna to gain Claquato, while Commissioner District 2 — represented by Pollock — gains Adna in exchange for giving up Claquato and Ferrier. District 3 — represented by Grose — will gain Ferrier, a small precinct of about 760 people located south of Winlock near where Pollock lives.
“It’s such a minimal change of the precincts that it’s not really a huge deal. This is certainly not something I was going to drag out deciding on because it was not that important,” said Pollock, who was in favor of Option No. 4. “The folks in Lewis County are going to be well-represented anyway because, realistically, yes we go through the primary in our district, but at the end of the day we represent everybody in Lewis County … It’s more of a paper exercise.”
Option No. 4, if passed, would have redrawn commissioner districts the closest to equal representation — and as close as possible to the target population of 27,383 — than any other map, which Pollock favored and said should have been the main priority.
It also would have exchanged only two voter precincts — Logan, which makes up neighborhoods east of Chehalis off Coal Creek and Centralia Alpha roads, and Ferrier.
Grose said he favored Option No. 3 because of its balance and geographical makeup.
The new legislative boundaries drawn up by the Washington State Redistricting Commission carved out a large portion of northwest Lewis County, which beginning next year will be represented by the 19th Legislative District instead of the 20th Legislative District. The new legislative boundary between the two districts will soon follow along portions of Interstate 5, the Chehalis River and municipal city boundaries.
Swope argued this gives them the opportunity to redraw Pollock’s district more into the 19th in order to work more collaboratively with their new lawmakers.
“I did follow up with a couple of our legislators and they did like the idea of us making it as close as possible to the new legislative (maps) since we will be working with six legislators, as we’ll be represented by the 19th and 20th. Being in the 19th, having a commissioner that is focused on the 19th, I think they felt that that was one of the best ways to go to make sure constituents are being represented fairly and adequately, and that we’re making sure that the 19th is addressing concerns within Lewis County,” Swope said.
Pollock noted that most of the county’s population — especially Chehalis and Centralia — will still remain in the 20th Legislative District.
Her preferred map, she argued, would have made the Logan precinct and city of Chehalis whole again while Swope and Grose’s choice would have drawn the Claquato precinct — which lies within the Chehalis School District boundaries — into the Centralia-centric Commissioner District 1.
“I’m looking at it as, basically, what is our most important item? And it’s having as equal representation as possible amongst our population while trying to make it as closely associated with communities as we can,” Pollock said.
