Drawing Up Districts is Turning Into a Numbers Game

The Apportionment Committee got closer to finalizing district maps for Houghton County. But not close enough. The committee presented a number of plans from county Treasurer Lisa Mattila, Prosecuting Attorney Britney Bulleit and each of the Democrats and Republicans representatives, William Keith and Dan Holcomb. The committee also heard from the public, with their maps was Mary Sears of the Township Board Association and Dan Haeussler of Hancock. Bulleit’s says her biggest concern is getting the numbers right and more equal distribution across each district.

There still seems to be consensus from the public to not add another district, creating a total of 6 commissioners. The other issue that was brought up by the public is keeping cities and smaller municipalities from having to split up. Outside of the city of Houghton, this will need to be broken up due to the population increase during the previous decade.  The next apportionment will be next week, on Wednesday 29^th, 2021 at 4 p.m.