Staff recommends City Council conduct a public hearing and approve the Ward Boundary Amendment Ordinance on first reading to update the City Council Wards per population changes following the 2020 Census.

Per the Billings City Charter and State Statute, the City Council updates its City Council Ward Boundaries following each Decennial US Census to ensure the population in each City Ward is as equal as possible to ensure equal voting strength and representation. Data from the US Census was made available in 2022 and staff has worked with City Council to prepare Ward Boundary amendments per the Ordinance and Ward Map attached to this memo. The Council is scheduled to take action on first reading of the ordinance at this meeting to ensure it can provide the updated Ward Boundary information to the County Elections Administrator in advance of the deadline for candidates to register for the 2023 Primary Election for City Council.

Article 3 of the City of Billings Charter requires election wards with 10 Council Members and two Council members representing each ward. Chapter 11 of the City Code requires that ward boundaries be described in an ordinance and shown on a map. State Code Section 7-5-4401 requires that cities of the first class (Billings) have between 4 and 10 wards and that the population in each be as equal as possible. This ensures that, per the US and Montana Constitutions as well as case law, voters have equal voting strength and representation with their elected governing bodies. In jurisdictions like Billings that have more than one election district, equal voting power and representation are accomplished by equalizing the population as much as possible among all of the election districts.

Redrawing election boundaries has a judicially approved set of mandatory and a set of discretionary criteria. From the outset, staff focused its efforts on changes that meet the mandatory criteria, such as equalized population and contiguous and compact shapes of wards. The most common discretionary criteria are to use geographic or topographical features as boundaries and borders that use existing political unit boundaries - like roads, ditches, rivers, etc. There are areas of the City with little or no population as they are commercial areas, and there are areas with greater density of population and those with less. As depicted on the attached map that accompanies the ordinance, to get the 5 Wards to be within less than 1% deviation in population from the idea Ward population staff had to select some small areas of several Wards where there was population to achieve this. The attached map accompanying the ordinance ensures all Wards are within 1% population deviation of the ideal Ward Population of 23,448. The ideal Ward population is calculated by dividing the total number off Wards by the total Census population for 2020 for Billings, including population in any annexed property up until December 2022 - 117,240/5 = 23,448. The map provides for the populations in all Wards for being within 1% plus or minus of 23,448.

The Billings City Charter requires that Council members reside in the wards that they represent. If a new ward boundary plan was adopted that placed an incumbent in a different ward from the one that elected him/her, that Council member would immediately forfeit his/her seat because s/he would no longer reside in the ward that elected him/her. The proposed ward boundary update does not affect any current Council members in terms of their place of residence and the ward they represent.

The City's 2020 population per the 2020 Census data and including any annexations through December 2022 is 117,240. The 2010 Census data set the City population at 104,170. The increase in population since the 2010 Census is most significant in Ward 4 at 25,722. This creates a significant imbalance with Ward 1 that has a current population of 20,580. Staff has reviewed the populations in the wards and also looked at election district boundaries, and has developed a recommendation for Council to make changes between Ward 1 and Ward 4 and several other small adjustments between other Wards to achieve nearly equal Ward populations. This proposal appears to be the most straight forward way to make the necessary changes with the least effect on the five wards boundaries overall.

Staff first brought proposed Ward Boundary updates to the City Council at a Work Session on October 5, 2022. Following this meeting, staff found that the methodology for calculating the ideal ward population and bringing the Wards within 1% was incorrect and the process was revised. Staff brought the Ward Boundary updates back to Council at its Work Session on December 5, 2022. After hearing recommendations and discussions as to how to adjust the Ward boundaries to best represent the Wards and try and make the boundaries between Wards a little cleaner, staff made further modifications to the map and shared the revisions via email with Council on December 22. Council was generally supportive of the revised map and staff prepared to share the changes in a public forum. A Ward Boundary Update Open House was held on January 11 to share information on the process and background on the City making Ward Boundary changes. About four members of the public attended the meeting and some provided comments and asked questions. The comments included concern the open house had not been well publicized and the Billings Heights continues to be underrepresented by the way the Council Ward boundaries are defined. There were no specific comments as to changes to the Ward Boundaries as proposed.

The 2023 City Government Primary is Tuesday, September 12th and the General is Tuesday, November 7th. The time for candidates to file opens 140 days prior to the Primary, or the third week in April 2023. The City should determine its Ward boundaries prior to the opening day for candidates to file so they know which Ward they reside within. Given the schedule, staff has brought the ordinance for first reading to Council tonight. If Council conducts a public hearing and takes action on the first reading of the ordinance tonight, the second reading will be scheduled for February 27, meaning the ordinance takes effect March 27 and may be sent to the County Elections Administrator in early April, ahead of the deadline.
 

The stakeholders in this process include the residents of Billings that are represented by the City Council and Mayor across the five City Council Election Wards. A public hearing is scheduled for this meeting prior to action on the ordinance amending the Ward Boundaries. A Ward Boundary Update Open House was held on January 11 to share information with the public on the process and background on the City making Ward Boundary changes. About four members of the public attended the meeting and some provided comments and asked questions. The comments included concern the open house had not been well publicized and the Billings Heights continues to be underrepresented by the way the Council Ward boundaries are defined. There were no specific comments as to changes to the Ward Boundaries as proposed.

There is really only one alternative for the City Council to ensure the City Council Wards are updated before the 2023 City primary election schedule begins, and that is to update the City Council Wards to adjust population distribution as evenly as possible across all five Wards. In this case, the Council has made adjustments that bring all 5 Wards within less than 1% deviation of the ideal Ward population of 23,448 (See attached Ordinance and Ward Boundary Map).

The main fiscal impact from this effort was the staff time involved in collecting the Census data, analyzing it, and then preparing draft Ward maps to show how the adjustments in population would be distributed across the Wards. City GIS, Planning, Legal, the Clerk's Office, and Administration have been involved in this effort in the City, and the County Elections Administrator and County GIS Department also are participating. If the Council fails to adopt a plan prior to the 2023 municipal election or adopts a plan that does not meet the primary criteria for redrawing election boundaries, the decision could be challenged and additional resources would be committed to defending its decisions.