Amador County – Amador County Supervisors on Tuesday discussed making Pine Grove a single supervisor district, which could be discussed at next week’s meeting, but seemed to agree that it was unlikely to happen.

Supervisors held a public hearing on county redistricting, and Upcountry resident Debbie Dunn requested another public hearing because Upcountry civic groups didn’t have a chance to see the maps, and she hears frequent talk of trying to get one supervisor to represent Pine Grove. She said Pine Grove now has three representatives, from three districts.

Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said if there was that much concern, more people would have attended Tuesday. Dunn said the map had not been available.

Supervisor Louis Boitano said he has heard comments for years, but he did not think it was possible to make one Pine Grove district, due to costs.

Dunn said she has heard people the last 2-3 years say: “Let’s have one Supervisor district.” Plasse said “then you get into the discussion of what is Pine Grove,” because it is not incorporated. He said they could use the Pine Grove Community Service District boundary.

District 3 Supervisor Ted Novelli asked it Pine Grove could legally get one supervisor and if it would fall within the 10 percent variance of being 20 percent of the county population. Deputy Registrar of Voters George Allen said Pine Grove would not have 6,700 voters, and you “must take people from District 4 and District 2 to balance it out.”

Dunn said Districts 1, 4 and 5 represent Pine Grove people. She suggested moving people from District 4 to District 1. Allen said they also must realize that “there is no definition of Upcountry.”

Supervisor Richard Forster said “you do have 2 supervisors who attend a lot of the meetings” of civic clubs in the Upcountry. Two of those are the Pine Grove Civic Improvement Club, and Upcountry Community Council, both non-elected, quasi political groups.

Boitano said they could try to get the numbers right from each District, and he has heard it for years, but Boitano said he “can’t see how you could make the change without it being very costly.”

Forster said he was worried about substantial changes coming late against the deadline to redistrict needed to be finalized by Nov. 1. Forster said they should have the redistricting issue on the next agenda for discussion only, and not a public hearing, so they can head off any major hit on the Registrar’s office for large, late change.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.