KINGWOOD — The Preston County Commission will have the opportunity to vote on two proposed magisterial districts at its next meeting.
County Clerk Linda Huggins will present the second option based on feedback from the commissioners during a 2-hour special meeting Dec. 7, during which they got into the nitty gritty and re-worked the original proposed map.
The commission previously approved the proposed map presented by Huggins and posted it for public comment before deciding to take another look at the magisterial districts during its Nov. 30 meeting.
Each district, by state code, should be within 5% population of each other and should be roughly the same landmass. To make it complicated, the map must be made using census blocks and not whatever boundary would be convenient.
There are multiple exceptions to consider, such as not dividing historical areas of interest, neighborhoods or small cities, and not making it burdensome for people to go to the polls to vote. The latter was a repeated concern of the commissioners as they worked with the boundaries.
Ultimately, the new proposed map will include the community south of Alpine Lake and east of Terra Alta to the state line in District 1, rather than District 2, where the first proposed map had them.
To compensate for that population moving to District 1 — already the largest district by population thanks to Hazelton Prison — a section of the Valley Point area will be moved to District 2.
District 3 will remain unchanged.
Huggins said she was happy with the outcome of the meeting.
“I mean, I really wanted that. I really wanted their input. My knowledge of all these areas of the county are not enough to make a determination here,” she said. “It just needed to be the county commission’s decision.”
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