OKTIBBEHA COUNTY — The county has another possible design for redrawing district lines after the 2020 U.S. census.

Four different areas across four districts could soon have new supervisors.

According to the 2020 census, Oktibbeha County’s population stands at 51,728, increasing by roughly 4,000 residents since the 2010 census. While the county population has risen, it has not increased evenly across all five districts, meaning the county will have to redraw its district lines in the coming months.

Golden Triangle Planning and Development District Geographic Information Systems Director Toby Sanford presented the second possible plan to the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors Thursday at its redistricting workshop.

This plan would move the area south of East Garrard Road between North Jackson and North Montgomery streets and areas consisting of Rolling Hills Developmental Center, Starkville Manor Health Care and Rehab and the apartment complex near Clements Avenue and Tomlinson Drive into different districts.

“Most redistricting usually happens within the city,” Sanford said. “It’s always been that way. That’s where your bulk of the population is.”

The area south of East Garrard Road between North Jackson and North Montgomery streets, which includes Sudduth Elementary School, and Rolling Hills would move from District 2 to District 3. Starkville Manor Health Center would move from District 2 to District 5 and the apartment complex near Clements Avenue and Tomlinson Drive would move from District 3 to District 1.

District 2 currently has the largest number of residents with 11,362, while Districts 3 and 4 have the lowest numbers with 9,844 and 9,836, respectively.

In order to determine if county lines needed to be redrawn, Sanford took the total population and divided that by the five districts, creating an “ideal number,” and then determined a deviation, which is the difference from that ideal number. The deviation is then multiplied by 100 and divided by the ideal number to get a population percentage. The highest and lowest population percentages are subtracted from each other, and if that number is higher than 10 percent, redistricting is required.

After conducting this math, Sanford said the percentage equated to 14.73 percent, which is not very far from 10 percent, meaning only slight changes needed to be made in order to find the proper maximum variance.

Sanford’s first proposed plan, which he presented at the Oct. 4 board meeting, moved one area, Aspen Heights Starkville apartment complex, from District 2 to District 5. While this would be the simplest solution, Sanford said it would decrease District 5’s minority percentage. Mississippi law requires that at least one district have mostly minority citizens, which in Oktibbeha County has always been District 5.

“Plan 1 was nice except I simply created it in about five minutes, and I just moved one (area),” Sanford said. “It did accomplish the job but with redistricting, I think we might as well fix some things that need to be fixed in the first place. We like to do the fewest amount of changes, but sometimes you can’t help that.”

Currently as the district lines stand, many of the areas discussed Thursday are split districts. This second proposal would put all of those complexes and areas into the same districts.

“I do think this would work better,” Sanford said. “Whole neighborhoods would be in one supervisor district. That whole community of interest is together.”

The board decided it would like to see a third option before officially voting on a plan. Sanford said he would create another layout for the board, but no date was set for this presentation.

County justice court district lines must also be drawn. Because justice court judges are the only judges elected in state elections, their districts must be redetermined every 10 years. Sanford said he is going to wait to create potential justice court district layouts until the board decides which plan to approve for supervisor lines in order to prevent split precincts.

Supervisor opinions
Only District 1 Supervisor John Montgomery, District 3 Supervisor Marvell Howard and Board President Joe Williams, who represents District 5, attended Thursday’s workshop.
Montgomery said he believes this plan is efficient and will make district lines cleaner and easier for voters.

“People would always be asking ‘Where do I vote?’ because (buildings in the same complex) would be in different districts,” Montgomery said. “… I think Plan 2 is a go. It cleans up a lot of weird lines.”

District 2 Supervisor Orlando Trainer, who represents the area Rolling Hills falls under, was absent Thursday. Ten years ago, Sanford proposed Rolling Hills be moved out of Trainer’s district, but Trainer did not want to give up that area. Howard, who would be the new supervisor of Rolling Hills if this plan is approved, said he would like Trainer to have a say so but knows this area would make more sense in his district.

“Ten years ago, he and I went back and forth between Rolling Hills,” Howard said. “It recommended that it be moved then, but he didn’t want to move it. We went back and forth, and I agreed to say ‘OK, just keep it.’ … It’s 10 years later now, and it needs fixing. I don’t think I’m going to be so easy to say, ‘OK, just keep it’ this time.”

Trainer told The Dispatch in a phone interview he would like the board to come up with a different solution for redistricting instead of moving Rolling Hills out of his district, and he would like to see what all the possible options are.

“I would rather not have that area moved (out of District 2),” Trainer said. “It’s a situation where you have people that you’re very familiar with and you don’t want them moved out of your district… I think we should just get through this the best way we can.”