OCR Text |
Show Reapportionment ! should be delayed Iron County Commission, after hearing a report by Iron County Attorney Hans Q. Chamberlain, recently authorized an immediate census of the county to determine the possible need for reapportionment reap-portionment of the county school districts. Although the census was authorized apparently the Commission has not established the necessary mechanics, nor provided for the funding of such a study. Since that action was taken the County Attorney has further emphasized em-phasized the need for the possible reapportionment of the Iron County School Districts in a letter to the commission. That letter advises the commission "to conduct an immediate census and defer any decision of reapportionment until the results are known. In this connection," the letter continues, "extreme care should be taken to insure the census is thorough and objective. The results can be reviewed then and a final decision made." The urgency of the matter, however, was further indicated in the communication to the commissioners. Quoting from Mr. Chamberlain's Cham-berlain's letter: ". . .If a decision is made to reapportion after the census is conducted, it will, of course, necessitate that all members of the School District be brought up for election. Thus it would appear ap-pear that all candidates should have to re-file, if they chose to do so, and then run against any opposition who would also have the right to file at that time. This filing could be done prior to the 1974 general election in November, and therefore I strongly recommend that immediate action be taken to conduct the census and render a decision as to reapportionment so that Iron County will not be put to the additional expense of conducting a special election for members of the Iron County School Board." It appears that the recommendation of Attorney Chamberlain are 'sound, but possibly impractable at this time, from the standpoint of completing a census and possibly reapportioning the county prior to the November election. , The deadline for filing for the School Board has already passed. Whether or not that could be altered by a reapportionment proposal would also have to be legally investigated. ; Under the existing circumstances it appears that the County Commission, who has, by law, the decision to reapportion should move ahead as fast as possible, but such a decision should be made only after an extensive and accurate census has been completed and only after that census is thoroughly analysed to assure that any new districting of the school board is in the best interest of the county. With funding and mechanical processing of a census still not decided we believe that it is already too late to consider such reapportionment reap-portionment prior to the general election in November. |