WGLT
McLean County Board members voted Tuesday evening to keep the current structure of the board as the once-a-decade redistricting process moves forward.
The McLean County Board voted 17-3 in a special meeting Tuesday evening to keep the board's existing structure of 10 county board districts with two members per district.
The decision followed weeks of maneuvering and sometimes strident rhetoric about the effects of proposals to either expand the number of districts, or to reduce the number to five. Republicans Jim Soeldner, George Wendt, and Lyndsay Bloomfield voted against the resolution.
During discussion, Wendt portrayed the five-district proposal not as Democrats had claimed — a way to create districts with higher percentages of Republican votes — but rather as having rural issues heard and understood because constituents from both areas would be part of the districts.