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Thursday, December 16, 2021

New county council districts finalized

King County council district 1

On Wednesday, December 8, 2021 the King County Districting Committee unanimously adopted the Amended Final Draft Districting Master Plan. The adopted redistricting plan will be filed with the Clerk of the Council and will become the new King County Council district boundaries, effective upon filing.

A map of the new King County Council district boundaries is available online.

The work of the Districting Committee is guided by legal criteria. By law, Council district boundaries must be redrawn after each U.S. Census to make each district as nearly equal in population as possible using the most recent census data. 

The new district boundaries must be compact, contiguous, and composed of economic and geographic units. To the extent feasible, the districts must correspond with the boundaries of existing municipalities, election precincts, census tracts, recognized natural boundaries, and preserve communities of related and mutual interest. Population data may not be used for purposes of favoring or disfavoring any racial group or political party.

The County Charter places sole responsibility for redistricting with the independent, citizen Districting Committee. Members of the non-partisan King County Districting Committee include Chair Ann Schindler, Cherryl Jackson-Williams, Paul Graves, Sophia Danenberg, and Rob Saka.

The Districting Master, King County GIS, served as the technical expert in developing the plan.

The Committee strived to keep smaller cities whole, isolated from Seattle and Bellevue to the extent possible, and ensure that when cities needed to be split between districts that sufficient portions were in both districts as to avoid divisions with small city slivers.

District 1: Shoreline and Lake Forest Park, by preference, are kept in a group of north end cities which includes Kenmore, the King county portion of Bothell (which is also in Snohomish county), and the northern section of Kirkland. In order to reach the number goal, a large section of northeast Seattle is included.

District 1 continues to be represented by Rod Dembowski.

In drawing the redistricting map, each district must be as nearly equal in population as possible. No district in the adopted plan deviates by more than 0.16% from the 2021 Council district target population of 252,186. Black, Indigenous and People of Color accounted for 100% of the population growth within King County over the past decade and comprise a majority of constituents in Council Districts 2 (50.30%), 5 (59.99%) and 7 (53.00%) under the newly adopted plan.

For more information, visit www.kingcounty.gov/districting



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