Interested in Pasco council vacancy? You must live in west Pasco

The sudden death of Mike Garrison on July 27 left a vacant seat on the Pasco City Council.

Now, with 17 months left in his term, city staff and council members must start the process to appoint a replacement.

But if you live in central Pasco and are considering throwing your hat in the ring, you’re out of luck.

You will have to move at least a few miles to the northwest to qualify for the position.

That’s because an anomaly in the council districts, created when the city redrew the boundaries in early 2015, has resulted in a vacancy in District 4 in west Pasco.

So applicants, for the most part, must live between Road 52 and Broadmoor Boulevard.

The district extends from Burns Road, formerly known as Powerline Road, on the far north to Interstate 182, with a section south of the highway along Argent Road west to Road 84.

Garrison represented District 2 — generally between Fourth Avenue and Highway 395, south of I-182 — for 28 1/2 years. He last was re-elected in 2013.

However in 2015, Councilman Bob Hoffmann’s home ended up within the District 2 boundaries.

Hoffmann has been on the council since 2005 representing District 3, a small portion of which dips into central Pasco.

At the same time, the District 4 boundaries shifted, placing Councilman Saul Martinez’s address in District 3. He has been on the council since 2010.

“Basically, we’ve had two council members shift which district they were in through the redistricting process, without even moving,” said Pasco City Manager Dave Zabell.

“This would not have been an issue at all, short of Mike’s passing. In the next election, it would have resolved itself,” Zabell added. “If Mike and Bob had both wanted to run, they would have had to run against each other or move.”

Garrison died after a recent diagnosis of leukemia.

In reviewing the sudden vacancy, City Attorney Leland Kerr determined that Pasco has to advertise for applicants from District 4 and not District 2.

The issue will be discussed at an Aug. 22 workshop meeting. Council members must decide the process to take, which likely will include letters of interest before moving on to interviews.

Zabell recognizes that it could be a bit controversial, with some people accusing the city of trying to pull a fast one on its residents.

The city couldn’t make a council member vacate their office just because the boundary changed, and Hoffmann and Martinez have continued to represent their elected districts, he said.

“You can’t draw a district boundary around where people live. That’s gerrymandering,” Zabell said. “The City Council, through our demographer, was really trying to maximize the Latino voting bloc on those three districts.”

The realignment is done every two years, before the election cycle, to ensure that the population within each voting district doesn’t deviate by more than 10 percent from the others.

Two of the city’s five districts have a Hispanic majority in regards to voter-age population.

But since Pasco is a dynamic community, the numbers already could have changed within all of the districts, Zabell said.

And the boundaries may end up being realigned again within the next year if Pasco has to go to seven single-member districts because the current five district, two at-large member system violates the federal Voting Rights Act.

That would mean all of the council members, including the newly appointed one, would face election, possibly in new districts.

This story was originally published August 6, 2016 at 7:53 PM with the headline "Interested in Pasco council vacancy? You must live in west Pasco."