Selectmen OK Plan for Two State Reps

Selectmen Jon Kurland Monday night presented a plan to selectmen for the town to have two state reps instead of four.

The Legislative Redistricting Committee was established by selectmen to take a look at the 2010 census numbers and figure out a fair way to reduce the number of state reps. Because the town has four, many officials said, none of the state reps are dependent upon Chelmsford's vote.

The group is bi-partisan and includes Selectmen Kurland and Matt Hanson, Town Republican Committee Chairman Paul Rigazio, Town Democratic Committee Chairman Sam Poulton, and Thomas DePasquale.

Kurland told selectmen the state has said it can probably get Chelmsford down to three reps, but the committee has a plan for two.

 "The sense we got with meetings was that they were aware of our difficulties and that they felt comfortable they could get us down to three. We came up with a scenario for one representative but it was so complicated that we felt politically it would never be seriously considered," said Kurland.

Kurland presented a geographical portion of Chelmsford that involved Rep. Tom Golden giving up one precinct, but his portion would be an area closer to his house.

The plan would then be to add precincts 1, 4 and 9 to Rep. Jim Arcerio, so in all, he'd represent precincts 1, 4, 5, 7, and 9. In exchange he’d have to give up the town of Littleton, which would go to Rep. Cory Atkins. He would now represent two communities instead of three.

Under the plan, Rep. David Nangle's one precinct - precinct 4 - would go to Arciero and preinct 3- which Arciero currently has - would go to Golden.

Atkins currently represents four communities, Kurland said, and under the plan she would continue to represent four but she would give up Chelmsford for Littleton.

Arciero, who has three communities - Littleton Westford, and Chlemsford would go down to two under the plan. Golden's towns would stay the same and Nangle would give up Chelmsford. Kurland said he'd then just be representing Lowell.

 "We feel this is the best liklihood we have to getting the people at state house to seriously consider our proposal to get down from four to two. This just involves four reps, who have expressed desire to reduce the number of reps," said Kurland.

Selectmen approved recommending the plan to the representatives and requested to present the plan in Boston at the state house as well.