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Central Point expands voting for City Council CENTRAL POINT - Voting for City Council members just got simpler. Thanks to an ordinance adopted by the council Thursday, all voters registered in the city will help decide all positions on the council. But to ensure there is equal representation throughout the city, council members must still run according to wards, or neighborhoods. In the past, individual wards voted for the council members who would represent them. City Administrator Jim Bennett said the city recently changed ward boundaries to match the newly defined precinct lines drawn by the county Elections Department. "Wards are generally identified with neighborhoods or areas of the city and help to keep a closer connection between the City Council members and the neighborhoods that they represent," said Bennett. "Residents obviously would prefer someone who lives in their area to be representing their neighborhood." Since the sizes of the four wards vary, having all voters decide makes things equal, Bennett explained. "One of the wards was left quite small, but it is an area which is expected to really grow. To make it fair, the council changed the voting so that all the wards will be elected by the total voting public and not just people in that ward. "The alternative was to go to at-large, which was not an option that seemed to appeal to the council." The council will continue to consist of four wards and two at-large positions. The new precinct lines and ward lines were based on 2000 census results which showed the city had grown 66 percent in the past decade, from 7,509 in 1990 to 12,493 in 2000. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.