Saratoga County faces changes in weighted vote system

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

The county’s 9.5 percent residential growth in the 2010 census will require some changes in how the county Board of Supervisors conducts its votes.

The county added nearly 19,000 new residents in the last decade, with the Northway corridor towns adding two-thirds of the new residents.

That will increase the power of those towns within the Board of Supervisors, where supervisors cast weighted votes equal to the population of the towns they represent.

County Board Chairman Thomas N. Wood III, R-Saratoga, on Tuesday appointed a committee to look at the issues the new numbers raise.

“Obviously, we’ll be looking at all the issues,” he said.

Currently, there are 23 supervisors representing 19 towns and two cities. They cast votes weighted to be equal to the population they represent, except that no supervisor can have more than 20,000 weighted votes.

Currently, the weighted vote maximum limit means that the two biggest communities — Clifton Park and Saratoga Springs — have two supervisors, who split the community’s weighted vote.

Clifton Park’s population rose 10.9 percent, to 36,705. That means the town’s two supervisors would each cast 18,253.5 weighted votes. Saratoga Springs grew only 1.3 percent, less than most Northway corridor communities, and each supervisor from the city will cast 13,293 weighted votes.

But with the new census numbers, the town of Halfmoon has also exceeded the 20,000 population threshold. It’s new population total is 21,535, according to the Census Bureau.

Wood said the supervisors may prefer raising the 20,000 threshold to a higher number, rather than adding a second supervisor from Halfmoon.

Overall, the county’s population has increased from 200,635 in 2000 to 219,607 in 2010. Wood said the numbers remain tentative, awaiting certification by the Census Bureau.

In addition to Halfmoon, towns with big weighted votes will include Milton, with 18,575; Wilton, with 16,173; and Malta, with 14,728.

The growth in the Northway corridor increases the chance that those towns, voting as a block, could pass legislation even if supervisors from all the towns outside the corridor were opposed to it. Under the new population numbers, a resolution would need 109,804 votes to pass; The five largest communities will have the ability to pass a resolution, even if all others are opposed.

While nearly all votes by the board are unanimous, there are occasionally contentious issues — such as setting the sales tax distribution formula — that can pit large towns against smaller ones.

The weighted votes are not used at the committee level, where each supervisor has a single vote.

Wood acknowledged that census figures will increase the power of the Northway corridor towns, but said there may be nothing to be done about it, given federal constitutional “one man, one vote” requirements.

“I don’t see that as a bad thing or a good thing, it’s just what’s happening,” he said.

The new committee will include Wood, Anita Daly of Clifton Park, Frank Thompson of Milton, Jean Raymond of Edinburg, and Mindy Wormuth of Halfmoon. There is no deadline for it to complete its work, but Wood said he expects it will only take a couple of months.

Raymond, whose town in the Adirondack foothills would be the second-smallest under the new figures, said she doesn’t foresee major problems if the Northway corridor towns have more weighted votes.

Separately, she said she’s considering ways to challenge the Census Bureau conclusion that Edinburg shrank 12 percent, to 1,214 residents. She believes the town actually grew slightly.

“In a lot of rural towns they didn’t send out forms, they just went out door to door, and if people weren’t home after a few visits they just concluded they were seasonal,” she said.