New DeKalb Commission, School Board Districts Coming In 2012

Public hearings may be announced as soon as next week in the effort to redraw DeKalb County commission and school board districts.

The redistricting is mandated by the federal government every 10 years when a new is completed and released.

State Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, who represents a portion of Druid Hills, is also attempting to reduce DeKalb’s school board size from nine to seven members.

Oliver’s HB671 “addresses the issue of just how we go about reducing the board’s size,” she said. “We can’t just decide to suddenly shorten the term of office of someone who has been duly elected by DeKalb citizens without taking the proper steps. So this bill is designed to work out all of those questions.”

Oliver’s proposed legislation:

• Eliminates two positions from the school board as of Jan. 1, 2013;

• Stipulates that board members from districts 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 remain in office until their terms expire;

• Calls for a nonpartisan election for the remaining two districts – which have yet to be drawn – to be held later this year.

Oliver, whose district 83 includes , is also a member of two House DeKalb caucus committees that will be recommending new county commission and school board boundaries to the General Assembly.

The committees are being chaired by state Rep. Simone Bell, D-Atlanta.

“We’ll be working with representatives from both the county commission and the school board to determine the new lines, and then bring those maps back to the full delegation,” Bell said. “These committees will be doing the legwork.

“Our timetable is to have everything reported out of the legislature by Feb. 14,” she added.

Every decade, after the U.S. Census is completed, state governments, or an independent body, make changes to district lines at all levels of government.

This means, a citizen who lived in one county commission or school board district last year may live in another district after the boundaries have been redrawn and approved.