DECISION PENDING ON ZONES PANEL TURNS DOWN TRIO OF ALTERNATIVES

Neither of the three plans proposing boundaries for new Cape Girardeau voting wards adequately preserves natural social, economic and racial divisions in the city.

That was the consensus Monday of the city's Zone Election Committee, which deferred action on the three plans until a fourth could be drafted.

Chairman Howard Tooke appointed a subcommittee of himself, Ken Richardson, Larry Godfrey, Bernice Coar-Cobb, John Oliver, and Peter Bergerson to draft an alternative plan that better reflects "historically homogeneous" sections of the community.

The Zone Election Committee was formed late last year to sort out legal questions surrounding the implementation of ward council representation here a measure voters approved in November.

The measure divided the city into six "zones" or wards, but population in the zones varied by as much as 58 percent.

Each of the three plans proposed by the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission, Richardson and Godfrey, respectively had more acceptable population variations.

But committee members said they still were concerned that the wards divided too many "historically homogeneous" areas of the city, particularly the campus of Southeast Missouri State University.

"The idea is to come up with six areas as homogeneous as possible that won't disenfranchise the city and won't disenfranchise the university community," said Oliver.

Oliver suggested that a fourth plan, using the three proposals as a guide, be drafted to more adequately represent social, economic, racial and ethic boundaries.

In the SEMO Regional Planning Commission proposal, the university was split into three separate wards, and the original boundaries of the city from the Mississippi River west to Sprigg Street, south to Morgan Oak and north to North Street also were divided by separate, vertical ward boundaries.

"I think we ought to come up with a fourth plan that concentrates on a horizontal line in the original city and works out to these other areas," Oliver said.

But Richardson said the primary focus of the Zone Election Committee has been to draw lines that divide the city evenly by population, at the expense of "homogeneity."

Tooke also said he thought the ward lines should be as close as possible to the original boundaries approved by voters last year.

"The plan that was submitted was flawed, but the intent of the voters was outlined in that proposal," Tooke added.

Godfrey said he attempted in his plan to move the ward boundaries as little as possible from the original plan approved by voters.

"I felt the other maps that were presented were changing the boundaries too much for what was voted on by the people," he said.

Of the three plans proposed, the SEMO Regional Planning Commission's proposal showed a population variation of about 4 percent. Richardson's variation was about 1 percent, and Godfrey's plan showed a 2 percent variation. Ideally, each ward would have a total population of 5,772.

One of the sticking points to drafting a boundary map seems to be the contention that the three existing council members elected to serve until 1996 should be drawn into separate wards.

State law prohibits council members' terms from being ended prematurely by the adoption of a ward system.

That means at least three of the current council members must remain in office until 1996. In all three plans, boundary lines were drawn so that the council members Melvin Gateley, Melvin Kasten and Al Spradling III live in separate wards.

After the 1994 election, three new members will be elected from wards, and Gateley, Kasten and Spradling will become representatives of their respective wards.

But by splitting the three incumbents into separate wards, the boundary maps also split economically and socially consistent population groups.

"What we're trying to do here is carry out the will of the voters, then we found out we have the problem of three council members that must be in separate zones," said committee member Loretta Schneider. "It probably won't be possible to keep homogeneous zones while still splitting up these council members."

But Oliver said there's no reason to place Kasten, Spradling and Gateley into three separate wards.

If two of the three were in the same zone, the city could simply "draw straws" to determine which three of the four "open" wards would hold elections in 1994, then hold elections for the remaining three wards in 1996.

The councilmen would be allowed to serve out their terms, at which time the city would achieve complete ward representation.

"The boundary lines shouldn't be sacrificed for the sake of mathematical purity or at the expense of any homogeneous group," Oliver said.