HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-22-25 Public Comment - N. Nakamura - Comments about districtsFrom:Natsuki Nakamura
To:Bozeman Goverment Study Commission
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Comments about districts
Date:Wednesday, October 22, 2025 5:07:40 PM
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Dear study commissioners,
Thank you for staying late last night– it was a very interesting discussion from the City
Commission.
While I don’t always agree with the commissioners we currently have, it is obvious that all ofthem put in many long hours for their position. My major concern with the idea of districts or
of adding additional commissioners is that I don’t believe that would reduce the amount ofwork each commissioner would be doing.
To properly prepare for a City Commission meeting, each commissioner would still have the
same amount of “homework” -- reading the staff reports and trying to make informed votesabout the budget, annexations, changes to the UDC, etc. I assume that all the commissioners
would still read and consider all public comments on an issue or a proposed ordinance they arevoting on, even if the public comment didn’t come from someone in their district. Adding
districts or more commissioners would not mean that each commissioner would only have toread one part of the relevant materials.
If the goal is to better match the compensation to the amount of work being asked of
commissioners, or to make being on the commission more accessible to non-retired or non-wealthy members in our community, then I’m not convinced that just adding more
commissioners or dividing into districts accomplishes this.
If the goal is to have better representation for different areas of town that have distinct issuesor priorities, I think, as was brought up, having established neighborhood associations in every
part of the town is a prerequisite to establishing district boundaries. Without establishedneighborhoods throughout Bozeman, it is unclear where district lines should be and districts
would likely be defined more arbitrarily based on population and likely need to be reassessedoften.
It is worth nothing that having established neighborhood associations in all parts of Bozeman
(rather than just self-selecting engaged residents taking the initiative to form and maintaintheir association) would take substantial investment from the City to support, through staff to
support logistics of meetings, ensure sufficient engagement, funds to support meetings, etc.There cannot be any expectation that every resident will have a functional neighborhood
association without this investment and commitment by the City. The current staff memberwho supports the limited number of neighborhood associations we have now also has other
communications responsibilities and so does not and cannot properly support the existingneighborhood associations, let alone newly established ones.
One commissioner last night made the suggestion to start modest with the number of districts
– and then suggested starting with 6!! Before living in Bozeman, I lived in Anchorage and in
Pittsburgh – both of which have a population of about 300,000 within city limits. Pittsburghhas 9 districts; Anchorage has 6 districts with 2 representatives in each, with staggered terms.
Pittsburgh and Anchorage both have geographic features that create some natural districts.Given that Bozeman is about 1/5 of their population and maybe doesn’t have as many
regionally specific issues (ie. I’m not sure if everyone west of 19th or everyone north of Mainfeels like they have a shared sense of issues and priorities), I might suggest a "modest" amount
of districts would be 2 or 3 to start… I am quite concerned that districts will result in lessdemocratic elections if there are districts with uncontested races, and I think having too many
districts increases this risk. (MT state legislature races allowing people who live outside of adistrict to run for the seat is a very logical solution to the problem that districts create, but then
results in people being represented by a legislator who doesn’t actually live there). Acommissioner currently running for office acknowledged last night that it would be a less
competitive race if it was a district rather than at-large. I think this comment is noteworthy andmeans more consideration is needed before districts are implemented to make sure they are
helping meet the goal (be it trying to reduce the workload for individual commissioners, or beit helping residents feel that they are better represented).
Thank you for your consideration and for facilitating an interesting discussion. I hope many
others engage in this conversation!Natsuki Nakamura