EAST PROVIDENCE — Through discussions at a recent regularly scheduled meeting and at a special session over the last two weeks, the City Council appears to have coalesced around a hybrid proposal to revise East Providence’s new voting wards and polling precincts.

The council used a draft proposal presented at each meeting by the GIS (Global Intelligence Services) consulting firm ARCBridge, which offers customers with geospatial mapping, modeling and analysis, as its stepping stone to reach its conclusion.

One of the company’s top executives, Priti Mathur, provided the council an overview of the existing wards/precincts and those potential adjustments made to suit the new Assembly lines.

Driven solely based on the redrawn districts for members of the General Assembly, the council was required to make the alterations. Mathur noted the new proposal was based solely on the numbers derived from the 2020 Census figures. She told the council it could maintain the status quo, but that the city would then run afoul of the new Assembly lines.

The state Senate and House recently took up the mandatory task of passing legislation on its revised districts based off of the data from the nationwide 2020 Census. Though the number of East Providence’s Assembly delegates remained the same (seven: four reps, three senators) some of their district lines moved slightly. Concurrently, municipalities must adjust their wards/precincts locally to match the changes made at the state level.

The draft proposal made according to the 2020 Census found the city’s population actually grew by 102 residents from 2010 up to 47,139. The total population is divided into 18 polling precincts and four voting wards for City Council and School Committee elections.

The recommended number of residents in each of a city’s existing wards/precincts should fall within the maximum deviation (10 percent). East Providence’s did, at just over 9 percent, but they did not jibe with the new Assembly districts and needed to be changed.

Each of the four city wards/precincts are affected based on the following state-wide requirements: no precinct can be split between House and Senate districts; no precinct can have more than 3,000 registered voters; and all precincts must have viable/acceptable locations for polling places.

Mathur, in response to a question during the second of the two meetings, reiterated her numbers were based solely on the 2020 Census and did not take into account additional residents to the city via pending housing developments like the ones planned in Rumford adjacent to Phillipsdale Landing and Newport Avenue as well as in Riverside off Wampanoag Trail.

Under the new wards/precincts initially presented by Mathur some 1,300 residents residents and/or potential voters would have been affected and the maximum deviation between each of the four wards would have been less than one percent.

Under the tweaked proposal made by the council approximately 1,000 residents and/or potential voters would be affected and the population deviation between the four wards would drop to 2.07 percent.

The council used most of ARCBridge's initial concepts to come up with ward/precinct lines it could agree upon. A couple of locations, however, were non-negotiable due to the newly drawn state rep districts.

The item holds significant urgency. Cities and towns must submit their approved redistricting plans to the Secretary of State’s office for review and approval by April 15.

The redistricting plan is done in the form of an ordinance, which requires two separate approvals from the council as well as a formal, advertised public hearing.

A meeting for the council to take the first vote on the ordinance was set for Tuesday night, March 29, also at 6:30 p.m. Second passage, including the public hearing, was set for Tuesday, April 5, during the council’s first scheduled meeting of the month.

Both gatherings take place in the City Hall chamber and can be viewed as they happen on the council’s YouTube page, East Providence City Council Live Stream.