Editorial: City sends request to redistricting commission

On May 17, the Belleville City Council approved a resolution to be sent to the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission formed by the State of Michigan asking it to place the communities of Belleville, Van Buren, and Sumpter within the same representative district.
In the November 2020 election, the people of the state voted for the anti-gerrymandering provision that requires formation of the commission to research and make decisions on creating districts, including those for the Michigan House and Senate. The commissioners will meet June 3 to consider this area.
The city’s resolution was to accompany resolutions from the VBT Board of Trustees and the Sumpter Township Board of Trustees requesting that the three communities be placed within the same district. As of Monday, neither VBT nor Sumpter had placed it on their agendas for a vote.
The three communities share a museum, library district, veterans’ memorial, school district. And, the city serves all communities as a downtown district.
Presently Belleville and VBT share a state representative and VBT also has a second representative on its northeast corner. Sumpter has a representative that is based in Monroe. This is the perfect time to request the unity this area once had. We applaud the resolution.