Knox City Attorney David Matsey told the council last week that the redistricting of voting precincts has been completed, but he said they made very few changes. Matsey explained that state law requires all municipalities to reestablish districts two years after the most recent census, so the city is required to complete the redistricting ordinance by the end of this year.

He said there are a number of requirements in the redistricting process, including a condition that all districts must be roughly the same size. However, Matsey said because the county will not be reconfiguring precincts, the city can retain the same districts. He presented an ordinance reaffirming the city’s current districts and suggested repealing the current ordinance and adding the new ordinance, worded exactly the same, before the end of the year.

A motion was made and passed to approve the ordinance on its first reading, and the council proceeded to vote to suspend the rules and approved the ordinance on its second and third readings as well, placing the new districting ordinance into effect immediately.

The Knox City Council this week adopted their budget for 2013, but Clerk-Treasurer Jeff Houston pointed out that they did hit a big of a snag. The state originally denied their intent to reestablish the Cumulative Capital Fund because the city did not publish the notice of adoption before Aug. 1 as required, but Houston said that was due to the fact that they did not have enough time to do so.

Houston said that they were behind schedule because they did not learn of the time requirement until June, and since governmental entities are required to publish the notice eight days ahead time, then hold a hearing and go through other time-consuming processes, they simply were unable to meet that deadline. He said a number of other towns and cities are in the same boat, and as a result, the Department of Local Government Finance reconsidered and accepted the city’s reestablishment of the Cumulative Capital Fund.

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