Former Beltrami Co. Commissioner Olson Opposed to Ruling on Redistricting Plan

A former Beltrami County Commissioner is reacting to the decision by a Minnesota judge to order a new redistricting plan for Beltrami County.

Reed Olson served on the board in 2022 and voted in favor of the redistricting plan that passed on a 3-2 vote. Last week, a Ninth Judicial District judge ruled in favor of former county commissioner Jim Lucachick and 30 other plaintiffs who sued the county about the way the Board of Commissioners selected its redistricting plan in 2022.

Judge Christopher J. Strandlie ruled the board did not follow state statues regarding minimizing the population shift between districts, but Olson says that perspective is a narrow one.

“What the judge said is, ‘Yes, you followed that standard, you were within [a population shift buffer of] 10%, but you had other maps that had even closer numbers, even more parity, and so you should have chose one of them,'” said Olson to Lakeland News. “No, there’s a number of criteria that we use from the Secretary of State’s office that guide us, and one of it is compactness of – you want compact districts, you don’t want long stringy [ones]. So one of those maps that did have more parity in the population of the districts were these really long, stringy – so they wouldn’t have met that standard. So I feel like the judge took one principle in isolation and ruled us on that one, even though we were within that standard.”

Olson is also concerned about how a new redistricting plan will be decided. Strandlie ordered a commission of five people to formulate and certify a redistricting plan for Beltrami County. The plaintiffs and the county are directed to agree upon that five-person commission. If there is no agreement on who will serve on the commission, the court will decide it.

“We want to move to a citizen commission, that’s fine. But what [the judge is] saying is that the two parties of the lawsuit should be coming together to decide who those people are,” said Olson. “So on one side, you have five electeds, no longer me, but the five elected county commissioners who represent 46,380 people. On the other side, you have Jim Lucachick and his friends. So the judge is saying that 30 people will have the same amount of influence of authority on creating this as the other 46,350 people. And that’s not democratic.”

Olson added that he feels the decision needs to be appealed, and that an appellate court should decide if the 10% threshold is appropriate. He also said that the Board of Commissioners acted in good faith in choosing a redistricting plan.

Current Beltrami County officials have not commented yet on the court’s decision. Administrator Tom Berry told Lakeland News last week that the county will likely release a statement on the judge’s directive, but it has not had a chance to be briefed by its attorney or meet and discuss the verdict. A special board meeting is scheduled for Oct. 30 to do just that.