Despite concerns of incumbent gerrymandering, the North Idaho College Board of Trustees on Monday passed proposed zones for upcoming elections. The proposal, which breaks Kootenai County into five population-based zones in accordance with Idaho House Bill 512, will now go to Boise for final approval by the State Board of Education. However, the proposal narrowly passed on a 3-2 vote with Trustee Christie Wood voicing concern that the approved zones, re-drawn to prevent Trustees Ron Nilson and Todd Banducci from living in the same zone, could be construed as gerrymandering by the general public. "I think we have to be very careful when we do these maps that we are true to what the Legislature wanted," Wood said. "If we can find a fair way, so be it"/Keith Cousins, Coeur d'Alene Press. More here.

DFO: The majority of the North Idaho College Board of Trustees decided to play nice last night to protect two trustees from facing each other in the new zone forced on community college districts by the 2016 Legislature. Rather than accept a zone map that was made up without thought to which trustees it might affect, the majority listened to the whine from Trustees Todd Banducci and Ron Nilson, who live a mile away from each other, and settled for a second plan that put them in two different zones. The original plan -- the better one -- would have forced the two to run against each other this fall, ridding the board of at least one Tea Party leaning trustee. Alas.