A move that could have prevented Hooksett Town Councilor Patricia Rueppel, whose term is almost up, from running for re-election has been put on hold.

CURRENT DISTRICTS - There are six voting districts currently in Hooksett, as shown by the different-colored areas on this map. Those lines may be redrawn once data from the 2000 census can determine how the town's population is spread out. (Devon Cormier Photo)

The town's supervisors of the checklist have halted a move to redraw district lines according to information in the 2000 census data; a move that would have changed Rueppel's district and prevented her from running for re-election.

"I'm really happy they decided not to go ahead with this," Rueppel said. "I don't know what would have happened if they did that, but now I am certainly running for re-election."

The supervisors decided to hold off until the summer after asking the town council to find a way to get a head count in town to better draw district lines.

Town Councilor Michael DiBitetto said that in the past there was a process the town completed called an inventory list. The process involved sending out a survey to all property owners to see how many people live in each area of town. DiBitetto said he doesn't know when or why that process stopped, but it was quite a while ago.

"For some years, we haven't had any methodology for doing our head count," DiBitetto said. "So the election officials have brought the issue back to the council to see whether we can do this or not."

The town charter refers to the census data as the method that should be used to draw up district lines. The 2000 census data shows that the district lines have changed, but the supervisors of the checklist aren't sure the data is as reliable as they want, DiBitetto said. It has taken years to sort out the census data to determine that the district lines are out of date, but questions about the accuracy of that data have spurred the stall in redrawing the lines.

"This is the best information currently available but, unfortunately, it's just not ideal," DiBitetto said.

Councilors have been elected by district for years. There are currently six councilors elected from six districts and three at-large town councilors, for a total of nine.

"The rationale for creating districts was that we didn't want to provide an imbalance in representation," DiBitetto said. "We didn't want one neighborhood to have an overwhelming majority of votes."

There can only be one at-large councilor per district. Two councilors from the same district cannot be elected to at-large positions.

The supervisors said they will reconvene on the issue of drawing accurate district lines in June. The town council will take up the issue of getting an accurate head count in town, but have not discussed it yet.