AUBURN – Some 500 Auburn voters could find themselves in new voting districts in the next election.

The city plans to move the boundaries for its five wards to meet state requirements. According to state law, the population of the city’s sparsest ward can’t be more than 10 percent less than the most full.

Auburn’s wards don’t meet that currently, according to City Clerk Mary Lou Magno. The city’s Ward 1 has about 17 percent more people than Wards 2 and 4.

She presented three plans to fix those boundaries. According to Magno, about 300 Ward 1 voters, living between Summer and Lake streets and north of Grandview Avenue, would move into Ward 2.

About 66 voters living between Jefferson Street, Old Farm Hill, Minot Avenue and northbound Washington Street would move out of Ward 4 and into Ward 3.

Another 150 voters north of Hackett Road and between Broad Street and northbound Washington Street would move from Ward 5 into Ward 4.

But DeFillip said he favored a simpler plan for Wards 4 and 5. He favored moving Barker Mill into Ward 4. That would move Barker Mill Resident Belinda Gerry out of her Ward.

“In my mind, it’s simpler,” DeFilipp said. “It’s the difference between moving one city block and 10 square miles. I’d rather move one city block.”

But that one block is home to mostly older people who don’t drive, Gerry said.

“I think this would traumatize those voters,” she said.

Councilors are scheduled to vote on the new districts at their March 1 meeting.

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