Thornton City Council is considering a new ward boundary map that involves only minor adjustments from the current ward lines.

City staff presented six ward reapportionment maps to council during its June 5 planning session. The goal is to establish ward boundaries so that the population from ward to ward varies by 10 percent or less, as is mandated by the United States Supreme Court.

Council preferred Scenario F, which involves the least change of all the scenarios and keeps the current council members in their wards.

The city’s Election Committee also preferred that option over the others, saying there were clear boundary lines following major streets.

“I believe people won’t have a large amount of confusion when changing to this,” said Patricia Perez, a member of the Election Committee.

Option F keeps Colorado Boulevard as the main dividing line between Ward 3 and Ward 4, which are in the northern part of Thornton.

“The boundary lines are clean and really make sense to the residents,” said Terry Kish, Election Committee member.

The changes include extending a part of Ward 1 to 104th Avenue along the east side of Interstate 25 and extending a part of Ward 2 up to 120th Avenue.

Before reviewing the proposed maps, City Attorney Margaret Emerich went over guidelines the council should consider: population equality, no minority dilution, coordination with general election precinct boundaries, compactness, contiguity and preservation of community interest.

Emerich said that council should only consider current population numbers.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has said you’re not to (take into consideration) future growth,” she said.

The population breakdown with the current boundaries is Ward 1, 28,086; Ward 2, 29,646; Ward 3, 32,294; and Ward 4, 30,422. The proposed boundaries provide a population distribution of Ward 1, 30,753; Ward 2, 30,143; Ward 3, 29,130; and Ward 4, 30,422. Staff and the Election Committee were directed to fine tune the proposed map to make sure general election precincts are not broken up, so the population numbers may change.

Council is expected to vote on the reapportionment ordinance in August. The boundaries were last changed in 2007.