{"id":315181,"date":"2026-10-27T08:58:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T08:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/315181\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T08:58:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T08:58:23","slug":"change-to-reading-city-council-districts-minimal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/315181\/","title":{"rendered":"Change to Reading City Council districts minimal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A section of Reading formerly in City Council District 6 is now part of District 1.<\/p>\n<p>City Council voted Monday to redistrict the small area bounded by the Schuylkill River and Penn, Spruce and Fourth streets based on <a href=\"http:\/\/A section of the city formerly in City Council District 6 is now part of District 1. City Council voted Monday to redistrict the small area bounded by the Schuylkill River and Penn, Spruce and Fourth streets based on the recommendation of city\u2019s nine-member redistricting commission. The commission proposed the move as a way to better equalize the population balance with the districts while making minimal revisions to current district lines. The action brings the two most widely divergent districts closer to the ideal of about 15, 800 residents, or 16.67% of the city\u2019s total population, for each district. The change affects about 1,000 residents and puts District 1 slightly over and District 6 slightly under that goal. It has the added benefit of containing all of Reading Area Community College\u2019s campus in a single district. Councilwoman Donna Reed, who represents District 6, commended the redistricting commission for its work. \u201cKudos to everyone on it,\u201d she said. \u201cThey did their best to try not to disrupt councilmanic districts in any way other than by trying to make them as equally represented population wise as possible.\u201d The city charter calls for a review of district populations, based on U.S. census data, every 10 years, Reed said. Brian Kell, chairman of the nine-member redistricting commission, presented the commission\u2019s recommendation to council at a meeting March 7. More than a dozen alternatives were reviewed over a four-month period before the recommendation was made, he said. Council introduced the change at its meeting March 14 and held a public meeting March 21, at which there was no public comment. Council is composed of seven members with a representative elected from each of the six districts and the council president elected citywide. District 1 consists of south Reading; District 2 consists of east Reading; District 3 consists of center city; District 4 consists of northeast Reading; District 5 consists of northwest Reading; and District 6 consists of downtown Reading.\" rel=\"nofollow\">the recommendation of the city\u2019s nine-member redistricting commission<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The commission proposed the move as a way to better equalize the population balance with the districts while making minimal revisions to current district lines.<\/p>\n<p>The action brings the two most widely divergent districts closer to the ideal of about 15,800 residents, or 16.67% of the city\u2019s total population, for each district.<\/p>\n<p>The change affects about 1,000 residents and puts District 1 slightly over and District 6 slightly under that population goal.<\/p>\n<p>It has the added benefit of containing all of Reading Area Community College\u2019s campus in a single district.<\/p>\n<p>Councilwoman Donna Reed, who represents District 6, commended the redistricting commission for its work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKudos to everyone on it,\u201d she said. \u201cThey did their best to try not to disrupt councilmanic districts in any way other than by trying to make them as equally represented population wise as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The city charter calls for a review of district populations based on census data every 10 years, Reed said.<\/p>\n<p>Brian Kell, chairman of the nine-member redistricting commission, presented the commission\u2019s recommendation to council at a meeting March 7.<\/p>\n<p>More than a dozen alternatives were reviewed over a four-month period before the recommendation was made, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Council introduced the change at its meeting March 14 and held a public meeting March 21, at which there was no public comment.<\/p>\n<p>Council is composed of seven members with a representative elected from each of the six districts and the council president elected citywide.<\/p>\n<p>District 1 consists of mainly of south Reading; District 2 consists of east Reading; District 3 consists of center city; District 4 consists of northeast Reading; District 5 consists of northwest Reading; and District 6 consists of downtown Reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A section of Reading formerly in City Council District 6 is now part of District 1. City Council&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,857,241,182,139,28,736,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-315181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-essential-reading","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}