During a March 5th meeting, Conshohocken’s Borough Council voted unanimously to appoint law firm Curtin & Hefner, LLP as special counsel to advise the borough on redistricting the borough’s ward. There is a state requirement for boroughs to maintain a ward system that is “nearly equal in population as practicable as officially and finally reported in the latest official census.”
As MoreThanTheCurve.com reported in a series of articles dating back to 2021, the ward system has had a growing imbalance for two decades. Ward 2 is very small population-wise and has not had residential redevelopment projects such as apartments and condos as has taken place in Wards 1 and 3.
We can not find 2020 census numbers for individual wards in Conshohocken, but the number of registered voters by ward paints the picture.
Ward 1 – 1,879 (up from 1,356 in 2021)
Ward 2 – 341 (up from 292 in 2021)
Ward 3 – 1,459 (up from 1,434 in 2021)
Ward 4 – 1,146 (up from 1,132 in 2021)
Ward 5 – 912 (up from 844 in 2021)
Ward 6 – 853 (up from 799 in 2021)
Ward 7 – 727 (up from 691 in 2021)
The east side of Fayette Street (Wards 2, 3, 5, and 7) grew from 3,261 to 3,439 or 178 registered voters. The west side (Wards 2, 4, and 6) rose from 3,287 to 3,878. The significant growth in Ward 1 is due to the opening of three apartment communities along the riverfront and West Elm Street. During the 2024 election, these apartments were only recently opened and not fully occupied.
In June 2024, Conshohocken Borough Council President Tina Sokolowski told MoreThanTheCurve.com that the issue would likely be discussed in the second half of 2024. That never happened, and the 2025 election officially got underway in February 2025.
During the March 2025 meeting, the council discussed creating a task force to study and develop a proposal on how the borough should be politically organized. The law firm would guide the task force on what is legal and how to avoid issues often challenged in court.
The task force will likely study whether to create new ward boundaries to balance the population or create a mix of at-large and ward seats on the borough council. They could study reducing the number of wards and having each ward represented by multiple seats or making every seat elected at large.
How do other boroughs organize their elected bodies? West Conshohocken and Narberth have seven at-large seats on their borough councils. Ambler, Lansdale, and North Wales have three wards with three seats. Bridgeport has three wards with two seats each, plus one at-large seat.
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Photo: Google