While much focus has been placed on redrawing district lines for state and federal lawmakers, Putnam legislators have redistricted with much less fanfare.

The Legislature have unanimously approved the plan proposed by a bi-partisan redistricting committee consisting of Clement Van Ross, Karen Greenwood- Sanders, James DiBella and Anthony Maccarini. The group had been studying legislative district boundaries and derived a plan to create population equality among each of the county’s nine legislative districts, while adjusting boundary lines in some of the districts.

The committee decided to include 11,079 individuals in each district, which Legislator Carl Albano said “adjusted the deviation from high to low at no more than 10 percent. Prior to the redistricting, our district-by-district population ranged from 8 percent to 13.5 percent.”

The philosophy of what Albano described as “communities of interest” was also considered: “We wanted to make the districts more uniform, instead of having one legislator represent three towns.”

District lines were redrawn in Carmel, Southeast, Patterson, and Kent so that one legislator now represents no more than two towns.