By Rupert Howell

The City of Sardis  board of mayor and aldermen will gather for a special meeting today at 5 p.m. to consider redistricting.

Governmental entities such as municipalities and counties must each 10 years redraw district lines if population shifts or changes cause more than a 10 percent deviation from one district’s population to others.

The process should begin after each 10-year census and any plan for changes must be approved by the U.S. Justice Department before being implented.

The City of Sardis did not redistrict following the 2000 census according to that city’s attorney, Tommy Shuler, who explained that the city was going through annexation during the time and the decade was nearing end and another census was coming soon to be coming by the time annexation was approved.

Panola County, The City of Batesville, South Panola and North Panola School Districts all used Slaughter and Associates of Oxford to analyze population data and recommend any needed changes.

At an earlier meeting, Alderman Jojo Still was skeptical of spending city funds on the redistricting process noting little had changed in the way of population in his many years on the Sardis board.