What ward do I live in?

Have you ever wondered how to find out what ward in Rocheport you live in, how many wards the town has or who your alderpersons are for your ward? While hunting for this information myself, one thing led to another and I ended up exploring even more questions about our municipal government. Because this information was found in a variety of places and took considerable time, I decided to write up my experience so that you get the short version with the important information.

Find your municipality

First, I needed to find what kind of municipality we are which I found on The Missouri Roster (2005-2006): Classification of Municipalities. It turns out that Rocheport is a 4th Class municipality. This roster gets a bit confusing because a Village requires a population of “less than 500” while a 4th Class requires a population of “500-2,999, ” which makes it seem like we should be a village, but nevertheless, we are listed on this roster as 4th Class. This also lists our date of incorporation as 1835, and in 2000 our population estimate was 208 and in 2003 it was 207. But what we need to know from this document is that a 4th class city means we have a mayor and a board of alderpersons.

Find your ward

Next, to find what ward we are in, I found the Boone County Clerk District Map Viewer. This site offers helpful district-wide information in map form with information on various districts like the “Fire Protection Districts,” the “Library Districts,” and the “Municipal wards,” which is what we are after.

However, this website has a tendency to get stuck, so I am going to walk you through how to get to the Rocheport wards. First, unclick any option that is already selected in “Layers.” Next, select “Arial Photo” and “Municipal Wards” in the Layers. And finally, zoom in on the map of Rocheport. Give the system a moment to catch up and then you should end up with a similar map to the one pictured as the featured image of this article.

The resulting image shows us there are two wards in Rocheport and the dividing line for the wards cuts north to south following Lewis Street except for when it turns at the north end of town from Fourth Street over to Clark Street.

Find how many alderpersons per ward

Although I found out that we have a board of alderpersons, I still wasn’t sure how many this meant. I ended up finding out through word of mouth that each of our wards has two alderpersons, but I still wanted to find out where this information is.

After quite a bit of searching on the Missouri government websites with no success, I ran into amazing resources at the MU Extension’s Rules for Missouri Fourth-Class Cities and their downloadable Rules for Missouri Fourth-Class Cities by John Ballard. Here we can find “a city must be divided into a minimum of two wards” and “each ward must have two aldermen, elected to staggered terms.” In addition, I discover that the mayor is also elected for two years and “often, cities remain in the class in which they were first incorporated” regardless of population, which answers my previous query as to why we are not considered a village — at one time our population must have been more than 500.

Find your alderpersons

Next, you can find out who the alderpersons are for each of the wards, that is who represents your side of town at the city hall monthly meetings, on the Summary Results Report after the elections are posted on the Boone County Government website. This is a roundabout way of finding out who has been elected, but I was stumped in finding out another place with this information. I think this is an instance of where visiting our city hall might be more fruitful for finding out these details in one place.

Here I find the confirmed two alderpersons per ward have staggered two-year terms. This means two alderpersons, one from each ward, are elected or reelected each year. Voting takes place in November for the following year’s appointments. Here is the breakdown of our current alderpeople and their terms:

Ward 1 is represented by alderpersons Ron Chapman and Conrad Yates.

• Ron Chapman was reelected on April 5, 2022, for a two-year term, serving until spring 2024.
• Conrad Yates was reelected on April 6, 2021, for a two-year term, serving until Spring 2023.

Ward 2 is represented by alderpersons Lois Conner and Jim Dugdale.

• Lois Conner was reelected on April 6, 2021, for a two-year term, serving until Spring 2023.
• Jim Dugdale was reelected on April 5, 2022, for a two-year term, serving until spring 2024.

Find when and where Rocheportians can vote

To find out when and where the next elections are that Rocheportians can vote in, see the Boone County Government website and select the “Voter Services” tab. Here we find that the General Municipal Election is on April 4, 2023.

To find out where to vote, we can use the linked Find My Polling Place tool and zoom in to Rocheport. This leads to finding the polling place for precincts 18, 19, and 38, which includes Rocheport, is 1012 N. Highway UU, Columbia MO 65203.

Not familiar with the polling address like me? This address turns out to be the MU Extension in Boone County. Their website offers handy driving directions to this address: On Hwy UU, continue past Van Horn Tavern Road and Best Lane. We are past the second set of buildings, on the left.

Other helpful information on Boone County Clerk’s Voter Services page is that the last day to register to vote is March 8, 2023, polling hours are from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. and you can look up your sample ballot online.

Additional information

For an exclusive interview on Yates’s reelection, see the related article, “Rocheport elections: Conrad Yates seeks reelection as alderperson for Ward 1.”

For a list of all your local municipal government leaders see the Rocheport Times’s Municipal Government page.