This past spring, the city of Columbia, Missouri created a very gerrymandered community improvement district (CID), a special designation of territory within which voters can levy extra taxes to fund projects like roadwork or landscaping of public green spaces. Per state law, if there are no voters registered in a CID, property owners get to make the tax decision instead.
That was property owners' plan in Columbia until they found out that a single University of Missouri college student, 23-year-old Jen Henderson, is actually a registered voter in the new district. While the CID was carefully designed to exclude residences, Henderson lives in a guest house in the area and registered to vote at that address.
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