NORWICH – Though Chenango County’s 21 towns and one city vary widely in population and property values, when it comes to government decision-making, it’s the number of residents that wields the real power.

Population numbers determine how much weight a supervisor carries when voting on a particular resolution. The 2000 census tallied 7,355 residents for Norwich, the highest population center in Chenango County, versus 378 people in German, the lowest. Therefore, the city of Norwich’s two supervisors collectively carry the highest number of weighted votes, 342, compared to Town of German Supervisor Richard Schlag who carries the lowest, at 18.

The weighted vote system is recalibrated every 10 years when each new census is taken, as it will be next year.

Not that City of Norwich Supervisors James McNeil, D-Wards 1,2,3, and Linda Natoli, R-Wards 4,5,6, vote the same way every time. Population tallies in their wards actually award McNeil with 173 weighted votes versus Natoli with 169. In fact, their individual votes carry less weight than does Jack T. Cook’s of the Town of Greene who has 256, for example, or David C. Law’s in the Town of Norwich, who has 178.

What’s interesting is that the weight carried by supervisors in the similarly populated towns of Sherburne and Oxford, both have 185, make them equally powerful while the assessed value of Sherburne’s real property is more than $30 million greater than Oxford’s.