City, school district redraw boundaries
Public hearings upcoming
The Los Angeles City Redistricting Commission is expected to release its first draft map of the proposed new Los Angeles City Council district lines on Tuesday, and will follow up with a series of public hearings to solicit comments beginning next Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.
Redrawing Council lines is a process that is required every 10 years, and is designed to make sure that each district is fairly represented in terms of population and resources.
The process is similar to that just completed on a statewide basis, and L.A. expects to adopt a final map by March 1.
Healthy City, an effort of the Advance Project—a public policy action organization—has launched a website to help citizens understand the redistricting process and to provide tools to enable them to advocate for their communities.
At www.ReDrawLA.org, users can see the current district lines and experiment with drawing their own lines.
The Redistricting Commission will hold its additional public hearings on the pre-final map on Feb. 2 at 6:30 p.m. at Loyola Marymount University in the Ahmanson Auditorium; Feb. 4 at 11 a.m. at L.A. Pierce College; Feb. 6 at Occidental College in Thorn Hall; Feb. 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the L.A. City Hall, John Ferraro Council Chambers; Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m. at Walter Reed Middle School in Studio City; and a Feb. 11, 11 a.m. meeting that has yet to be determined.
For additional information from the commission, call (213) 922--7740; email redistricting.lacity@lacity.org; or visit the website www.redistricting2011.lacity.org.
The City Council is obligated by statute to approve final maps by June 30.
At the same time the city is redrawing its Council district lines, the Los Angeles Unified School District is engaged in the process of modifying the boundaries of its board members.
The district is running behind the city and has recently hired an executive director to oversee the process, which operates under the auspices of the city’s 21-member redistricting commission.
As the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors wrestled with three proposals to redraw district lines, Supervisors Gloria Molina and Mark Ridley-Thomas contended that the current lines were disproportionate, disenfranchising minority groups like Latinos and African Americans.
Molina and Ridley-Thomas said two majority Latino district are needed because Hispanics now comprise 48 percent of the county’s population— about one-third of voting-age residents. They also agreed that one district with an African American plurality is needed.
The proposed draft maps for the new Los Angeles City Council districts have been released, and to say that some people are not happy, is an understatement of epic proportions.
On Saturday, beginning at 11 a.m., citizens in the South Region will have the opportunity to offer input during a public hearing at West Angeles Church of God in Christ, 3045 S. Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles.
The process of redrawing the political lines for congressional, as well as the state assembly, senate and Board of Equalization districts is winding down, and the Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC) now awaits comments from the public on the final preliminary maps.
CRC will vote on the maps Aug. 15.
The African American Redistricting Collaborative will hold a meeting this evening from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the West Angeles Villas to discuss the maps, answer questions and provide direction on what comments residents should forward to the commission.
The California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CCRC) will be voting on the final iteration of redistricting maps this week. These maps are supposed to reflect the demographic shifts in the state’s population following the 2010 Census.
The African American Redistricting Collaborative (AARC) will hold a press conference today at 10 a.m. at the California African America Museum in Exposition Park to discuss the latest developments in redrawing legislative boundaries. The AARC’s press advisory notes that it “... is convening a press conference to declare the African American community’s refusal to accept any reduction in political representation.”
