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Redistricting Advisory Commission to Recommend Draft Maps Feb. 23

The Redistricting Advisory Commission (RAC) will meet Wednesday, February 23 at 6:30pm in City Council Chambers for the third and final time. There are 3 items on the agenda. The first is for the RAC to receive and file the demographer’s presentation. The second is a public hearing to receive input on district boundaries. The third is for the RAC to recommend one or more draft maps to the City Council.

During the public hearing, comments can be made in person at Fullerton City Council Chambers, 303 West Commonwealth Ave., on Zoom.us, or by telephone at 1-669-900-9128 using the Meeting ID 823 8575 9083. The live broadcast will be available online at https://fullerton.legistar.com, on Fullerton Spectrum Channel 3, and Fullerton AT&T U-Verse Channel 99. Public input can also be submitted in advance of the hearing by emailing districtelections@cityoffullerton.com.

The draft maps and the demographic data for the maps that will be considered by the RAC can be viewed online from the Draft Maps section of the City’s redistricting web page and from appendix 4 of agenda Item 1. 11 Draft Maps were submitted by the public and 3 were created by the demographer, Dr. Justin Levitt, based on the input he received by email and during the 3 workshops, maps from the public, including 4 Community of Interest (COI) maps, and census data.

The demographer’s presentation for the February 23 meeting is available from Item 1 in the agenda. It includes a discussion of the draft maps grouped by their similarities.

Map 105 submitted by Ray Young

 

Maps 101 and 102 submitted by Ray Young

 

Maps 103 and 104 submitted by Ray Young

 

Map 109 submitted by Patty Hanzo and 110 by Fullerton Redistricting Coalition

 

Map 112 created by the demographer

 

Map 106 by John Seminara, 108 by Raymond Gandara, and 114 by demographer

 

107 by Greg Sebourn, 111 by Jane Rands, and 113 by demographer

 

Draft maps meet the 10% Population Balance threshold and have mostly similar levels of representation for significantly large minority groups

 

February 28 is the deadline to submit additional draft maps to be considered by the City Council according to slide 2 of the demographer’s presentation for the February 23 meeting. There are 4 tools for creating a map available from the Draw a Map section of the city’s Redistricting web page. Regardless of the type of map, paper, spreadsheet, DRA, Caliper’s Maptitude, or using your own software, the completed map should be emailed to districtelections@cityoffullerton.com to ensure the submission has been received.

The City Council will Conduct further public hearings on March 8 and 29 at 6:30pm to select the final City Council District Map that will be used to elect Council Members by-district for the next 10 years.


18 replies »

  1. Why Bushala, with his huge contributions to political campaigns in the past and his numerous political violations for which he was fined by the Fair Political Practices Commission, would make the list of people even considered for the redistricting committee is not much of a mystery and should never have been allowed.

    • What is this list and how did you learn about it? I’d like to follow up on it by please. Thank you!

  2. Yes – such a great question. Also why would the current city council majority Whitaker, Dunlap and Jung turn down the idea of an independent redistricting committee in favor of an appointed-by-council one where the majority of that appointed committee selects the remaining members. And also disturbing why the demographer hired to oversee the process won’t divulge the political data of the two maps finally selected. How can it be determined that the process is non-partisan without checking that information?

    • It is an odd interpretation by the demographer of CA Elections Code 21601(d) “The council shall not adopt council district boundaries for the purpose of favoring or discriminating against a political party,” to mean that the party affiliation data cannot be analyzed, viewed, or even used as a check to avoid an unintended or intended unfair advantage.

      I should have asked Barlow after the meeting Tuesday night.

  3. Sebourn was gerrymandered into district 3 from district 2 by a created finger around his neighborhood which he wanted because he said the original line separated him from his neighbors. He could have run unopposed in district 2. Silva pointed that out to him but Sebourn thought he could beat Silva. Sebourn was appointed to the redistricting committee. No politicians should have been appointed to that committee for obvious reasons. Hard to have any faith that this process will end in any fair way.

    • I have to agree with you Sharon Kennedy. Honestly, _perhaps this is inevitable_ but I left the Fullerton Redistricting Commission meeting on Wednesday needing a brace to support my jaw, positively stunned at naked politics of it all. And I’m originally from Chicago 🙂 .

      Let’s just begin. How is it possible that TONY BUSHALA, clearly the richest man in town, whose name is whispered about all about town in whispers of both fear and awe (in a manner fit for a …) is _this Committee’s_ head???

      There’s an efficiency to this I suppose. But why bother then having elections at all?

  4. The point of creating a “vertical district 3” is simply to put Jesus Silva out of his District, simple as that. The point of putting Adelina Park into District 4 is simply to protect Whitaker (add white people) to his District. Simple as that. At the end of the day though, you can take over the government. But if you crash it (and looks like you are … it’s on you).

    • Does that mean the purpose of a horizontal D3 is to keep Jesus in D3?
      I’m curious whether he thinks he needs that help to get re-elected. Jesus got game enough to have 1) been elected at-large in 2016 and 2) bump Sebourn off of the council in the first round of by-district elections in 2018.

      Regarding Adlena Park, 1) map 112 pulls Adlena hood into D4, but maintains 47% Latino CVAP whereas map 110 has 46%. That said, I think we need to hear from that community to understand where they best fit.

      BTW it was nice talking to you last night before the meeting.

      • You’re trying to explain the rational to a feel-gooder. It’s hopeless, Silva was gerrymandered into 3 where he got a free shot at Sebourn..The good father should stay in his pulpit and tend to his flock from the rectory.

      • The thing is that Map 114 just happens to map Silva out of his district… “oops,” huh? Especially when one considers where the support for 114 seemed to be coming from…

        Regarding Adilina Park, yes the neighborhood should have a voice, but then what about rest of the district? It seems like a naked attempt to keep a white guy in District 4. It actually may not be Whitaker because term limits may kick in.

        I still do think that if there was a Hispanic representing District 4, the Commonwealth Affordable Housing Project wouldn’t have come up at all because he/she would have asked WHY is it always us in District 4? There were TWO other projects supposedly in the pipeline for elsewhere. But the Council with Whitaker _as mayor_ at the time _chose_ to go with the Commonwealth project first. Now the other two projects seem to be conveniently buried.

        It seems always that Fullerton does NOTHING or District 4 takes it for the rest of the city. Why? Further if District 4 were to be allowed to be a truly Hispanic district then its priorities would be different from literally “on the border” Adelina Park.

        Adding Adelina park to District 4 will diminish that, IMHO.

    • Wrong, again. Those districts actually reflect the clear economic and social divisions of Fullerton: SW, NW, South Central, East and North Central. It doesn’t take a genius to see that.

      • During the meeting I suggested that the Adlena Park neighborhood be included in District 4 (Southwest Fullerton) instead of District 1 (Northwest) because so many of the residents of Adlena had so much to say against a proposed development to house homeless people on city land located just south of the Adlena neighborhood on the other side of Commonwealth near to the city’s maintenance yard complex. Their objections to the project convinced the City Council to ultimately reject the development, which would have provided on-site services to chronically homeless persons. Even through the Adlena Park neighborhood is located north of Commonwealth Ave., residents were convinced that drug addicts housed in a the project to be located south of the busy Commonwealth corridor would be wandering through their streets.

        The project was proposed for the city yard property because it is city owned. What are the other two projects to which you refer, the ones you say were buried?

      • Matt Leslie, the other two properties were at:

        799 Rolling Hills Drive and 3151 N. Euclid St, both in North Fullerton.

        Originally the Bastanchury Tree Farm was included as well, but opposition to that quickly removed it from the list.

        All these properties are city owned and listed as “surplus land” by the California Surplus Land Act.

  5. You may submit a map using the tools provided.
    BTW District 1 in map 111 is 1% over ideal. It probably looks large because it includes open space.

  6. P.S. 109 and 110 are just idiotic. Makes you wonder if there’s an ax to grind there.

    • There is a group advocating for including all the higher learning institutions in the city into a single district to combine student voices into a single district. There are a couple of questions I have about that idea.
      1) I don’t know whether students are considered a protected group under the fed standards that allows us to bypass the standards in the FAIR MAPS Act.
      2) No FC students live on campus so I am curious how this alignment would include FC students into a voting block with CSUF, Hope U, and the Optometry school.

      • That’s pretty moronic. Nobody lives at the eye school either. Transient students have no stake in Fullerton’s governance. Now I’m convinced there’s something underhanded going on. These boobs think there’s any commonality between folks living east of the 57 and people over by Euclid? And they’re claiming the common link is some farfetched “student” rights angle? That’s hilarious. This Hanzo woman’s map is just the same except she gerrymandered the 4th to add southcentral Latinos to Whitaker’s district.

        Your map isn’t bad, but it seems to make the 1st District way too large. You could cut some off the southwest of 2 and add it to the northwest.

        Seriously, I’ve never seen a “problem” that was so easy to fix as Fullerton’s current districts.

  7. The tentacles into Downtown Fullerton must go. The Vertical District maps are the only ones that make any sense at all.