City Council to discuss maps March 8
At the third and final meeting of the Redistricting Advisory Commission (RAC) on February 23, 16 people provided comments during the public hearing. Ten speakers supported draft map 110 to define the new City Council voting districts for the next 10 years. The RAC, however, did not recommend it to the City Council to consider at the upcoming public hearings on March 8 and 29. Instead, they nearly unanimously voted for draft maps 111, 112, and 114. (Commissioner Seminara supported 114 only.)
Commissioners Jaramillo and Vallejo proposed adding map 110 as a 4th option based on the collaborative way in which it was created and the number of people who expressed their preference for it. Like votes at the first RAC meeting in October 2021, when the five directly appointed members were selecting two at-large commission members, Jaramillo’s and Vallejo’s proposals received no support from the other commissioners.
Two of the three draft maps selected, 112 and 114, were created by the demographer contracted by the City, Dr. Justin Levitt from National Demographics Corp. Each of these maps was based on maps submitted by the public.
Map 112 is similar to maps 109 and 110, which Levitt described as having a “horizontal divide.” Map 109 has District 4 (D4) configured to carve a chunk out of D5. Map 110 does not and is described by supporters as creating a D3 where students at CSUF and Fullerton College can elect a representative of their choice as well as residents who are impacted by student parking and parties.
Map 112 limits the “divide” in map 110 by reducing the reach of D3 from Euclid to Harbor. Map 112 also does not include any of the Hillcrest neighborhood above Fullerton College in D3. Map 112 balances the population in D3 by extending it southeast to include Chapman Park and another neighborhood west of Commonwealth currently in D5. It then balances the population of D5 by pulling from D4 to the west. D4 is then balanced by pulling in the Adlena Park neighborhood from D1. There are also some other differences in the alignments between D1 and D2, and D2 and D3.
Comparing the Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP) of sufficiently large protected minority populations among draft maps 109, 110, and 112, map 109 has the largest Latino CVAP in D4 (50%) and then has the smallest Latino CVAP in D5 (37%) among all draft maps. Maps 110 and 112 each have 46% in D4 and 41% and 40% in D5, respectively. Each of the 3 maps have a 52% Asian CVAP in D1.
Draft map 114 is the demographer’s version of “vertical” D3 maps, 106 and 108. Map 114 simplifies boundaries compared to 106 and 107, using State College as the western boundary of D3, Euclid to divide D4 and D5, Chapman/Malvern to divide D1 and D2 from D4 and D5, and Euclid, Valencia Mesa, and Harbor to divide D1 from D2. The Latino CVAP is relatively the same in all three maps, 46% in D4 and 40-41% in D5. Map 114 has the highest Asian CVAP (56%) in D1 among all maps while maps 106 and 108 each have 53%.
Map 111, submitted by this reporter, was categorized as “Central” D2 by the demographer along with map 107. The demographer’s rendition, 113, was not selected by the RAC though it achieved a higher Latino CVAP, 47% to 46% in D4 and 43% to 41% in D5, compared to draft map 111. This category of maps has the distinction of dividing the neighborhoods north of Bastanchury by the municipal golf courses on the Army Corps of Engineers land rather than at Harbor, keeping Sunny Hills in one district. A significant difference between maps 111 and 113 is that north of Bastanchury, the President Homes and all of Rolling Hills are included in D3 in map 113.
Dr. Levitt communicated at the beginning of the meeting that the decision by the RAC that night was “not the end of the process.” He said additional draft maps would be accepted until midnight February 28. This provides seven days for the public to review new submissions and maps 111, 112, and 114 recommended by the RAC and to prepare comments for the next public hearing on March 8 at 6:30pm where the City Council will discuss and revise the draft maps.
Note: The author of public draft map 111 is the author of the article.
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I would love to vote for Silva if he is forced out of his current district. He is a voice of reason on this council – the majority of which continues to make some questionable decisions including inappropriate appointments to the redistricting committee. It will be an enormous surprise if any fair map survives. But, to be fair – the last council ignored the public’s choice also. I like to think that most people are trying to do their best. – but as an independent – I am really sick of the self-serving republican/libertarian anti-people stance locally and nationwide.
I realize now that if Jesus ends up in D2 instead of D3 he will have to wait to run for City Council in 2024 when his term ends in 2022. Is that the motivation behind the horizontal D3 and the accusation that the RAC was biased against Jesus and the council will be too?
I would like to remind anyone who’s motivation is to protect or negatively impact an incumbent that the FAIR MAPS Act (CA Elections Code sec.21601(c)(2)) stated the following and please take note of the last sentence:
To the extent practicable, the geographic integrity of any local neighborhood or local community of interest shall be respected in a manner that minimizes its division. A “community of interest” is a population that shares common social or economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation. Communities of interest do not include relationships with political parties, incumbents, or political candidates.
Now you’ve got the picture.
So now I have to ask, since demographer drawn map 114 is a revision of maps 106 and 108, submitted by Commissioner Seminara and Raymond Gandara, respectively, is there any reason for one to suspect the intent behind the promotion of map 114 by the Commission is to make it impossible for Jesus Silva to run in 2022 unless he moves into a district that is on the ballot in 2022?
I give them the benefit of the doubt because I had no such intention when submitting map 111 which also has the same effect on Silva’s re-election prospects. Based on the state law I did not consider incumbents though I did try to minimize changes to existing districts for the benefit of voters. Because the current map is just so bad in the way it improperly hacks up communities, it is hard not to make some big changes when making corrections.
Your map was actually okay although I didn’t care for the SW/NE slant of 2 and 3. Your map, like 106 and 114, kept the eastern area around the 57 coherent – one of the true communities of interest in Fullerton. Your friends don’t give a damn about those sorts of things. It’s worth noting that the Fitzgerald Arm of 3 that reached into Downtown gerrymandered Silva into a free run for office in 2018 even though his neighborhood (Princeton Circle) was cut in half! It could easily be argued that he doesn’t physically represent his district at all. Let him run against Dunlap in 2 years.
Whatever the motivation of the drawer of Map 114 may have been (and again “oops”), it was truly amusing watching the commission members falling over themselves one after another to express their undying support for it especially after our home grown “Don Tony” gave his unbiased “thumbs up” to it. The writers at SNL couldn’t have written a skit as funny as this if they tried ;-).
Jane, It just seems so convenient as well as the dismissing of the student and university community in general as “not really being a community of interest.” Whatever, but it was truly amusing to watch.
Yes, it was a fascinating meeting. And I’m from Chicago :-). I suppose once there are districts, there will be “hearings” like this. But why not have just given Tony Bushala, richest man in town, a sharpie and just have him draw the district boundaries himself? Hail Don Tony 😉
Tony told it like it is. You boohoos just just want to gerrymander a district for your boy Quirk-Silva. Tony says he wants to meet you so you can bow down to him. He’ll be seated on his solid gold toilet. He may permit you to kiss his…hand. Or something.
I blush for you David, but at least you know who you serve ;-).
I still think that it’d be a good idea to have the two campuses, Fullerton College and CSUF in one district. College campuses and the people who live around them would seem to me to have concerns quite particular to them. It saves everyone time to have one person representing them, rather than have someone “park issues” miles away.
But as I was sitting there, watching first “Chairman Tony” (LOL 😉 declare Map 110 a “political map” and then the sycophantic cronies start fighting over each other be the one who applauding loudest, I just started to laugh inside, “WT…”
And then it hit me: “They really want to cut the district from under Jesus Silva.” A similar play was attempted to try to dismember SQS’s assembly district a few months ago — even at the expense of the whole city of Fullerton (whose representation would have been split between three districts, each anchored in cities other than Fullerton).
I remember the advice that a notorious Chicago boss Ed (“Fast Eddie”) Verdoliak once gave a potential challenger to his alderman’s seat (Verdoliak never lost until he went to jail …): “My advice to you is … just go back to private business and MAKE A LOT OF MONEY.”
That potential challenger understood immediately what that meant … and … “stepped aside”
That was Chicago. Who would have guessed that I’d find myself in a “mini-me” version of this here in Fullerton 😉 😉
Don’t bother blushing, Dennis. If you want to go with that idiotic “college district” as pretext for protecting a politician you go right ahead. You have moved disingenuousness to outright prevarication. By the way, whom do you serve? Just say it.
And by the way, for a man of the cloth you sure break Commandment 8 (your Bible) a lot, basing your uttering on heresay and gossip. Oh well, maybe the Archbishop digs your schtick.
114 clearly makes the most sense,
110 and 112 make no sense at all – unless one considers Jesus Siva a community of interest. It became abundantly clear through the feeble rationalizations of its supporters that these efforts were just a way to gerrymander Silva into another term and communities of interest be damned.
Newsflash: do we really need to review all the bad ideas that were “popular?” Ironically, what? A dozen politically motivated people out of a city of 150,000?