Redistricting panel faces issues

Jim Johnson
The Monterey County Herald
April 21, 2011

Ensuring incumbent supervisors aren't placed in the same district; attempting to unite communities and neighborhoods of interest in the same supervisorial district; whether to count state prison inmates in district populations; and whether to tweak current districts or start from scratch are among the topics confronting the county citizens redistricting advisory committee. 

The committee conducted its monthly meeting at the county government center in Salinas on Wednesday. 

The 15-member committee, appointed by the Board of Supervisors last year, is charged with drawing up new supervisorial districts to reflect population changes measured by the 2010 census, and has begun meeting regularly. The committee is being advised by county staff, as well as the demographic consulting firm of Lapkoff and Gobalet. 

The committee is scheduled to produce a redistricting proposal, by consensus, for supervisors to consider by July. After the supervisors approve a plan, it must be sent to the U.S. Department of Justice for pre-clearance, and adopted by November. 

In the meantime, the committee will meet with local governments and community organizations, including the Seaside City Council on May 5 and the Marina City Council on May17. 

Wednesday's discussion underscored the challenges the committee will face as it attempts to fashion the new districts with roughly equal population numbers while addressing a wide range of political considerations, including race-neutrality and shared community needs. 

According to the census figures, the 1st and 4th supervisorial districts will need to add population, while the 2nd and 3rd will need to be downsized. 

In response to an email from local League of Women Voters organizations objecting to including the "protection of incumbents" as one of the core principles to be used in drawing up the districts, the committee voted to keep the supervisor-approved criteria intact. 

Pat Bernardi, appointed to the committee by Supervisor Dave Potter, said she agreed with the league that incumbent protection should not be used as one of the criteria, adding she preferred the state's position of banning such consideration. Bernardi noted that redrawing the districts this year could end up leaving Supervisors Fernando Armenta and Simon Salinas, who both live in Salinas, in the same district. 

But Ernesto Gonzales, appointed by Salinas, said the board's two Latino supervisors wouldn't necessarily have to be included in the same district and warned that if it happened, it could result in a voting rights lawsuit. 

Later in the meeting, Salinas City Councilman Sergio Sanchez spoke on behalf of keeping like communities and neighborhoods as intact as possible, especially in the county's largest city. Sanchez noted the city was split among four supervisorial districts, and residents on one side of streets such as Williams Road in East Salinas were split from those on the other side. 

Sanchez called for paying more attention to keeping the constituencies together, even if it resulted in districts with varying population figures. During the last redistricting effort in 2001, the city sent a letter to the Department of Justice objecting to the division of its municipal population into several different districts, but the proposal was approved. 

Other committee members noted efforts a decade ago to keep the city's neighborhoods in one district had proven to be an impossible task, especially because all districts are required to include populations of similar size — within a 10 percent variance. 

But Gonzales said he believed the city could be split into as few as two districts instead of four this time, and Sanchez said the committee could even look at creating seven districts instead of five. 

In future meetings, the committee will begin studying maps of the county with detailed information, including existing supervisorial districts and their populations, city limits and populations, and communities and their populations, as well as voter registration, citizenship rates, household income, Spanish surnames and the like. 

The committee will review the existing districts with and without the Soledad state prison population included. 

Monterey County citizens redistricting advisory committee members: 

1st District, Supervisor Fernando Armenta 

Gabriel Ramirez, Salinas; Jose Mendez, Salinas; Frank Gomez, Salinas 

2nd District, Supervisor Lou Calcagno 

Carolyn Anderson, Royal Oaks; Lynn Riddle, Salinas; Cosme Padilla, Castroville 

3rd District, Supervisor Simon Salinas 

Ernesto Gonzales; Rene Mendez, Gonzales; Erica Padilla Chavez, Soledad 

4th District, Supervisor Jane Parker 

Amy White, Salinas; David Burnett, Marina; Mary Claypool, Seaside (replaced Chris Fitz) 

5th District, Supervisor Dave Potter 

Patricia Bernardi, Carmel; Phyllis Meurer, Salinas; Plasha Will, Monterey 

---- 

All contents ©2011 MONTEREY COUNTY HERALD and may not be republished without written permission.