Redistricting panel serves cause of trust

Redding Record Searchlight
March 9, 2011

In government, the trust that transparency fosters is its own reward — even if it doesn't make a dollar's worth of difference to the outcome.

That makes the Shasta County Board of Supervisors' decision to name an independent panel to oversee the reapportionment of the supervisors' districts, based on the 2010 census, a welcome act of openness.

It also follows the lead of the voters, who passed two initiatives in recent years to create an independent commission to draw districts for the state Legislature and California's congressional seats. The supervisors didn't go that far. They kept the final say on the new district map. At the same time, it will be drawn by the independent county clerk's office under the review of a citizens' committee, limiting any shenanigans.

Shasta County doesn't have much recent history of the gerrymandering for partisan gain common in state and federal reapportionments, and the population hasn't changed dramatically. The official census count, released Tuesday, shows an increase of just under 14,000 residents since 2000, to a total of 177,223. That's an 8.6 percent increase, slower growth than the state as a whole and nowhere near the 40-plus percent population explosions in Riverside and Placer counties.

Still, the county has seen growth — notably in the South County, which means Supervisor Les Baugh's District 5 will likely lose constituents to neighboring districts. Churn Creek Bottom, home of seemingly endless feuds over development on Knighton Road, is in District 5 but on the border. It could easily shift into another supervisor's district, shuffling the political deck.

And ambitious local pols will have a keen interest in the new maps, especially in whether they'll live in districts where a run might have promise or will be in the shadow of an entrenched incumbent.

The high stakes call for an open process. The supervisors made the right call.