Council will still have the final say on how new redistricting maps are drawn

Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA) - Friday, January 27, 2012

SOME Los Angeles City Council members are pretty grumpy about the proposed maps their handpicked redistricting commission presented this week. Jan Perry feels robbed of her downtown constituents. Paul Koretz is unhappy to be pushed out of the San Fernando Valley. Tom LaBonge is wondering what compelled commissioners to reconfigure his district into a snaking collection of unrelated communities from Lake Balboa to Hollywood. 

Paul Krekorian would lose Sunland-Tujunga and Dennis Zine won't even live in his district anymore. 

The Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission released its proposed maps this week. They are, as the commission's chairman noted, "a work in progress." And it is. What the grumbling belies is the fact that the council members themselves are the final mapmakers in this once-a-decade exercise in redrawing political lines. Unlike last year's stateredistricting effort, the elected officials are not left out of the process; they are the process. 

The commission is an advisory group whose members were appointed by the City Council. The council will have the final say on what maps are adopted. 

But community input still does count. Now that the proposed maps are out, anyone who doesn't have the power to move the lines themselves can get their voice heard at a series of community meetings. The commission is taking comment on the proposed new district lines before it comes up with final maps by March 1.