two district election maps
Tulare - If voters decide in June to elect City Council members by districts instead of at-large, the council will have to quickly decide what those districts will look like and it is gearing up for the challenge.
Presented with four options at their Nov. 1 meeting, members chose two maps – labeled A and C – to take to the public and asked Jason Levitt of the National Demographics Corporation to prepare two variations of A, which featured districts that took in areas on both sides of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.
Noting the Eastside/Westside mindset that has existed for a long time in Tulare, Councilman Mark Watte said creating districts that are more horizontal than vertical might help change that way of looking at the city.
“I just feel like I'd like to get away from that somewhat and cause some mixing,” Watte said.
“Oh, boy, would you blend it if you went east and west,” Mayor Wayne Ross said.
Levitt was expected to introduce Maps A and C and the two variations at the first community workshop on districting possibilities that was held at the Tulare Senior Center last night after the Tulare Voice deadline.
In all four maps the council saw last week, Hispanic/Latino citizens of voting age comprised the majority in two of the five districts.
The city was sued in Aug. 2010 by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and two local residents who contended the at-large voting system diluted the ability of Latino voters to elect candidates they favored. The matter was settled.
Levitt said the four maps he presented were “very different ways” of dividing the city and its 59,278 residents, as reported by the 2010 Census, into five districts.
Each of the maps was designed to meet the federal government “must-do” list by dividing the population equally, meeting Voting Rights Act criteria and avoiding racial gerrymandering.
They also strove to meet such traditional criteria as keeping communities of interest together, honoring natural and man-made boundaries and achieving compactness and contiguity.
The council rejected Maps B, designed to make sure there was an elementary school in each district, and D, the only map in which incumbents were not paired. Watte described them as “gerrymandered pretty badly.”
While traditionally demographers try to avoid, if possible, putting more than one existing council member in each district that was very difficult because all of the incumbents live in northeast Tulare, Levitt said.
Council members said their home addresses should not be a major factor in drawing the lines.
“I put that way down on my list,” Councilman Craig Vejvoda said when City Attorney Martin Koczanowicz asked council members if they wanted Levitt to use their addresses as criteria for drawing the lines.
“That would be short-sighted,” Watte said.
“I don't think that's ever been the case with this council. Never,” Ross added.
June Decision
The City Council has scheduled three more public workshops to give residents an opportunity to weigh in on the maps they are studying. Those sessions are scheduled as follows:
• 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, at the Claude Meitzenheimer Community Center, 830 So. Blackstone St.
• 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12, in the City Council Chambers at the Tulare Public Library, 491 No. M St.
• 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Jan. 21 in the council chambers.
Hispanic leaders who called for voting districts in Tulare were noticeably absent from last week's council meeting and Ross suggested they become involved early in the review process.
“Let's be honest; we know who the players are,” he said. “Let's go directly to them ... let's see if we can get them here so we have a true, effective meeting of the public.”
Bob Montion, who has spoken to the council several times about the need for voting districts, said members of his group will get involved. They were not at last week's meeting because of other commitments, he and others said.
Told that all four of the maps the council saw had two Hispanic citizen majority districts, Montion was pleased.
“We couldn't really be asking for any more than two,” he said.
He also said that his group wants to work with the city in convincing Tulare residents they should vote for council districts.
The city is in a “Catch-22” situation, because the city is a charter city and only the voters can change the method of voting, he said. But if they decide to retain the at-large method of electing council members, a lawsuit charging violation of the California Voting Rights Act likely will follow.
That happened in Modesto and ended up costing the city a lot of money and it wasn't until the city and district election advocates joined together that they were able to convince voters the change was necessary, he said.
The City Council must send at least a couple of versions of a district map to Tulare County election officials by April 6 and adopt a final version at the second meeting in June, Koczanowicz said, explaining county officials need the information to prepare for the November council election.
Seats held by Ross, Vejvoda and Watte will be up for grabs. Watte was appointed to his seat in 2010 and has said he will not seek election.
The above story is the property
of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit
permission in writing from the publisher.