WHAT THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS SAID THEY'D BE DOING: The County's Press Release said that the Board of Supervisors will conduct its first redistricting workshop Tuesday, May 24, at 10 am, in the Covington Chambers of the County Government Center. ... On Tuesday the board will receive a presentation on the current population situation, consider a proposed set of redistricting criteria (not vote on them), discuss next steps, and hear comments from the public."
WHAT THEY DID: Pass a "RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING CRITERIA FOR THE 2011 COUNTY REDISTRICTING"
Of Interest: At the back table, the Resolution was not available to this attendee (even though the attendance was sparse and appeared to be mostly County or County-affiliated employees). One of the few members of the public present said he thought it was supposed to be a workshop and saw nothing which indicated an action item, and incredibly, our newest supervisor (Rutherford) made what I would call a belittling verbal smack down of that citizen's complaint (I guess Janice did not do to that demeanor class yet). Frankly, the guy from Yuciapa was absolutely right. I read the press release and saw nothing indicating a resolution was going to be on the agenda. If it was posted on even the door I do not recall.
PROBLEM: On the criterion list (and at the meeting) the County Supervisors gave lip service to the Federal Voting Rights Act and the various criteria California law requires, but they salted the process with protection of their seats by inserting as No. 6 "Each new district shall preserve the corresponding existing district's population and territory to the degree possible given the total criteria".
IMPRESSION:
1. The Supervisors insert, with MANDATORY language (the words "shall preserve the existing territory") a term/phrase that protects not the voters in a district but a "territory"-- the very language chosen shows what is wrong with the system--the incumbents view it as their "territory" & make a mandatory criteria the protection of their turf;
2. The discussion of the other terms was frustrated by the unavailability of the resolution or any staff reports to support the criterion chosen before the vote (I was handed the resolution AFTER the vote and frankly when I got up to speak, did not know a resolution was going to be voted on--I thought it was a workshop like stated in the press release);
3. The discussion misses inclusion of Prop 11's requirement that communities of interest be created which are defined by Prop 11 as "a contiguous population which share common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation."
4. What criteria No. 3, adopted by the board speaks of, is a "contiguous territory", not population as Prop 11 requires--there's that its my territory stuff again;
5. NO WHERE in the criterion adopted by the County Board does it refer to "population sharing common social and economic interests"!--opps
BAD START--MAYBE EVEN AN UNLAWFUL ONE!
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