Will Redistricting Unify Altadena or Keep it Split?

One of the top priorities for the commission drawing new electoral boundaries for California is to group "communities of interest" together.

A lot of the input received by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which is charged with creating the new lines, is about which communities California residents feel are most closely related to their own city.

But in some unusual cases, such as Altadena, those communities are already divided by congressional boundaries.  Presumably, at least some Altadena residents would argue that the entire town constitutes a community of interest.

That would make a clear argument for why Altadena should be unified in one district this time around, said Doug Johnson, a fellow at the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College and a local redistricting consultant.  Johnson noted that Altadena has been an easy target for division in the past.

"Because [Altadena] is not incorporated it hasn't always gotten a lot of attention," Johnson said.

In the past, the community, like others that are unincorporated, have been split as a way of more easily making populations equal in two adjacent districts, Johnson said.

Altadena is currently split between the 26th Congressional District, represented by Rep. David Dreier, R-San Dimas, and the 29th Congressional District, represented by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena. According to the Los Angeles Almanac, about 90 percent of the town's population is in the 29th District.  We to the 26th District.

Where Altadena ends up is in the hands of the commission, which collected public input at a San Gabriel meeting on April 29.  Among the residents who spoke out, there was support for:

• A district with Glendale, La Canada Flintridge, Pasadena, and Altadena at its core.
• A district stretching from Eagle Rock up through the Angeles National Forest, with the intent of giving residents further south some connection to the foothill area to deal with recreation, fire, and water issues.
• A suggestion from a Northwest Pasadena resident that Altadena and Pasadena as a whole should stay together since there are many area residents who are not even 100 percent sure where the boundaries between the two towns are.
• The idea that a foothill district stretching from Claremont to La Canada Flintridge, along the lines of the current 26th District, should continue to exist, but should contain all of Altadena.
• A new foothill district stretching from Tujunga to Sierra Madre, which would contain Altadena and Pasadena.

The preliminary districts will be released by the district on June 10, and there will be two Southern California meetings to offer input on the commission's decisions, one in Whittier on June 17, and one in Culver City on June 16.  The local League of Women Voters branch is also holding a on June 15.

The final districts will be released in August.

Whatever plan the commission comes out with, there is good reason to expect that the districts will show a lot of differences from the current districts, said Kathay Feng, the director of the California branch of Common Cause.

The old districts were approved by the state legislature, which often meant the districts were drawn based on political strategy rather than on community needs.

Now with a new commission created by the 2008 voter-approved Proposition 11, the standards for the districts have changed.  The commission's directive is to prioritizes making districts that have communities with important common interests, Feng said.

What that will mean is anyone's guess: based on the suggestions listed above, many people have different ideas about which communities belong together in the districts.

But wherever Altadena ends up, it stands a better chance of not being divided in the new process, Johnson said.

"Unless a community is asking to be split, it would be unusual," Johnson said.