County Redistricting Could Split Altadena

A plan for how to redraw the County Board of Supervisor electoral districts could be approved by a county redistricting committee as soon as next Wednesday, according to county staff familiar with the process.

Scenarios that are being evaluated by the county's Boundary Review Committee include moving Altadena into the district of current East Los Angeles representative Gloria Molina, keeping it under the current representative, Michael Antonovich, or even splitting it into both districts (a map of that plan can be viewed at right).

County redistricting is particularly important for Altadena since it is an unincorporated community--the five-member County Board of Supervisors is the elected government of Altadena and decides important issues that would be referred to a City Council in incorporated communities.

And while the committee is in the advance stages of its meeting, it appears that there has been very little public input.  That has Altadena Town Council chair Gino Sund thinking it might be time to send some emails, letters, and phone calls in the committee's direction.

"The worst possible thing could be for Altadena to be split," Sund said.  He said he favors keeping Altadena in the Fifth District, where it would be represented by Antonovich.

The Process

In coming up with possible district scenarios, the county took a somewhat unusual tack: rather than looking at plans from professional redistricting consultants, or suggesting their own alternatives, the committee has been accepting suggested district scenarios from members of the public.

The full list of options, which can be found on the committee's website, does contain submissions from well-known organizations such as the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.  There are also some unsurprising contributors, such as a University of California Los Angeles urban planning professor.

However, there are some unusual contributors as well: One scenario was mapped up and submitted by a Utah resident, according to Lori Glasgow, the deputy of budget and redistricting for Antonovich.

All submitted plans are then looked at by county lawyers to see if they comply with redistricting guidelines, Glasgow said.  Those guidelines include maintaining the boundaries with balanced populations and retaining the existing five-district system, rather than expanding the number of seats.

Unlike the , in which state legislators no longer have the final say over the districts, the Board of Supervisors will ultimately vote on their new boundaries.

The Committee

So who makes up this committee that is deciding the new boundaries?   

The committee has 10 members: each of the county's five supervisors selected two members last fall.

Antonvich selected San Marino Councilman Richard Sun and local Republican political consultant Allan Hoffenblum to sit on the committee.

All 10 members of the committee are listed on the committee website under the "Bios" tab, though only three of the 10 have links that lead to their biographical information.

Timeline

The next meeting for the committee is on July 6, and they could approve a plan at that meeting, Glasgow said.

They could also put off a decision for one of two meetings on July 11 and July 13, she said.

Once they have a plan it would have to be approved by the Board of Supervisors, who would likely vote on it about two or three weeks after the committee approves it.

Evaluating Plans and Comments

On the committee's websites it is possible to look at each individual plan and also at each individual official comment.  However to do so requires downloading each file separately as a pdf.

The list of plans is here, and the comments are here.  Anybody who wants to submit a comment can do so by emailing Commserv@bos.lacounty.gov.