Politics & Government

Which PUSD Districting Map Should Altadena Support?

A Pasadena Unified districting committee has drawn up four maps that would be the basis for a plan to switch the district school board elections to seats with districts.

The Pasadena Unified School District's districting task force, which is working on a potential plan to switch to electing board members from geographic sub-districts, and has come up with four possible scenarios for how to split up the district.

The committee is working on developing maps of geographic sub-districts that would make board members accountable to specific geographic areas of Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre.

The redistricting process has been underway since January, when the school board first authorized the creation of a nine-member task force to study the issue.

Find out what's happening in Altadenawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The chair of the task force has said the group will likely come up with a final map proposal some time in March, so for Altadena residents who want to weigh in on the proposals, now is the time to study them.  The task force's upcoming public meeting schedule can be found here.

In the four proposals, there are two which give Altadena two districts in which city residents would make up the majority of the population.  There are two in which Altadena has just one district in the majority, with two seats where there are slightly more Pasadena residents than Altadena ones.

Find out what's happening in Altadenawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

We break down the plans in detail below.  For detailed descriptions and maps click on the graphics at right.

Plan A: In this plan Altadena has one super-majority district where 95 percent of the district is made up of Altadena residents.  That district, District A, would basically be almost all of Altadena west of Lake Avenue along with some of the foothill areas east of Lake.

Most of East Altadena would be in a district with East Pasadena residents and would make up about 46 percent of residents in that district.

In this scenario there are 1,319 Altadena residents centered around Woodbury Road who would be in a district where they make up only 4.7 percent of the total population.

Plan A Modified: In this plan Altadena residents have two districts where they make up a majority.  The West Altadena district is slightly reduced to 88 percent Altadena rather than 95, but all of Altadena east of Lake is in a district where Altadena voters would be 58.5 percent of the district.  

In this scenario, the 1,319 Altadena residents who were in a Pasadena district under Plan A are moved into the West Altadena district, putting all of Altadena in two districts.

Plan 3: In Plan 3, there are two majority-Altadena districts, but unlike the previous plans, the biggest Altadena district is in East Altadena, where Altadena residents would make up 76 percent of the district's votes.  Much of Altadena east of Fair Oaks Avenue goes into that district in this plan.  A combined Altadena-Pasadena district west of Fair Oaks gives Altadena residents a slight majority of about 53 percent over Pasadena residents.

In this plan, there is a third district where unincorporated residents, including both Altadena and Kinneloa Mesa, make up 23.6 of the vote in a majority Pasadena district.  Most of the voters in this district would live east of Hill, west of Altadena Boulevard, and south of New York Drive, in Altadena neighborhoods were there is some confusion about whether residents live in Altadena or Pasadena.

Plan 3-1: In this plan, Altadena has only one majority district in East Altadena. Altadena voters make up 81 percent of the vote in that district.  The West Altadena district is similar to the one in Plan 3, except that some of the foothill residents move to the East Altadena district, which gives Pasadena voters a 55 percent majority vote in the district.

Like in Plan 3, the same group of Altadena households makes up 23.6 percent of a district that is dominated by Pasadena voters.  

Editor's note: The original version of this story said that the task force will definitely select one of the four plans listed here and incorrectly implied that there will be no consideration of modifying any of the designs.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Altadena