LA City Council Approves New Draft District Lines; Exposition Park stays on 9th – Daily News

Los Angeles City Council failed 3-11 on Tuesday, November 9, in an effort to bring Exposition Park, an economically valuable area, back to a district that could serve as one of the last strongholds of black electoral power Votes drew in support of its preferred new district boundaries.

Councilor Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who represents the 8th district, said he was “very disappointed” with his colleagues’ decision to vote against his motion to restore Exposition Park to the district he represents. Only council members Nithya Raman and Mike Bonin voted to move.

“What the council has done for the second time in 10 years is double the disenfranchisement of the one black-majority borough across the city,” said Harris-Dawson. “There’s no good reason for that. There is no justification for this. “

The Exposition Park campus includes future 2028 Olympics venues like the LA Memorial Coliseum and the Banc of California Stadium, as well as several museums like the California Science Center and the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

This area was removed from District 8 10 years ago, in the final redistribution process, which was widely viewed as a politically motivated move by then-Council President Herb Wesson to punish council members who were out of line.

In the most recent round of redistribution, an attempt to regain these assets in the 8th district met strong opposition from officials in the 9th district, including Councilor Curren Price. In the end, several colleagues on the Council, including Council President Nury Martinez, sided with Price in order to keep Exposition Park in the 9th district.

At the time of publication, Martinez did not respond to an LA Daily News reporter’s question as to why she voted against Harris-Dawson’s motion.

Councilor Curren Price issued a statement after the vote celebrating the outcome, calling it a “defining moment in the redistribution process”. Earlier versions of the map, which placed Exposition Park in the 8th district, “would have been a severe blow to our community”.

Price added, “This was a huge win for my district, which has been neglected and economically disadvantaged for years. Preserving the 9th district will help create a strong foundation for future generations, as the local economy will be stimulated by the further development of the area. “

“Today I delivered on behalf of my constituents!” He said in his testimony.

The Price borough also includes the Staples Center and LA Live. Questions about these two assets were not answered by the 9th Ward staff.

The draft map, which is now going to public hearings, bears traces of other struggles that took place during the redistribution process.

A priority adopted early on by reallocation officers to draw the council’s attention to the San Fernando Valley areas has transformed the 4th District greatly. That would mean a 40% shift in the district’s population, a far bigger change than other districts, according to the map draft supported by the city council on Tuesday.

Raman, who represents the 4th district, was the only dissenting vote last Friday when her colleagues backed the committee changes, denouncing them as an openly politicized process that, in their opinion, “left so many Angelenos unnecessarily in the dark”.

“This outcome was not inevitable, and it was only thanks to the advocacy of our constituents that we were able to keep as much of CD4 (4th Council District) as we did,” she said.

Raman appeared to accept the results, however, adding in her statement that she “is overjoyed to meet my new constituents. You can expect me at your door in the New Year! “

According to the draft of the map, Raman’s 4th District would lose Hancock Park, Miracle Mile, Park La Brea, Mid-City, much of Hollywood and part of Silver Lake. And she would keep Sherman Oak while she would win Encino, part of Reseda and Studio City, which are now split up into other boroughs.

These changes were in part the result of a priority set by the Redistribution Commission, which adhered to a goal set by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association throughout the process.

The association advocates a change in existing community lines, which would create a so-called 5.7 district representation for the valley, which fully reflects the five districts in the valley and a “bridge” district with around 70% of the population.

In a letter to the city council, the association said that the valley “deserves its fair share of the boroughs.”

The redistribution process followed a breakneck pace as city officials worked to create a new “hybrid” map to replace the redistribution commission’s proposed draft map created by Council President Martinez.

In opening remarks ahead of the recent redistribution votes, Martinez pointed out the rushed pace was attributed to the shortened schedule caused by a five-month delay in the release of U.S. census data and the need to pass a card by December 31st.

Although Tuesday’s decision narrowed any further changes to the draft map, public hearings are still scheduled for Tuesday, November 10th and tentatively on November 23rd as a result of the public hearing that could potentially postpone future tentative dates, including a second one Hearing and a date on December 1st for the Council vote to adopt a regulation to create the map.

Sharon Tso, the senior legislative analyst whose office helped the city council create its new map, said the public hearings will include a public testimony on the council-approved draft of the map.

Under state law, the two public hearings are required before the card can be definitively adopted by the council, with the adoption including an ordinance explaining in words the final boundaries, Tso said.

“If there are changes, it could change the schedule,” she said. “It would be pure speculation about the effects on the timeline without knowing if, when and how possible changes will be made.”

A partial win has been claimed by some in the Reseda neighborhood after an intense battle over map configuration in western San Fernando Valley. On an earlier map, Reseda had been removed from the 3rd district along with Canoga Park and Winnetka.

The three-quarters are more ethnically diverse and work better than those in the 3rd district, and the residents of those areas, who were due to vote for councilor next year, would have been put on a different election cycle in which they would not be their representative until 2024 can choose.

This prompted several neighborhood councils, under the auspices of the Reseda neighborhood council, to band together to oppose this earlier map, resulting in most of these communities being returned to District 3.

In the end, the Reseda area was divided in the middle, with one half being represented in the current 3rd district and the other half in the new 4th district, which would be represented by Raman.

While the Reseda Neighborhood Council fought to keep their neighborhood intact, the resulting map would avoid dividing up the area along Reseda Boulevard, a high-traffic collision road and out of the city as a “high-injury” road according to their Vision Zero initiative to reduce traffic-related injuries is classified.

In a local council submitted in October, the neighborhood council told the redistribution commission that it “would not prefer an arbitrary division of our parish between the districts.”

“We believe the split is leading to a sharing of responsibility among our council members, particularly along the areas where the dividing lines occur,” the statement said. “Also, Roscoe Boulevard and Reseda Boulevard are two streets in Reseda that are part of the High Injury Network under Vision Zero and that have dividing lines. Where these roads do not mark the dividing lines between communities, we believe Reseda would benefit from not dividing these particularly dangerous roads between councilors. Please note the attached map. “

As indicated, a map was included showing the 3rd district in blue and another district in green, with the streets with high injuries being outlined in red.

Neighborhood council members created the map using an Arcgis data portal made available to the city’s Neighborhood Council system as part of a “data link” program that provided council members with consultation hours to ask questions until the program was discontinued September.

Members of the Reseda Neighborhood Council drew up a map showing streets with high injuries that would defend themselves against any city council lines.

Reseda Neighborhood Council secretary Jamie York saw the agreement between Raman and current councilor Bob Blumenfield to relocate the dividing line as a partial victory.

But she added that it stole energy from parishioners who wanted to fight for more.

“We still end up with a decent part of our district that is disenfranchised, including the members of our council,” York said Tuesday afternoon after the city council vote, noting that she was speaking as an individual.

“We never would have had to use the effort we made in the first place if that energy could have been used to further improve our community,” she said.

“I’m proud of the struggle, but I doubt a process that has forced us to fight like hell for our entire district,” she said.