Divided Redistricting Commission Releases Draft Map to Public

It took four hours, a lot of debate and even more public comment today to get the city of Los Angeles’ Redistricting Commission to do one thing — release a draft map of the Los Angeles City Council’s new district lines.

Even then, the map was released on an 11-6 vote, with one abstention. The dissenters included commissioners David Roberti, Bobbie Jean Anderson, Dave Roberts and Rob Kadota, all of whom were appointed by council members who saw their districts mangled or negatively impacted by the draft map. Robert Ahn and Helen Kim also voted against releasing the map because of concerns that the Korean community was shut out of the drafting process.

The map, based on the 2010 Census, will undergo five weeks of public testimony before it is approved by the commission and ultimately the Los Angeles City Council.

“This reconfiguration of CD8 makes absolutely no sense,” Anderson said during the meeting at Van Nuys City Hall. “It is hard to see CD8 as drawn in this plan as anything more than an afterthought, taking in votes and neighborhoods to fill in the gaps.”

Under the draft map, the Eighth District would pick up part of Westchester, a community that neighbors Los Angeles International Airport. Next door, much of the Ninth District was destroyed by the draft map. Councilwoman Jan Perry, who sounded an alarm months ago that the redistricting process was not transparent nor based on anything other than City Hall politics, was drawn out of her district and lost much of downtown, plus Skid Row and Little Tokyo.

“Quite frankly I’m embarrassed to be involved and associated with this product,” said Roberts, who was appointed by Perry. “I think we’ve lost complete credibility with the public.”

Councilman Dennis Zine was also displaced from his own district under the draft map.

Most of the people who attended today’s Redistricting Commission meeting were members of the Korean community who wanted Koreatown to remain in one council district and ideally be taken out of the Tenth District.

“When you neglect the Asian community, when you talk about every other ethnic group and yet you forget a population that is 15 percent of this community, it’s hurtful,” said Grace Yoo, executive director of the Korean American Coalition.

“We are going to continue to bring our people out, and don’t think that we’re going to be as kind in the process. We’re playing not with just moving parts here, but you’re really moving people’s lives.”

At one point in the night, about 50 of the speakers from the Korean community left the meeting, believing that the commission would not take their comments into consideration.

Late in the evening, an alternative map that would have included Koreatown in the Thirteenth District was introduced by Kim. The commission voted against releasing that map to the public for comment.