Ninth District Coalition Calls For Leaving Boundaries As Is

Current configuration of Ninth District.

If the lines proposed by the city’s Redistricting Commission take effect, the Ninth District will become an impoverished district that is home to five housing projects but which lacks major assets that can be leveraged for economic development, business owners and religious leaders said today.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry joined constituents at an afternoon news conference to denounce the proposed boundary lines that were released yesterday. The Ninth District is currently home to most of downtown, Skid Row and parts of South Los Angeles. The proposed map would cut out downtown, Skid Row, Little Tokyo and the historic core, while picking up the community of Watts.

“We were promised an open process. It has not been an open process. Maps were drawn out of the public view,” Perry said.

District lines are redrawn every 10 years based on the U.S. Census. The Ninth District was required to lose about 8,000 people to bring it in line with the other districts. Rather than return Vermont Square to its previous home in the Eighth District, the Redistricting Commission dismantled the Ninth’s core.

Perry was joined by developer Tom Gilmore, Pastor William Epps of the Second Baptist Church, Mark Wilson from the Coalition for Responsible Community Development and Bill Watanabe of the Little Tokyo Community Council Redistricting Task Force.

“You cannot fix or help any district by cutting it in half,” Gilmore said. “Our ability to work under one council district, our ability to work through the entitlement process, through the development process, work through the affordable housing issues that we have, work with our partners in Skid Row, Little Tokyo, the Arts District and South L.A. make the mighty Ninth mighty, indeed.”

Draft of proposed Ninth District boundaries.

If South Los Angeles is separated from downtown, “they’re going to flat line. It’s simple economics,” Perry told The City Maven.

“Don’t give me that baloney about, ‘Oh well she has Staples now.’ OK, it’s not just about Staples (Center) and Farmers Field, it’s bigger than that. It’s about an entire community that’s unified,” Perry said.

Next year, Perry, who is running for mayor, will be termed out of office. For those parts of the Ninth District that end up in the Fourteenth District, the next council election will be in 2015.