City OKs Remap Plan; Court Now to Decide Its Fate

Bringing to a close the latest round in a bruising battle over new district boundary lines, the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Tom Bradley on Wednesday approved a compromise redistricting plan that sets up a probable 1987 election fight between two council members and may open another seat to Latino candidates.

The council’s 12-2 vote and the mayor’s subsequent signature on the plan sent the fate of the volatile redistricting issue into U.S. District Court, where city attorneys today will submit the plan as the city’s answer to a federal lawsuit.

The council redrew its district boundary lines in response to the lawsuit, which claimed that the council’s 1982 redistricting plan violated the Voting Rights Act by dispersing the voting strength of the city’s Latinos among several council districts.

The plaintiffs, including the Justice Department and several minority groups that have intervened in the case, will have 15 days in which to accept the new plan or file legal challenges to it, Assistant City Atty. Shelley Rosenfield said.

Council members and the mayor predicted confidently Wednesday that the city’s new plan will satisfy the parties and U.S. District Judge James Ideman, who is hearing the case.

“In a reapportionment effort there is never a perfect plan,” Bradley said as he signed the measure. “But I think this one satisfies the interests of all of the parties. And I think it is a fair resolution of a very complex and difficult problem.” But even before the plan won final council and mayoral approval, a spokesman for one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit--the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Assn.--said the group will challenge the new remapping because it carves the city’s Korean community into three council districts.

Hundreds of Korean-Americans protested the plan on City Hall’s steps early Wednesday, then moved their protest inside the council chamber during the deliberations. Several times they waved arms in silent protest and held aloft signs that read “Save Koreatown.”

Albert C. Lum, lead counsel for the Chinese lawyers, said the lawyers plan to introduce to the judge their own plan, which unites Koreatown in one council district. “We think that would be the fairest plan,” Lum said.

Amendment Sought

Councilman Robert Farrell, who under the revised plan would represent one-third of the city’s Korean community, asked the council’s Charter and Elections Committee to consider a redistricting amendment that also would place Koreatown in a single district. The council agreed to consider that and other smaller shifts in council district lines at a later, unspecified date.

But other council members bridled at the late entry of the Korean community into the redistricting controversy and questioned how the council could meet the expectations of all the city’s ethnic groups.

“There are 84 different ethnic languages in the city,” said an angry Councilman Ernani Bernardi. “What are we going to do, create a separate council district for each one of them?”

Councilman Richard Alatorre, who drafted the redistricting plan, questioned whether any redrawing was possible.

“If there is a way of accommodating, I have no problem in accommodating those concerns,” he told the Korean representatives gathered in the council chamber. “But I don’t know if there’s going to be a way of doing it.

“It’s very difficult for me and very difficult for any member of the City Council to try and reconcile particular problems after the fact or in the 12th hour,” Alatorre said.

The plan approved by the council and signed by the mayor Wednesday differed only slightly from that given preliminary approval last week.

Overall, it joins the power bases of John Ferraro and Michael Woo--the Hancock Park and Hollywood areas, respectively--in one district, the 4th. Unless one of the incumbents chooses not to run, an option that their colleagues say at this point is unlikely, the two will battle each other in next April’s municipal elections.

Woo’s current district, the 13th, was moved to the northeast, covering an area that is 69% Latino. If Woo beats Ferraro, leaving the district without an incumbent, voters there are expected to see a race between Latino candidates in 1989. Latino community groups, however, are pressing for a special election in the district next year.

While making no large changes Wednesday, council members unanimously agreed to an amendment in which Councilman John Ferraro picked up a corner of Hancock Park, his stronghold, from the district of Zev Yaroslavsky, while Yaroslavsky took from Ferraro a corner near Paramount Studios in the Hollywood area.

Council members are expected to suggest other slight changes in the remapping in the future, and Alatorre suggested Wednesday that any changes be consolidated into one “cleanup” ordinance. “I’m not interested in perpetuating this particular issue,” he said.

Voting against the plan Wednesday were council members Ernani Bernardi, a consistent opponent of the various redistricting amendments, and Joan Milke Flores. Dennis McCarbery, an aide to Flores, said the councilwoman was opposed to setting up a “turf battle” between two incumbents in the same district.

The redistricting issue provoked a messy and public dispute among council members who generally prefer to keep their differences cloistered.

After weeks of acrimonious debate and repeated press conferences by several parties, the council last week formally approved a plan that put Woo into a Latino-dominated district and protected most of the other council members.

But an angry Woo and his political allies sent up a storm of protest that led to Bradley’s veto of that plan. The next day, July 23, the council tentatively approved the plan that won the council’s formal assent and the mayor’s signature Wednesday.

Assistant City Atty. Rosenfield said that if the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit file challenges to the newest plan, the city will have 20 days to respond to the claims in writing. After that, Judge Ideman could gather the plaintiffs and the city’s representatives together and seek to work out a solution.