Redistricting Map Draws Cheers and Jeers : Politics: Nearly a third of L.A. County’s cities move into new supervisorial districts under a judge’s plan. While some officials raved, others talked of secession.

In Topanga Canyon, the court-ordered reapportionment of the Board of Supervisors was met with cheers, while San Gabriel Valley mayors were so angered that they talked about filing their own lawsuit and even seceding from the county.

But other civic leaders said the problems that smaller communities and interest groups in Los Angeles County have in getting heard by the board would not be resolved until the sprawling county gets more than five supervisors.

Nearly a third of the county’s 85 cities were moved to new supervisorial districts Friday when U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon dramatically redrew the county political map to create a district designed to help a Latino win a seat on the powerful board.

This week local officials, civic leaders and community groups began toting up the winners and losers.

San Gabriel Valley officials complained that the redistricting will split their region among three supervisorial districts, fragmenting their political influence.

“Our clout as a voting community has become watered down,” said Diamond Bar Mayor Gary Werner, whose San Gabriel Valley city was shifted from retiring Supervisor Pete Schabarum’s 1st District to Supervisor Deane Dana’s 4th District.

Others in the San Gabriel Valley echoed the concern, and said the valley has common concerns with traffic, rapid transit and waste dumps that are better addressed if the problems are focused on a single supervisor and his staff.

Pomona Mayor Donna Smith said that if the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds Kenyon, cities should consider filing another lawsuit on grounds of disenfranchisement of voters or forming a separate county for the San Gabriel Valley.

But civic leaders in Topanga, the West San Fernando Valley and Malibu were delighted to trade in their conservative, pro-business supervisors for 3rd District Supervisor Ed Edelman, whom they see as more sympathetic to slow-growth movements.

Getting out of Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s 5th District “would be good for Topanga,” said Bob Bates, chairman of Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community. One development plan in Topanga Canyon that could be directly affected by the redistricting is the proposed Montevideo Country Club near the canyon’s northern border with Woodland Hills. Turned down by the supervisors in 1988 in what was the county’s longest-running zoning dispute, developer Christopher Wojciechowski recently resubmitted a scaled-down version that is still opposed by community groups.

“It would be nice to have (Edelman), who is sensitive to environmental issues,” said Kathy Lewis, vice president of the Encino Property Owners Assn.

Malibu activists cheered the redistricting proposal, which moves the coastal town from Dana’s district into Edelman’s, who championed Malibu’s drive to become an incorporated city over the objections of Dana.

Larry Wan, Malibu councilman-elect, said that having a more responsive supervisor will help the new city negotiate contracts with the county for police and fire services. “The redistricting plan would help us because we’re still a contract city and I suspect we’ll have to be doing a lot of negotiations,” Wan said. “For whatever reason, Deane Dana and Malibu have developed a very adversarial relationship, so this can only help us.”

For some in Malibu, the relationship with the Board of Supervisors has deteriorated so much that Leon Cooper, a member of the Malibu Township Council, said, “Anything that involves a change in the county government, no matter what it is, would have to be a change for the better.”

In Compton, at the northeastern end of Dana’s crescent-shaped coastal district, City Councilwoman Patricia A. Moore said she was pleased with the shift of her city from Dana’s district to Supervisor Kenneth Hahn’s 2nd District.

Hahn will be more sensitive to Compton’s needs and already is the supervisor that the city often seeks out when it needs help, she said. Moore said the city has felt snubbed several times by Dana, whose interests, she says, lie largely with his more affluent white constituency.

Her views were at odds with those of Compton Mayor Walter Tucker, who said the remapping will mean very little. The only real solution to better representation, said Tucker, is to enlarge the board from the current five members to seven or even nine members.

“Otherwise, it’s the same old ballgame,” Tucker said.

Indeed, many cities--and even two of the supervisors--have supported expanding the board.

On Monday night, the Pomona City Council was the latest to adopt a resolution calling for expansion of the board to improve representation. Earlier, the Los Angeles City Council adopted a similar resolution.

Much of the dissatisfaction with the remapping is in the San Gabriel Valley, and Pomona’s vote reflected the concern among valley cities about having their political clout diluted.

The Pomona council’s measure expresses displeasure with the redistricting plan and demands that any reapportionment “respect the regional and ethnic interests of Pomona and its neighboring cities.”

Nell Soto, a Pomona council member who ran unsuccessfully for the 1st District seat in June, said that the latest plan “puts us in with cities with which we have nothing in common.”

Diamond Bar’s Werner said the judge should have considered geography and community interests instead of focusing entirely on ethnicity. He said the way the boundaries were drawn “smacks of reverse discrimination.”

Werner said Dana may try to be responsive to the needs of Diamond Bar, but it would be natural for him to concentrate his attention on the common interests shared by other cities in his district, such as coastal concerns.

Covina Mayor Chris Lancaster, whose city has been shifted from the 1st District to Antonovich’s 5th District, has called on San Gabriel Valley cities to join in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the 9th Circuit Court to overturn Kenyon’s redrawing of boundaries.

Lancaster said San Gabriel Valley will now be represented by supervisors who don’t live there. “Mike Antonovich does not know the San Gabriel Valley,” he said. “We feel we have been disenfranchised.”

Lancaster cited the San Gabriel Valley’s special problems, such as a heavy concentration of dumps that take 60% of the county’s trash, and said those problems will not receive proper attention with the region splintered politically.

El Monte City Councilman Jack Thurston said “it will be the tail wagging the dog” with most of the 5th District’s population in the San Gabriel Valley but the supervisor living in the San Fernando Valley.

Cities in the region have also teamed up with their supervisor to work on common traffic problems and to create a rapid transit district.

Spokesmen for the supervisors say they have always had to deal with sprawling districts.

“Mike will represent his constituents as he always has,” said Antonovich aide Dawson Oppenheimer.

Dennis Morefield, a spokesman for Dana, said that the inland shift of the 4th District does not present any problems for the supervisor. “From the outset, it has been Deane’s policy to work with all the cities in his district.”

Still, some city officials said it will be more difficult to organize such efforts when they no longer have a common political jurisdiction. “With three supervisors, it’s just too many people to deal with,” said El Monte Mayor Don McMillen.

Pomona Mayor Smith said that if the remapping stands, San Gabriel Valley cities should consider forming a separate county for the San Gabriel Valley.

“Forming a new county sounds like a good idea to me,” McMillen said.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Mike Ward in Pomona, Leslie Berger in the San Fernando Valley, Ken Garcia in Malibu and Michelle Fuetsch in Compton.

Changes in Supervisorial Districts The court-ordered reapportionment of the Board of Supervisors has meant a dramatic shift in the political map of Los Angeles County. Nearly a third of the county’s 85 cities are in new supervisorial districts and civic leaders and community groups began toting up the winners and losers after the federal court ruling on Friday. The reaction ranges from praise in Malibu, where some say they are pleased to be freed from their pro-development supervisor, to unhappiness in the San Gabriel Valley, where the redistricting will split the region among the supervisorial districts.

Below are the existing boundaries drawn in 1981, and the new boundaries approved by U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon. Existing Boundaries New Boundaries