Advertisement

Remap Plan Would Give Boland Most of Thousand Oaks : Politics: The proposal has angered Assemblyman Tom McClintock, who would lose his hometown. The Valley lawmaker denies seeking the change.

Share
TIMES STAFF WRITER

Most of Republican Assemblyman Tom McClintock’s hometown would be gerrymandered out of his district and taken over by San Fernando Valley Assemblywoman Paula Boland under a plan endorsed by Democratic Speaker Willie Brown on Wednesday.

McClintock, a perpetual thorn in Brown’s side, said he would lose about three-fourths of Thousand Oaks from his 36th District to the district of Assemblywoman Boland (R-Granada Hills).

The redrawn Assembly districts are part of a reapportionment package that the Democrat-controlled Legislature expects to send today to Gov. Pete Wilson, who has promised a veto.

Advertisement

“My understanding is that Paula Boland didn’t like her district and went to Willie and Willie was only too happy to carve up Thousand Oaks for her,” McClintock said.

Boland denied the charge, saying Brown had reconfigured her district three times without her consent.

“I called Tom and said, ‘There Willie goes again.’ He had me in Riverside, he had me in Malibu and now he’s got me in Thousand Oaks.

“He’s got me jumping all over the place,” said Boland, who said she wanted no part of McClintock’s district.

A spokesman for Brown said the speaker has had to adjust Los Angeles County districts to accommodate a new Latino one.

“And when you make one change, it triggers other changes,” spokesman Michael Reese said.

“They shouldn’t take it so personally.”

But McClintock has.

He pledged to run against Boland in the Republican primary if her 38th District, including part of Thousand Oaks, survives a Wilson veto.

Advertisement

“I told Paula, ‘I’m looking forward to a spirited primary,’ ” said McClintock, who was raised in Thousand Oaks and still lives there. “I’m not going to stand for my hometown being cut to shreds like that.

“But you shouldn’t get too excited,” McClintock said. “The governor has vowed to veto an incumbent-protection gerrymander of this type.”

Boland, 51, won the seat vacated by longtime Assemblywoman Marian LaFollette last year against stiff opposition in both the primary and general elections.

Her present district is an oddly shaped, narrow strip that extends from Mt. Wilson in the Angeles National Forest to Mulholland Drive above Calabasas in the Santa Monica Mountains.

It includes all or portions of Burbank, Calabasas, Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Granada Hills, Hidden Hills, Kagel Canyon, La Crescenta, Northridge, Reseda, Sunland, Sun Valley, Sylmar, Toluca Lake, Tujunga, West Hills and Woodland Hills.

McClintock, 35, a quintessential political outsider throughout his nine years in the Assembly, criticized leaders of both parties last summer after they approved a compromise budget that he termed a junk heap.

Advertisement

He said Wilson had “declared war on the taxpayers of California.”

McClintock has also refused to participate in the Legislature’s ongoing struggle to craft new legislative and congressional districts that can be approved by both parties.

A map displayed in Sacramento on Wednesday shows Boland’s district encompassing about three-fourths of Thousand Oaks and probably including McClintock’s home, he said.

McClintock’s district would also lose part of Ventura, which would go to Democratic Assemblyman Jack O’Connell of Carpinteria.

McClintock’s new district would stretch from Ojai down the coast to Malibu and into Santa Monica, he said.

All of McClintock’s district is now in Ventura County.

Advertisement