Mayor Says He May Seek Flynn’s Seat : Politics: Oxnard’s Nao Takasugi is angry that redistricting shifted him out of the 5th District. He may move back.

Oxnard Mayor Nao Takasugi, angry that his home was quietly cut out of County Supervisor John K. Flynn’s 5th District two weeks ago, said Tuesday that he may still challenge Flynn in next spring’s election.

Takasugi, who considered a run against Flynn in 1988, said he might ask the Board of Supervisors to move the new boundaries two blocks to put his house back in Flynn’s district.

If that fails, the mayor said he would consider moving to another house so he would be eligible to run against Flynn.

“I’ve lived in the 5th District all my life, and now I’m in what, District 2?” Takasugi said. “I’m in the tail end of a district that is predominantly Thousand Oaks, and that is an area that is foreign to me.”

Takasugi, a five-term mayor, stopped short of accusing Flynn of political gerrymandering. “I don’t want to comment on that,” he said. But he noted that Flynn’s chief opponent in 1980, Port Hueneme Councilman Dorill B. Wright, was excluded from Flynn’s district in a 1986 redistricting.

“Sometimes one sort of reads between the lines,” Takasugi said.

Flynn, a four-term supervisor, said that he knew Takasugi was a potential challenger next year but that he was surprised that the mayor had been moved out of the 5th District.

“I did not know,” Flynn said. “Of course, people say, ‘Oh sure, you didn’t know.’ But I really didn’t.”

County officials who redrew the lines of all five supervisorial districts to give the board several last-minute options at its Sept. 24 hearing also said Flynn was not involved in moving Takasugi out of the 5th District. They said the plan that the supervisor originally favored kept the mayor’s house in the 5th.

In fact, the officials said, the change involving Takasugi was first made in a compromise plan that Flynn bitterly opposed. The compromise, which other supervisors ordered, added thousands of Latinos to Flynn’s district to avert a lawsuit by a Latino voting-rights coalition.

“There was no intent on anyone’s part to purposely exclude Takasugi,” said Robert L. Braitman, the county administrator most involved in drawing the new districts.

Planner Steve Wood, the other principal architect of the reapportionment plan, said, “As far as I know it was sheer accident.”

The board, at a hearing Sept. 17, asked Braitman and Wood to include two predominantly Latino communities, Nyeland Acres and El Rio, in Flynn’s district. That required cutting 12,500 residents out of other parts of the district, Braitman said.

“So we started taking other areas out precinct-by-precinct based largely on two factors--whether they were adjacent to an already excluded precinct and if they were low in percentage of voting-age Hispanics,” Braitman said.

Yet, Takasugi said he was “upset, angry that something like this could occur at the last moment.” He said he is the only one of the county’s 10 mayors who was cut out of his supervisorial district during reapportionment.

And he was removed from the 5th District despite his efforts to prevent it, Takasugi said. He had checked with county Chief Administrative Officer Richard Wittenberg about a week before the final plan was approved and was assured that he was still in the 5th District, the mayor said.

Two days after approval, Takasugi called Braitman to ask if he was still in the 5th District and was told he was not, both said.

“I talked to both Mr. Braitman and Mr. Wittenberg and they said, ‘Gee, we’re sorry, but nothing can be done,’ ” Takasugi said.

Takasugi said he has not yet accepted the supervisors’ decision.

He may ask supervisors--either individually or in a letter to the full board--to consider his case when they make minor adjustments to the new districts based on detailed block-by-block maps now being completed.

Braitman said he thinks the supervisors will make some small changes. “It is true that very minor adjustments would put Takasugi’s home back in District 5,” Braitman said.

Proposed revisions, if any, would be discussed at public hearings, probably within a month, Braitman said. Two hearings are required before any change can be made.

Takasugi said that if the board fails to respond to his request, he might even move from the El Portal Way home, where he has lived for 21 years, so he can retain the option of running for the 5th District seat.

“It’s only fair that the option be made available to me under the circumstances,” he said.

Flynn said that if Takasugi petitions the board for a change, he will consider it. But he said he was reluctant to reopen hearings on redistricting.

“At first I thought about it. Then I thought, ‘Gosh, I wonder if I want to open up a whole can of worms and have the whole room filled with people again,’ ” Flynn said. “I don’t know. We’ll see how it looks. Sometimes things cool off.”

But, Flynn added, “If he would have been there in support of my plan, he would still be in the 5th District.”