Long Beach : Candidate Moves to Pursue His Challenge to Edgerton

Alan Lowenthal’s challenge to Councilman Wallace Edgerton seemed to go down the drain last summer when the Long Beach City Council’s reapportionment plan dropped Lowenthal’s Bluff Park neighborhood from Edgerton’s 2nd District. But not for long.

Lowenthal, a Cal State Long Beach psychology professor, has moved into a rented apartment on Ohio Street in the newly drawn 2nd District. His first fund-raiser is planned for the end of the month.

A 21-year resident of the old 2nd District, Lowenthal said he will keep his Bluff Park house.

The 2nd District was substantially changed during reapportionment, losing residential neighborhoods on the eastern end of the district and picking up the port and downtown on the west. Lowenthal, who announced his challenge last spring, bitterly denounced the new boundaries, complaining that it was an obvious case of gerrymandering.

Edgerton, who is running for reelection next spring, has said the district lines had to be drawn that way to help create a 1st District with a Latino majority.