Business Groups Want Valley-Only Council Districts

San Fernando Valley chamber of commerce groups are urging that Los Angeles City Council districts be redrawn so that Valley districts do not cross over into the Westside.

The City Council is redrawing district boundaries based on 1990 census figures and has until July 15, 1992, to complete the project. At this week’s initial meeting of a council committee addressing the issue, a representative of the Valley’s 22 chambers of commerce urged that Mulholland Drive be used as the southernmost boundary for any council district in the Valley.

“We are saying, ‘Let’s do this thing sensibly,’ ” said Jim Stewart, a board member of the United Chambers of Commerce, an umbrella organization of Valley chambers. “We are so chopped up. . . . The Valley gets shortchanged.”

Currently, three districts are completely in the Valley, a fourth is primarily in the Valley and four others straddle Mulholland Drive with small portions in the Valley.

Although that adds up to a majority of the 15-member council having at least partial representation of the Valley, the chamber leaders maintain that the Valley is slighted.

“Four of the districts have only a minority interest in the Valley,” Stewart said. “If their major interest is on the other side of the hill, the council members are going to go that way” when voting on important issues.

Stewart, who is also chairman of the local government committee of the Mid-Valley Chamber of Commerce, said the chambers are urging that the redistricting committee draw five council districts entirely in the Valley, giving the area a solid one-third of the council. Valley residents make up roughly one-third of the city’s population.

Stewart said he believes the effort to attain that redrawing will be difficult because incumbent council members with portions of their districts in the Valley will be reluctant to give up bases of support in those largely affluent hillside areas.

“I think they will want to keep what they have,” Stewart said.

The council is not expected to take action on the redistricting until after a consultant is hired later this year.