Oxnard Mayor Seeks Change in Remap Plan : Reapportionment: Nao Takasugi’s home was moved out of the 5th District. He will ask for a boundary adjustment.

Oxnard Mayor Nao Takasugi, who is considering a run against Supervisor John K. Flynn next spring, will ask the Ventura County Board of Supervisors this week to move the boundaries of Flynn’s district two blocks to again include Takasugi’s home.

A majority of the members of the board, which inadvertently cut Takasugi out of the Oxnard-based 5th District last month, said Tuesday that they are inclined to honor Takasugi’s request for a minor boundary adjustment.

“I think it’s very awkward to have a town where the mayor is literally not in the district,” Supervisor Vicky Howard said.

Takasugi said Tuesday that he will petition the board in writing because Flynn has failed to follow through with a recent pledge to ask for the boundary change.

“If John is not going to carry the ball, then it’s an open invitation for the other supervisors to do it,” Takasugi said. “Individually, they may hesitate because it’s John’s district, but together they may want to consider it because of fairness.”

Takasugi is the only one of the county’s 10 mayors cut out of his supervisorial district during a three-month reapportionment that ended Oct. 1.

Flynn confirmed Monday that he told Takasugi two weeks ago that he would ask the board to place Takasugi’s home back in the 5th District, instead of leaving it in the 2nd District, which is centered in Thousand Oaks.

“But since that conversation, I’ve had so many people call me who are really upset because they won’t be in the district,” Flynn said. “They said, ‘Why is the mayor more important than we are?’ ”

The phone calls were prompted, the supervisor said, by a newspaper report that an angry Takasugi would ask supervisors for a boundary adjustment and, if that failed, consider moving to another house so he would be eligible to run against Flynn next year.

Though Takasugi has stopped short of charging Flynn with political gerrymandering, he has suggested as much since he is the supervisor’s most likely challenger in the June election.

Flynn has insisted that he had nothing to do with the boundary change involving Takasugi. The change was made in a last-minute compromise plan, supported by a Latino voting-rights coalition and bitterly opposed by Flynn. County officials who redrew the lines have said Flynn was not involved. The plan Flynn favored kept the Oxnard mayor in the 5th District, they said.

“I had him in the district. It’s not my fault,” Flynn said. “So it boils down to what the other board members want to do. I don’t think I should have to take care of all the mess that was created. I think it should be the ones that drew the lines.”

The other four supervisors said Tuesday that they were unaware of where Takasugi lives when they approved the borders for all five supervisorial districts three weeks ago. They are now inclined to put the mayor back in 5th District, which is predominantly Oxnard, they said.

“It seems appropriate that the mayor of the city of Oxnard should be in the 5th District,” Supervisor Maria VanderKolk said.

That boundary adjustment and several other minor changes suggested by supervisors will be placed on the board’s agenda in two or three weeks, said Robert L. Braitman, the county administrator most involved in drawing the new districts.

The proposed revisions must be discussed at two public hearings before approval, Braitman said.