New College Map to Boost Minority Voting Strength

At the urging of a Latino voting-rights coalition, the Ventura County Community College District board voted Tuesday night to create a new district that will increase minority voting strength.

The board of trustees also voted 3 to 1 with one abstention to shrink the size of the Simi Valley area voting district by about 15,000 people because the population has grown larger than other districts in the county.

Tuesday night’s action followed 10 months of debate over how trustees should draw the new boundaries for the five areas that make up the Community College District. Under law, the lines had to be redrawn by March based on 1990 census figures.

Several trustees said they believed that Latino voters should have a unified voice.

Under the approved plan, nearly 59% of the people in board President Pete Tafoya’s district--which includes Oxnard, Nyeland Acres and parts of El Rio and Port Hueneme--are Latino. Previously, the district included Oxnard, all of Port Hueneme and Point Mugu, and was about 55% Latino.

Members of the Ventura County Coalition on Redistricting and Reapportionment hailed the board’s decision.

“It’s great,” said Art Hernandez, an El Rio resident and member of the coalition. “The Latinos of El Rio have strong area ties with the Latinos of Oxnard.”

Maria Teran, another group member, said the plan is exactly what members asked for. “We’re very pleased.”

But board members Gregory Cole, who voted against the move, and Timothy Hirschberg, who abstained, said they believe that the district should have left the remapping decision to an independent council.

“From the start, I have felt that it is a conflict of interest for board members to redraw their reelection lines,” Hirschberg said. “I don’t think we should use the board’s time or the public’s time on political boundaries.”

Cole criticized the approved plan, saying the districts are gerrymandered.

“It allows me to represent the area from the Ventura County line to the Oxnard Plain. It’s the largest geographic area in the county,” he said.

The population in the area is expected to grow by 15,000 residents within the next 10 years, making his district far larger than the others in the county, he said.

But the other three trustees said the districts make sense.

Board member Alan Jacobs said the committee that formulated the new areas did an outstanding job. “It needs to be done,” he said.

Under the plan:

* Gregory Campf’s Ventura area will include much of Port Hueneme and the Naval Construction Battalion Center.

* Piru and Fillmore will be placed in Hirschberg’s Santa Paula area district, instead of the Simi Valley area district, which is represented by Jacobs.

* Point Mugu will be placed in Cole’s Thousand Oaks area district.

* The neighborhoods east of Central Avenue in El Rio will be in the Santa Paula area, while those to the west will be in Tafoya’s district.