3 Voters File Papers for Review of City’s Redistricting Plan : Courts: Plaintiffs contend that creation of the councilmanic district has actually ‘gerrymandered’ Latinos out of power and disenfranchised many others.

Three voters seeking to have the city’s redistricting plan overturned have filed papers in Los Angeles Superior Court, contending that the plan violates the rights of Latino voters and temporarily disfranchises large areas of the city.

The plaintiffs last week asked the court to review the plan, which was approved by the City Council in June after 11 months of study and hearings by the council-appointed Redistricting Task Force.

The task force’s top priority was to create a councilmanic district with a large concentration of Latinos, who now constitute 27% of the city’s population, without diminishing the influence of blacks on the council.

But Harold Sadring, Cliff Benedict and Frank Rocha, the three plaintiffs, contend that the new redistricting map has actually “gerrymandered” Latinos out of power, creating one district that gives Latinos “little hope of governmental representation in the future” because of its concentration of non-voters.

“The council is screaming that it has created a Latino district, but it has created one that is non-effective,” said Rocha, a public school bilingual instructor, who drew up the petition.

“This is dirty politics,” said Sadring, a member of the city’s Code Enforcement Commission.

The three also complained that a consequence of the task force’s severe shifting of district boundaries was to diminish the voting power of large numbers of people.

“Over 50% of the population is now represented by someone they didn’t elect,” said Benedict, a retired engineering executive who is also the president of the Lower Hastings Ranch Assn.

For example, Benedict’s district in northeastern Pasadena, is now represented by William Paparian, who does not face reelection until 1995. Its former representative, Jess Hughston, now relegated to a district in the center of the city, faces reelection next year.

Benedict, who was considering running for Hughston’s seat, said the plan condemns the voters in his community to an extra two years without the opportunity to elect a council member.

The three proposed that a new map be drawn, leaving the districts largely as they had been, but carving an extra Latino-dominated district out of the central part of the city.

Asked how an eight-member council would resolve a tie, Rocha suggested that the city attorney could provide the deciding vote.

City Atty. Victor Kaleta would not comment on the lawsuit. But he said there was nothing inherently illegal about having a council with an even number of members, though it would require a charter amendment.

“It would represent some practical difficulties,” Kaleta said.