O.C. Board OKs Redistrict Plan

Orange County supervisors adopted new district boundaries Tuesday that keep Santa Ana--the county’s largest city with the biggest Latino population--intact, thus increasing the chances for a serious attempt to put a Latino on the board in 2004.

The approval of the new boundaries came despite last-minute pleas from city officials to move portions of Newport Beach and Anaheim into other districts to ease the cities’ future planning decisions.

“It definitely opens the door for a Latino,” said Frank Barbaro, chairman of the county Democratic Party. “But I don’t think that’s the criteria, because philosophy is the criteria. But the demographics being what they are, it opens the door wide for a Latino candidate.”

The once-a-decade process of redistricting--from county to federal levels--has produced some bizarre boundaries over the years.

But it’s changing demographics, rather than party affiliation, that have transformed the county.

The board had set another redistricting hearing for next week. But a memo from the California secretary of state received Monday set Tuesday as the deadline to adopt new boundaries, prompting the board to approve the plan with the possibility of having county staff make minor changes in Anaheim and at Newport Coast. The new boundaries take effect in 30 days.

The plan was approved 3 to 1, with Supervisor Todd Spitzer opposing it. Board Chairwoman Cynthia P. Coad abstained.

Spitzer said he wanted more time to weigh the plan, and Coad wanted first to see results from an informal poll Spitzer had taken. The poll found, according to Spitzer, that some cities in his district expressed reluctance to be moved into Coad’s district.

There has been criticism by some elected Republicans in the county that the new boundaries--created with fresh Census 2000 data--may give an edge to Democrats in the 1st District. The office of supervisor is nonpartisan, but all five current board members are Republicans.

Figures from the 2000 census show that whites are no longer the majority in 10 of the county’s 34 cities. That was true of only one city, Santa Ana, in 1990. In Buena Park, the percentage of the white population dwindled from 71% in 1990 to 38% in 2000, as the percentage of Latinos increased to at least 30% and of Asians to at least 21%.

Under the new plan, Latinos, who tend to register as Democrats, will have a population majority of 56% in the new 1st District, which includes Garden Grove, Westminster, some unincorporated areas and Santa Ana. Whites make up 20% of the district, while Asian and African Americans represent about 21% combined. Term limits will force current 1st District Supervisor Chuck Smith out in 2004.

Republican Gaddi Vasquez was the last Latino supervisor on the board; he served from 1987 until his resignation after the county bankruptcy in 1995.

Several political consultants said the “perfect” Latino candidate would be a moderate, pro-business Democrat who was able to raise at least $250,000 and capable of bridging cultural gaps.

One of the keys to the redistricting process was the concept of keeping “communities of interest” in the same district, said Assemblyman Lou Correa (D-Anaheim), whose name was included among top potential Latino candidates for supervisor.

But good representation is the key, Correa said, rather than ethnicity. He added that Smith was doing a good job.

“It’s important to recognize that the Latino constituency is looking for good education and health care, and clean, safe streets--[as] are most of . . . the people in the district,” he said.

Though Latinos may have greater numbers in the new district, political consultants say they have to push voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns on election day. It’s conceivable that a strong Latino candidate still might not coast to victory, they said.

The League of United Latin American Citizens had submitted a plan to take in parts of the county’s ethnic core, including Garden Grove, Orange and all of Santa Ana for the 1st District. That plan also called for redrawing the district’s boundary southward to include the closed El Toro Marine base and a portion of Irvine, so a second district in north Orange County could be carved to help minority supervisorial candidates.

But supervisors said they could not back the plan because it split too many cities into various districts.

One of the advantages of the approved plan, a modification--submitted by Smith--of a proposal by Spitzer and Supervisor Tom Wilson, is that it splits only two cities: Anaheim and Garden Grove.

On Tuesday, Newport Beach requested that Newport Coast, an unincorporated area that the city hopes to annex, be kept in the 2nd District with the rest of the city for continuity’s sake.

Anaheim had asked that an industrial area in the northern part of the city remain in the 4th District for planning purposes and not be moved into the 3rd.

Both Anaheim’s request and Newport Beach’s could be addressed by a minor change of the boundaries, which supervisors instructed staff to do with the motion they approved.