A Mind Like a Map

From his seventh-floor Fullerton office, William F. Gayk looks out over a wide swath of the county, a vast stretch of suburbia that he will help carve up in the name of politics and fair play.

Gayk, who heads the Center for Demographic Research at Cal State Fullerton, has been selected as a consultant for the county’s Redistricting Committee, which will give the 57-year-old analyst a major role in reshaping the county’s power structure.

There is a shade of irony in his selection.

For more than 20 years, Gayk (rhymes with “Mike”) was the county’s chief demographer. But that was until he--like hundreds of others--lost his government job in the withering economy following the county’s 1994 bankruptcy. Now, soon to be armed with fresh census data, maps and the advice of other experts, Gayk will help establish the lines of power for his old bosses: the county supervisors.

The job, though, is just a job, Gayk said. He holds no bitterness over the end of his county tenure, though he admits he was not prepared for his sudden unemployment at the time. Just the same, Gayk--married with two children--said he opted to view his termination as an unexpected sabbatical and an opportunity to spend time with his family.

Now viewed as a leading authority on county demographics, Gayk will oversee the task of realigning district lines for the five supervisors, a once-a-decade undertaking. The process is certain to be turbulent, touching everything from the continuing battle over the closed El Toro Marine base to the lack of Latino representation on the county board.

Gayk, however, has encountered controversy before. As a county analyst, Gayk worked on sensitive, if not unpopular, projects including environmental impact reports for the toll roads and evaluations of the district attorney’s early welfare fraud detection program.

During the coming months, he will need the confidence that comes with that experience. Already, some Latino community groups such as the League of United Latin American Citizens have said in clear and strong terms that they want to improve the odds of electing a Latino to the Board of Supervisors by keeping Santa Ana in one district.

The city, which has more than 315,000 residents, is the county’s most populous and home to more than 222,000 Latinos, about 71% of the city population.

But in the redistricting of 1991, Santa Ana was splintered among three supervisorial districts, with the biggest chunk landing in District 1, now held by board Chairman Chuck Smith.

LULAC has demanded that two supervisorial districts be redrawn with a population that is half minority, increasing the odds that a Latino candidate could be elected. Smith is assured of hanging on to his district, regardless of its boundaries, until 2004, when he’ll be forced from office because of term limits.

“You have to draw the districts equal in population,” said Art Montez, a Centralia School District trustee and Latino activist. “The last time, they turned away the Latinos’ [redistricting] plan and ended up with one that had all five supervisors living within five miles of each other. They had to change it.”

According to Montez, minorities won advantages in 1991 at the state level through reapportionment of legislative and congressional districts. Those gains, combined with more minorities in the county, will help spark minority redistricting ideas in 2001.

“In 1991, you didn’t have term limits, the ethnic growth or the greater sophistication among community groups like LULAC,” Montez said.

Already, Gayk has assembled a team of associates that will develop software that merges census data with the county’s geography. The team will train county staff and make its facilities available to the public for producing and reviewing redistricting proposals.

The center, next to the Cal State Fullerton campus, was established in 1996. It operates on a $360,000 annual budget funded by a coalition of governments and public agencies.

In addition to the county and Cal State Fullerton, the center is governed by the Orange County League of Cities, Orange County Sanitation District, Orange County Transportation Authority, Transportation Corridor Agencies, Municipal Water District of Orange County and the Orange County Water District.

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To aid in redistricting, the center or county will produce redistricting kits that the public can obtain. The kits will include a database, redistricting rules and population statistics that can be used on a personal computer with software as simple as Microsoft Excel, Gayk said.

There is also a proposal to provide Internet access to allow the public to prepare and submit redistricting plans.

“The details haven’t been worked out, but that is one of the ideas,” Gayk said.

Census figures will not be available until April or March, he said. The Redistricting Committee will recommend various plans to supervisors, who must select a final plan by August.

Up to now, the center has focused on its annual Orange County Progress Report and population updates. Gayk has worked on redistricting three times before, but it’s a first for the center.

“Redistricting has always been controversial,” Gayk said. “There’s always going to be some issues that will affect the discussion.”