Council Districts Mapped for Valley City

The agency studying San Fernando Valley secession released maps Wednesday of 14 council districts for a new city, including five with Latino majorities that reflect the region’s changing ethnic mix.

Although the Local Agency Formation Commission will not decide until spring whether to put Valley cityhood before voters, some secessionists cheered the drafting of council maps as a key step toward a breakup election in November 2002.

“It’s exciting,” said Jeff Brain, president of the Valley VOTE secessionist group. “This is what many people have been waiting for, especially those who are considering running for office.”

If LAFCO calls for a Valley cityhood election, voters will choose a council, mayor and name for the city on the same ballot. All those decisions will be meaningless if a secession proposal does not win a majority of votes in both the Valley and Los Angeles as a whole.

Mayor James K. Hahn and other Los Angeles officials oppose secession. Hahn did not comment on the LAFCO boundary plan. The opponents have focused their criticism of secession on broader issues than the district lines, such as whether a Valley city would be financially healthy.

Carlos Ferreyra, a Valley VOTE board member, said the LAFCO boundaries should help the secession movement draw support from Latino voters because the districts would give them a significant voice in a new city government.

“Will it help? Absolutely,” he said.

In a Valley city, whose population would be 1.35 million, each council district would have fewer than 99,000 people, with the average about 96,700. A mayor would be elected Valleywide and preside over the council as a 15th member.

Brain said Valley VOTE had asked that the council boundaries follow those of recognized communities, and he believes the tentative maps largely accomplish that. For instance, District 1 includes Granada Hills, Knollwood and Northridge, and District 2 includes Sylmar and Mission Hills.

However, some communities were too large for a single district. North Hollywood is mostly in District 12, but spills into District 7.

Valley VOTE also asked that the plan keep pace with the shifting demographics of the Valley, which the 2000 census showed as about 46% white, 42% Latino, 9% Asian and 4% African American. Latinos posted the largest population gains during the 1990s.

Like Latinos, whites would be a majority in five districts. No ethnic group would be a majority in the remaining four, although the Latino population would be the largest in all of them.

Alan Clayton of the California Latino Redistricting Coalition said the maps should allow Latinos to capture four and perhaps five council seats. Most of the Latino-majority districts are in the northeast and central Valley.

Population alone does not determine whether a district is likely to elect a Latino council member, Clayton noted. He said he will look at ethnic breakdowns for voter registration in the districts, which were not provided by LAFCO.

“We will review the maps to make sure that they comply with voting rights laws,” Clayton said.

Xavier Flores, former president of the Valley chapter of the Mexican American Political Assn., said his group also will analyze the maps to determine whether it would strengthen or weaken Latino voting power.

“There is a good chance we will soon have one-third Latino representation on the Los Angeles City Council, so we would expect at least that on any new Valley council,” Flores said.

Other minority groups do not fare as well in the proposal.

The highest concentration of Asian Americans--17.9%--is in the northwest Valley’s 3rd District. African Americans would not account for more than 6.9% in any district.

“Asian and African American populations are more geographically dispersed throughout the Valley,” said a report accompanying the district maps. They were drafted by consultants William A.V. Clark of the UCLA Geography Department and Patrick D. Quinlan of PDQ GeoDemographics.

“Neither of these race populations would comprise a majority in a single district, nor is it possible to create reasonably compact Asian or African American majority districts within the Valley,” the report added.

LAFCO will hold public hearings on the plan Dec. 8 and Dec. 12, with locations to be announced. The agency is set to finalize the boundaries in January.

Some adjustments are likely, said Larry Calemine, LAFCO’s executive director. “We always expect changes,” he said. “That is the purpose of the public hearings, to get input.”

However, secession opponents said the plan is fundamentally flawed because it calls for part-time council members, although Valley VOTE hopes to persuade LAFCO to make them full time. Los Angeles City Council members serve full time.

“The residents will not have the hands-on effort of elected officials,” Los Angeles Councilman Nate Holden said. “They [Valley council members] won’t be as accessible.”