Proposal Calls for Giving a 5th Council District to Valley

Setting up a conflict between two veteran City Council members, a committee on Saturday approved a preliminary plan to redraw council boundaries, combining parts of two Westside districts and creating another one in the San Fernando Valley.

The plan for realigning the 15 council districts would increase the number of seats where Latinos constitute a plurality of voters from four to five, with the new one in the East Valley. Latinos would average 47% of the registered voters in the five districts.

The map would increase from four to five the number of council districts wholly in the Valley and maintain a plurality of African American voters in three districts.

City Council boundaries are redrawn after the census every 10 years to reflect population changes. The Los Angeles Redistricting Commission, whose 21 members are appointed by the city’s elected officials, is responsible for recommending a map drawn up by experts it hires.

Chairman John Emerson said the commission will hold four public hearings this month before recommending a final map to the City Council by March 1. The council then has until July 1 to adopt new districts.

“This is a draft map. It’s going out for the purpose of throwing tomatoes at it,” Emerson said after it sparked immediate controversy.

The biggest dispute: The map merges parts of Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski’s 11th District with Councilwoman Ruth Galanter’s 6th District into a coastal district that extends south from Pacific Palisades to Los Angeles International Airport. Population in the two districts did not grow as quickly as in parts of the Valley.

The panel, however, delayed a decision on which of the two officials would get the new coastal district and which would have to represent a new East Valley district for the remainder of her term. Galanter cannot run for reelection in 2003 because of term limits and Miscikowski must leave office in 2005.

Miscikowski, whose current district extends from the Westside into the West Valley, said the council might have to revise the map so that no council member loses his or her district.

“What does it say to the voters when you have someone representing an area where they were never elected?” asked Miscikowski, a Brentwood resident.

Galanter, a Venice resident, wants to represent the coastal district because a majority of it lies in her old district, said Leah Wyman, an aide.

“It would be unfair to people in the coastal district to have a representative who doesn’t understand that area,” Wyman said.

Commissioner Steve Afriat, appointed by Galanter, proposed that the coastal district become the 6th District represented by Galanter and that the new Valley district be assigned to Miscikowski.

But the commission voted 19 to 1 to put off assigning numbers, and therefore incumbents, to the coastal and valley districts until after public hearings are held.

Emerson, appointed by Miscikowski, said he wants to leave the decision to the City Council, which has final say in adopting new districts.

Afriat called it “the decision so tough that no one wants to make it,” and chided his fellow commissioners for punting.

Expanding the number of council districts contained wholly in the Valley from four to five was a major goal of the commission, in recognition of the large growth in population in the Valley. Currently, four districts are wholly in the Valley and three others extend from the Valley to areas south of Mulholland Drive.

Because the East Valley’s 2nd District seat has been vacant since Councilman Joel Wachs resigned, the commission used it to create the fifth Valley district, splitting the 2nd in two.

Emerson said he wants to wait and let the council decide which of the two districts is designated “Council District 2” until after a March 5 election to fill the seat.

“If you number them now, you would be meddling in that election,” Emerson said, adding that residents left outside the new district boundaries might not feel the need to vote in the election, potentially changing the outcome.

After five all-Valley districts are created, about 120,000 residents of Sherman Oaks and Studio City are left over.

The commission decided to put about 71,000 of them into a redrawn 5th District, most of which is south of Mulholland on the Westside. The rest of the Valley voters were put into the 4th District, which extends south of Mulholland to Hollywood and beyond.

Commissioner Richard Close, chairman of the secession group Valley VOTE, tried to put all the 120,000 remaining Valley residents into the 5th District, so that district would have a good chance of electing a Valley resident. Close’s plan was rejected.

Another battlefront was opened over downtown, one that pitted Latino and African American leaders against each other.

The commission left much of downtown, including City Hall, the skyscrapers of Bunker Hill, and the fashion and jewelry districts, in the 9th District, represented by Councilwoman Jan Perry.

That despite the fact that Councilman Nick Pacheco lobbied hard for the area east of Grand Avenue, which includes City Hall, Little Tokyo and the economically thriving Fashion District, to be transferred to his 14th District, which includes Boyle Heights and areas to the east. He also wants the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in his district.

Perry called Pacheco’s move a “power grab” and said she supports the map for keeping the boundaries of her district relatively intact.