Lines in the Valley Sand Underscore L.A.’s Future

For once, it’s not rhetorical overkill to say the City Council holds the future of L.A. in its hands. Last week, a hard-working citizens’ redistricting commission gave the council its best chance to keep intact La Ciudad de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula--better known as Los Angeles.

If enough council members can muster the courage and vision to approve the new district boundaries, the campaign to have the San Fernando Valley secede from L.A. can be defeated. But if a majority of the 15 council members put parochial political interests above all else, Valley secession will be a foregone conclusion. Then the only open question will be how many other parts of town--Hollywood? the harbor?--will bolt when the secession vote is held in November.

The L.A. City Council Redistricting Commission was created by the City Charter that voters approved in 1999--one of the best things to emerge from that reform effort. It took the contentious process of redrawing council districts to reflect census changes out of City Hall’s back rooms and into the sunlight. The job was given to 21 citizens appointed by various city officials.

The commission went about its work with diligence and patience. More than 1,000 people attended 50 hours of public hearings. It also received more than 5,000 letters, e-mails and other correspondence from interested citizens.

The map that commission members drew can be derided as politically correct, but it’s also politically astute. It keeps three inner-city districts with a plurality of black voters--40%, as defined by the federal Voting Rights Act. It also increases the districts with a plurality of Latino voters from four to five, making it possible for Latinos to increase their council representation without diminishing the clout of African Americans.

More important, the commission put five districts completely within the San Fernando Valley, giving one-third of the council’s seats to a region that encompasses one-third of the city’s land mass and is home to slightly more than one-third of its population.

Only four council districts now are completely in the Valley; three others combine Valley neighborhoods with communities south of Mulholland Drive.

Some in City Hall insist that arrangement keeps the Valley closely linked to the rest of the city, but hardly anyone in the Valley buys that. Given a recent Times poll that showed 46% of city voters in favor of Valley secession, with 55% of Valley voters favoring a breakup, the commission’s new district map may be the only way to keep L.A. in one piece. It creates a potential coalition of voters likely to cast ballots in favor of staying in L.A. by offering more clout to the city’s emerging majority, Latinos. It maintains the influence of the city’s most consistent voting bloc, African Americans. And it finally gives the Valley representation commensurate with its size and population.

This is not to say the commission’s map is flawless. A few communities are still divided between two districts, including Van Nuys. But even that’s an improvement. Van Nuys is now divided among five districts.

To make its political balancing act work, the commission had to move Ruth Galanter’s Westside council district into the Valley. More problematic, Eastside council members Nick Pacheco and Ed Reyes want to shift parts of Downtown’s 9th District into their neighboring districts. Normally, such City Hall infighting could be tolerated. But not this year.

Council members have until June 30 to approve the commission’s handiwork, and the less they muck it up, the better. Not for them, perhaps, but certainly for the rest of the city.

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Frank del Olmo is associate editor of The Times.