LA City Council OKs new district boundaries; Garcetti expected to sign off

Los Angeles city leaders on Tuesday, Dec. 7, approved new City Council boundaries that will shift a district represented by Councilwoman Nithya Raman further into the San Fernando Valley, as well as making other adjustments to district lines throughout the city as part of a once-a-decade redistricting process.

Under the approved map, Raman’s 4th district would lose Hancock Park, Miracle Mile, Park La Brea, Mid-City, much of Hollywood and part of Silver Lake.

But it would keep Sherman Oaks, while gaining Encino, a part of Reseda and Studio City, that are now spread out among other districts.

Meanwhile, the 5th Council District, now represented by Councilman Paul Koretz, would no longer be part San Fernando Valley, under the ordinance approved by the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday on a 13-0 vote.

The big shifts in the Valley came about after a push by groups such as the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association to create boundaries that would create what the group’s representatives called a “fair share” of representation on the City Council of Valley-based elected officials.

Others, however, decried the effort as disenfranchising current residents of the 4th district who recently voted Raman in a race that reflected a historic high in voter turnout.

The new lines would go into effect as soon as they are published by the City Clerk. Before that can happen, the ordinance would need to be signed by the mayor.

Mayoral aide Harrison Wollman said Tuesday following the vote that Mayor Eric Garcetti plans to sign the ordinance that would put into effect the new map, as well as an accompanying redistricting ordinance for new Los Angeles Unified School District boundaries.

The City Council vote on the ordinance was a delayed about a week after staffers said a technical correction needed to be made.

The line drawing process aimed to adjust City Council boundaries based on U.S. Census data, with each district apportioned around 260,000 people.

While the approved map would keep Koreatown whole within the 10th council district, it has also fanned the flames of a heated battle over major assets in the 8th and 9th council districts in South Los Angeles. In the end, major economic drivers such as Exposition Park will stay in the 9th District, represented by Councilman Curren Price, who described the result as “huge victory.”

The 8th district’s councilman, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, made several attempts to restore Exposition Park back to his area, arguing that it had been wrested away from the district in the last redistricting process. He had pointed to the move as disenfranchising “the one majority Black district in the entire city.”

In recent weeks, efforts had continued toward putting Exposition Park into the 8th district, including through a push by Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles leaders, but those also were unsuccessful.

The vote Tuesday caps a process that began more than a year ago. Map drawing did not begin until this past summer — due to the late release of U.S. Census data amid the COVID-19 pandemic — leaving the city redistricting commission and the City Council with a shorter time frame than would have been typical to decide on new district boundaries.

Meanwhile, the city’s redistricting process has faced frequent calls for more transparency and independence from political influence.

Unlike the county and state process that now uses an independent commission, Los Angeles city elected officials appoint representatives to an advisory commission that then turns over its proposed map to the City Council, which has final say on council district lines, despite the process’s susceptibility toward individual elected officials’ political aims.

Residents in the west San Fernando Valley, in particular, pushed back against efforts they felt were politically motivated to make a drastic shift to where their communities were located.

Meanwhile, there were complaints during the process that it did not prioritize the needs of Los Angeles voters who would be affected by the new lines. When a parent called into a City Council meeting that had been scheduled in the afternoon to consider the school district map, which had ultimately been approved unanimously despite the commissioners being deeply divided on the issue, the sound of a screaming child in the background.

The mother, Michelle Gallagher, had said that it was inconveniently scheduled right around the time parents were potentially picking up their children from school.

Others had also described the process as being more difficult than needed.  Reseda resident Jamie York described the effort to prevent people in her community from having their ability to vote for a new council person delayed as extremely draining.

Rob Quan, of UnrigLA, a frequent critic of the way the way public officials and city leaders have conducted the process, accused the council and Council President Nury Martinez on Tuesday of following in the footsteps of previous leaders accused of gerrymandering districts rather than allowing the process to proceed more fairly and accessible to the public.

“This is now your Nurymander,” Quan said in the meeting’s final public comment.

Martinez closed the public comment period following Quan’s comments, and immediately called for a vote on the map as part of a batch of other council items, without making comment on the map.

The council president earlier this month also did not respond to a Los Angeles Daily News request for comment, detailing her reasons for her support for the map that was ultimately approved Tuesday.