The Long Beach Independent Redistricting Commission (LBIRC) has received drafts of Five Plan Maps (each with two slightly different versions) for council district boundary redistricting from the contracted consultant Redistricting Partners. The Five Plan Maps were produced by the consultant based on input from all the commissioners at the October 6, 2021 LBRIC meeting.
The commissioners’ individual wish-list input for the maps from the October 6th meeting was based on months of testimony from Communities of Interest and hundreds of community-submitted maps. Those hundreds of community maps follow the Five Draft Maps in the Redistricting Partners released map packet (view them here as Draft Plans A-E).
The Charter specifically prohibits taking into account where current council representatives live in considering boundaries. While the released maps’ exact detailed streets are hard to see, it appears various of the plan maps do change districts for a few council representatives including Price, Zendejas, Uranga, Austin, and Richardson.
The first Five Plan Maps, Plan A, B, C, D, and E in the packet that was released late Wednesday, October 13th are followed by almost 600 pages of other maps submitted by the community.
However, it is the Five Plan Maps that the Commissioners will concentrate on at the next LBIRC meeting on Wednesday, October 20, 2021. At that meeting, the Commissioners are scheduled to choose three maps to move forward for a legally required public comment phase. If the Commission fails to select maps to move on, it will restart the current 3 maps approval public feedback phase. and push the final map approval closer to the required legal deadlines in December.
Regardless of how the October 20th meeting plays out, the current Five Plan Maps show that this inaugural Commission is setting a precedent by embracing its “Independent” moniker.
The Five Plan Maps include major boundary changes the Commissioners asked to be included in the draft maps: sharing responsibility for the airport (now exclusively in the 5th District) with other noise impacted council districts; moving CSULB with Puvungna and student voting populations in the dorms into the 4th District; creating a single council district with the majority west of the Los Angeles River/710 corridor, and consolidating the Cambodian business districts along with Anaheim and PCH into one council district.
Timeline of Events
Wednesday, October 20 – Draft Maps Selection
· The Commission will select three of the draft maps (including any revisions) for public feedback and further review
Wednesday, October 27 – Community Feedback Hearing
· Members of the public will provide testimony to the Commission on the final three draft maps
Wednesday, November 10 – Proposed Final Map Selection
· The Commission will select a final draft map to move forward for adoption
Thursday, November 18 – Final Map Adoption Hearing
· The Commission will vote on the final map
Long Beach’s Congressional, Assembly, and State Senate district boundaries will have big changes
This week the California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CCRC) released “visualization” maps for Los Angeles County’s Congressional, Assembly, and State Senate districts. The maps show that the Long Beach and Los Angeles harbor and adjacent areas will most likely be unified for state legislature and Congressional districts.
The “visualization” maps are draft hypothetical districts that were drawn with preliminary input from the CCRC Commissioners to the consultant map makers. The visualizations are part of the review of potential options. The Los Angeles County visualization were released for the CCRC’s Southern California-centered meetings this week.
It becomes clear from the visualizations, and the names given to them, that the Commissioners are interested in more of a grouping with common central geographical features than the former prevalent mostly north-south alignments. As an example, Long Beach’s state districts are grouped in the “Harbor” grouping. Other groupings include the “Gateway” cities, “South Bay”, “LAX” and “South LA”.
The current State Senate District 33 represented by State Senator Lena Gonzalez currently runs North-South:
The CCRC visualization map calls for a “Harbor” centered Senate District taking in the coastal parts of the current State Senate Districts 33, 24, and 35 along the coast (plus Santa Catalina and San Clemente islands) with a small portion of Orange County:
The CCRC visualization map for the State Assembly district is similar:
The CCRC visualization maps also call for a “Harbor” centered Congressional District going from a small portion of coastal Orange County to Palos Verde taking parts of the current 33rd, 43 and 47th Congressional Districts:
Current L.A. County Congressional District maps based on the 2010 Census:
