WHAT THEY’RE SAYING - First, the LA City Council Redistricting Commission (LACCRC) has made some moves on THE MAP … and you can see those changes here. The Commission will hold two public hearings … Feb 22 and 29 … before sending a map to City Council on March 1. You can check out the schedule, meeting times and locations at: redistricting2011.lacity.org.
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Meanwhile, out to Van Nuys where Neighborhood Council activist Daniel Wiseman told the commission:
“The basic principle is that Neighborhood Councils are the ultimate and the fairest Community of Interest that we have in this City. Neighborhood Councils give a voice to everyone and … because they are recognized, City Chartered entities … they have a direct line of communication with the City Council, with the Mayor and with the Departments.
“Neighborhood Councils are not lobbyists representing narrow interests. Neighborhood Councils are not pressure groups, like unions, guilds, Chambers of Commerce and Business Groups. Neighborhood Council Stakeholders are of every ethnic, cultural, national, socio-economic, gender and other backgrounds.”
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And from South LA, Opal Young, president of the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Homeowners’ Coalition wrote:
“On Wednesday, the Commission responsible for redrawing the council district lines voted 15-5 to hear the consensus of our community and place all of the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw-Leimert Park community in one council district.
This is a major victory for our community and a cause for celebration. For at least 40 years our Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw-Leimert Park community has been divided between council districts. It has made the challenge of improving our neighborhoods unnecessarily more difficult than need be. But because our community came together, showed up in force last Saturday at the hearing at West Angeles church, spoke for unity and refused to be fooled by selfish political interest that seek to keep our community divided we were heard, we've been united.
This is the power of our community: WHEN WE SPEAK OUR VOICES ARE HEARD!
Because you spoke up:
-Baldwin Vista is now united instead of divided between two council districts.
-All of Leimert Park, including Leimert Park Village, is united in one council district.
-Baldwin Village is now united.
-Crenshaw Manor is now united.
-No longer will one side of Crenshaw Blvd be in one council district, while the other side of Crenshaw is another council district.
Now we, the entire Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw-Leimert Park community, are together in one council district. Also, just as important, with the new lines we are ensured that: a) we have two strong black seats on the City Council long after term-limits push Bernard Parks and Herb Wesson off the council; and b) African-Americans remain competitive in a third seat (Council District 9, currently represented by Jan Perry).”
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While citizens lobby for their neighborhoods … some more successfully than others … the politics of redistricting continues to make overshadowing headlines. And the name of City Council President Herb Wesson continues to overshadow that element of the redistricting story.
Political blogger Ron Kaye poses the question: “Who Put Wesson Oil on the Fires of the Anti-Democratic Redistricting Process?”
Obviously, much more to come.
Here again in the INFO link to LA Redistricting: redistricting2011.lacity.org
Graphic credit: RonKayeLA.com
-cw
Tags: redistricting, LA City Redistricting, Redistricting Commission
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 15
Pub: Feb 21, 2012