Residents Speak Up About Redistricting

San Gabriel Valley residents offered a message of logistical unity when delivering their thoughts on the yet-to-be-finished redistricting plans at a public input hearing in Whittier on Friday evening.

The 14-member California Redistricting Commission released draft plans for new congressional and state districts on June 10. The plans show new boundaries for California's 53 congressional districts, 40 state senate districts and 80 state assembly districts, as well as districts for the state Board of Equalization, which handles taxation issues.

The proposed face-lift for the state’s boundaries has raised plenty of questions and concerns, and Friday’s meeting was one of the commission’s efforts to address them.

Residents from the La Crescenta-Montrose and La Canada area were pleased with their newly-proposed districts. But many of the more than 90 speakers at the hearing expressed confusion and disappointment at the draft maps, which feature boundaries that split some cities in half and, according to them, would group their cities with practical strangers.

“We have three assembly districts in the unincorporated areas. Our kids all go to the same schools. People don’t even know if they live in the incorporated or unincorporated area,” said one La Crescenta woman. “I would love to see the Assembly map keep the incorporated and unincorporated together.”

 Cheryl Davis, president of the Crescenta Valley Town Council, also thanked the commission for “keeping La Crescenta, Montrose and La Canada together as communities of interests, due to shared emergency responses and resources as evidenced in the wake of the Station Fire and ensuing mud and debris flows. Please help keep these communities together and unified.”

But other communities haven't fared as well. San Marino residents expressed confusion about why their proposed district kept them separate from neighborhing Pasadena.

“San Marino and Pasadena are joined at the hip. The map you designed is not appropriate," said one San Marino resident. "Pasadena and San Marino should be in the same assembly district. We do not have anything in common with Hacienda Heights or Diamond Bar.”

And South Pasadena is facing being split down the middle into two Assembly districts- something La Crescenta and Montrose has dealt with for the past ten years.

“The proposed congressional boundaries puts us with Boyle Heights and East LA – communities we respect but have no connection to, historic or otherwise," said South Pasadena  City councilman Philip Putnam. "South Pasadena belongs in San Gabriel Valley congressional district,” he said. “Move us north, move us south, but don’t cut us in half … Don’t draw the line through the middle of our city.”

The commissioners made no decisions at the hearing, and urged people to submit testimony and public comments online. The Whittier meeting is one of several in Southern California. To see where the commission will be going, check here (http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/hearings.html). Also, for more information on the commission’s work, go to (http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/hearings.html).