Council May Amend New City Districts

Though the Redondo Beach City Council voted 3-2 to approve the staff recommendation for new legislative district lines Aug. 2, Councilman Steven Diels told the Easy Reader that he planned to bring up the issue again at Tuesday's council meeting.

The staff recommendation called for moving five blocks from District 2 to District 1, two blocks from District 3 to District 2, four blocks from District 4 to District 3, and keeping District 5 intact (see attached PDF for more details).

At the previous meeting, Diels suggested that the be moved from District 2, which Councilman Bill Brand represents, to District 3, represented by Councilman Pat Aust.

Brand vehemently , and he has held several informational meetings about preventing AES from rebuilding the plant using zoning regulations. He suggested to the Easy Reader that Diels, who represents District 4, wanted to move the plant into Aust's district because Diels accepted $3,000 in campaign contributions from AES. The utility also contributed $15,000 to help build a park in District 4.

Changing the plant's district is "a purely political move cloaking the argument that we need to better connect North Redondo to the waterfront," Brand wrote in an email to constituents.

Councilman Steve Aspel voted against Diels' motion on Aug. 2; however, he said he would be amenable to reconsidering his vote.