As we’ve reported previously, the city of Los Angeles is now in the middle of its once-per-decade re-drawing of its city council district boundaries (based on 2020 census information). And it’s also in the midst of a series of 17 public hearings – one for each council district, and two with a citywide focus – to collect public input on where the new district boundaries should be drawn.
On Saturday, August 28, the Los Angeles Redistricting Commission held its meeting focusing specifically on boundaries for Council District 10, which currently lies just to the south and east of both the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council area and the current boundaries for City Council District 4, which currently represents most of the Greater Wilshire area (a small area along the GWNC’s western border currently lies in CD5).
Throughout the series of CD-based redistricting meetings so far (see our coverage of the District Four and District Five meetings), one of the biggest pleas we’ve heard from neighborhoods around the city is to keep each Neighborhood Council area intact within a single City Council District, and to not split up NC areas among two or more City Council districts.
But the CD 10 meeting brought a bit of a new twist.
While there were some speakers from several neighborhoods in the general West Adams area (including this writer) who spoke in favor of keeping their neighborhoods and neighborhood council areas united in CD 10, as they are now, the majority of the more than 50 speakers who voiced their concerns during public comments addressed representation of the Koreatown area, which is currently divided among three or four (depending on how you define “Koreatown”) city council districts.
These speakers – all of whom said they agree with the position taken by a group calling itself the Koreatown Redistricting Taskforce – asked the redistricting commission to unite the overall Koreatown area in just one city council district. This was definitely in line with what other “communities of interest” across the city have been requesting. But at the same time, the speakers all defined the western border of Koreatown as Wilton Place…a definition long used by the Los Angeles Times’ neighborhood mapping project, but which is at odds with a 2009 City Council action defining the official western border of the Koreatown neighborhood as Western Ave. Historically, the neighborhoods between Western and Wilton, from Olympic Blvd. north to Melrose Ave. (including Western-Wilton, Ridgewood/Wilton-St. Andrews Square, Oakwood-Maplewood-St. Andrews, and Country Club Heights) have always been part of the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council area, and also part of City Council District 4, which represents about 90% of the GWNC area. The Koreatown Redistricting Taskforce’s request, however, would move those four neighborhoods into whichever city council district winds up with the adjacent part (or all) of Koreatown – likely CD 1, 10, or 13.
And that means – since neighborhood council boundaries are NOT being redrawn at the moment – that instead of being united in one City Council District, as the GWNC formally requested a few weeks ago as the CD 4 redistricting meeting – it could wind up (depending on how the CD 4/CD 5 border issue goes) with parts of its territories in as many as three different city council districts.
The idea didn’t go over well with several GWNC board members who attended Saturday’s meeting.
In a public comment at the meeting GWNC President Conrad Starr noted that at the moment, 90% of the GWNC area lies in CD4, with 10% in CD 5, and that the official position of the GWNC, expressed at the redistricting meeting for CD 4 was:
“Our preferred option is to be unified in one Council District, and we are completely opposed to any further splitting of our area—or worse, the introduction of additional Council Districts to our map.”
Starr also said in his public comment that he was “really impressed to learn that the Koreatown Redistricting Taskforce had held community input meetings for the greater part of a year,” but that he is “saddened that our neighborhood council was never approached for its input [during that process] .”
Starr said the GWNC would definitely welcome communications from the group, as the GWNC has often supported and partnered with other Koreatown organizations such as the Anderson-Munger YMCA and the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, which benefit both the Koreatown and Greater Wilshire areas. He also said the GWNC is definitely interested in helping residents in its eastern neighborhoods access constituent services through their current representatives in CD 4…something the neighborhood council is well positioned to do given its long relationship with that city council office.
Patricia Carroll, who represents Ridgewood/Wilton-St. Andrews Square on the GWNC board, but who spoke as an individual at the redistricting meeting, told the Buzz after the meeting that she definitely agrees that it’s important to keep neighborhood council areas as intact as possible within a single city council area, and not split their territory among multiple city council districts, as she and others from the GWNC argued at both the CD4 and CD 10 redistricting hearings. Carroll also told the Buzz that the Western vs. Wilton boundary discussion at the CD 10 meeting was a complete surprise to her, and that she felt “blindsided” by it because it had never been brought to the GWNC by the Koreatown Redistricting Taskforce advocacy group.
But not all GWNC members at Saturday’s meeting were in agreement on the border and representation issue. Joseph Suh, the GWNC’s alternate At Large board member, argued in favor of the Koreatown Redistricting Taskforce’s request, and the borders it quoted…and so did Steve Kang, who is not yet a GWNC board member, but who has formally applied to become the board’s alternate representative for the Western-Wilton neighborhood.
While this discussion was spirited, however, no votes or official actions were taken, and it was only one of the 17 public meetings collecting public input on the ongoing city council redistricting process. So there are still plenty of opportunities to get involved and have a say. If you would like to submit your own comments and suggestions for city council redistricting, you can:
- Attend one of the remaining seven public meetings
- Submit a Community of Interest form outlining your neighborhood’s unique characteristics and concerns
- Use the new Districtr tool to create and submit your own suggested map of a Council District or community of interest to be included in a specific district
- Contact the redistricting commission or its officers directly via e-mail
It’s worth noting, though, that it is important to submit your comments soon. The redistricting process is moving quickly, with the public input phase wrapping up in September, and draft council district maps likely appearing for review in October. The city is legally obligated to finalized its new city council district boundaries by the end of the calendar year.
