With the City Council redistricting process heading quickly into its final few weeks, the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, which hasn’t officially weighed in on the matter since mid-September (a lifetime ago in redistricting terms), held a special meeting last night to update its official position on drawing new City Council districts in the area.
For the most part, the new resolution just slightly expanded GWNC’s previous position, which was a request that the GWNC area be kept whole in a single city council district. The motion passed last night did not address any of the 38 motions entered so far by City Councilmembers requesting significant changes to the final map recently recommended by the Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission. Instead, it simply asked that the GWNC area remain intact within CD 5 in any new map, and that – if this can’t work with efforts to balance the populations of all Council district across the city as a whole – the group would also support dividing the GWNC area between CDs 5 and 13, as recommended by the Redistricting Commission in the final version of its final map K 2.5.
The motion also included notes “that if alternative maps that are substantially different from Map K 2.5 Final are considered,” the GWNC might submit additional Community Impact Statements requesting that the GWNC area “be kept intact and whole within one City Council District to the furthest extent possible,” and empowering the GWNC Vice President to provide public testimony to this effect if the GWNC President is not available.
The first opportunity for such testimony – for the GWNC and everyone else – will be at the first meeting of the City Council’s newly-appointed Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee, which will be held tomorrow, Friday, November 5, at 1 p.m. The agenda for the meeting is available here, and a link to live audio on YouTube will be available from this page.
