After more than an hour of debate on March 9, the Santa Maria-Bonita School District board approved a new map designating board member voting areas, in the face of a community push for more time to consider all of the maps presented during the redistricting process.
Following the 2020 census—a data collection process that occurs every 10 years to analyze population growth and the demographic changes within communities—school district consultant Cooperative Strategies came up with three trustee area maps that were nearly equal in population, compact, drawn to comply with the Federal Voting Rights Act, and respect communities of interest, Demographer David Lopez explained.
“We focused on population balance, and achieved one of the main goals of the California Voting Rights Act’s citizen voting ages for protected classes—or traditional minority groups disenfranchised historically,” he said.
The map selected—known as Scenario 3—has three of the district’s five trustee areas with a Latino voting majority and are relatively equal in population. But a majority of the public commenters during the meeting advocated for a map submitted by the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) to be considered because it protected indigenous communities by keeping northwest Santa Maria in two districts instead of three.
In response to the concerns for indigenous communities, Lopez and his team looked at data showing the languages spoken at home and found that indigenous languages are scattered across the city, not concentrated in one area, he said.
“About 2,510 responded they speak one of the nine indigenous languages at home, which is not enough to make an entire area. The theory to me—and I’m not trying to be biased, I don’t care which map you pick—with the data I have, the northwest side of town isn’t clear that it’s a community of interest, but it’s something the community asked for,” Lopez said.
Board member Ricardo Valencia said the board should push the vote back to a later date to look at community input and give the public more time to consider all of the options.
“In our process, we’ve only had a matter of weeks for community engagement, and that’s part of why our feedback has been lacking. I know at the high school district, they just went through the process and gave the community months. I was under the assumption that nobody from our board was ready to vote. Our community has not had the time to chew and digest,” Valencia said.
Despite his efforts, other board members—including John Hollinshead—believed that with the new data presented regarding indigenous communities, they should proceed with a vote.
“With respect to that Mr. Valencia, I think you’re underestimating or not listening to what Mr. Lopez is saying. The information provided tonight might change their assumptions,” Hollinshead said. “It gives [community members] a chance to look at scenario maps from a different vantage point.”
Valencia responded by explaining that there wasn’t an opportunity for the community to give feedback even if the new information did change community members’ minds and there should still be space to do so.
CAUSE Policy Advocate Rebeca Garcia told the Sun she was disappointed in the board’s vote.
“There were numerous comments asking the vote to be pushed back,” Garcia said. “Ricardo [Valencia] was advocating for community input to be listened to, but all the other trustees weren’t with him. It communicated that public input was not considered with the same weight they had previously mentioned.”
Even though the CAUSE map didn’t get selected, Garcia said she hopes to see fair representation of northwest Santa Maria from someone who understands the community.
“It would be someone who lives in the parts of the city, who understands and is receptive and able to be in the community,” Garcia said. “It’s not just looking like the person but being able to understand the community firsthand.”
This article appears in Mar 17-24, 2022.
