As expected, an ongoing redistricting process has created some tension on the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.
On July 12, the board voted 3-2, with North County supervisors Joni Gray and Steve Lavagnino dissenting, to conceptually approve a new district map for the county.
The vote came after months of public outreach and workshops encouraging county residents to draw their own district maps using special software. Redistricting takes place every 10 years after U.S. Census data is released, primarily to ensure district populations are balanced.
Each of Santa Barbara County’s five districts is supposed to contain roughly 84,000 to 86,000 residents. A boom in Santa Maria’s population in the last decade means boundaries have to shift so 16,000 people from the 5th District end up in a new district.
The board was given 16 different maps from which to choose a favorite. At the meeting, each district representative stated which maps he or she preferred. Ultimately, the board majority—comprised of supervisors Salud Carbajal, Janet Wolf, and Doreen Farr—settled on Goleta resident George Relles’ Map 9. Wolf requested a revision to keep the second district’s mesa neighborhood intact, which Farr and Carbajal seconded.
The decision, though not final, appears to have upset quite a few North County residents, including supervisors Gray and Lavagnino.
“I’m pretty mad,” Lavagnino told the Sun. “I started to get over what happened, but then I watched the video [of the meeting] again.”
Lavagnino said he was deeply frustrated with the majority’s unwillingness to discuss making changes to the map that would benefit North County. He also said he’s very committed to creating a citizen’s redistricting committee at a future date.
“The biggest problem I had is that when [Supervisor Wolf] moved to conceptually approve Map 9, she got to clean up neighborhood lines,” he said, referring to Wolf’s request involving the mesa. “But she wouldn’t allow us to clean up the lines in [Lompoc or Santa Maria]. I thought that was rude. That’s what people are so upset about.”
Supervisor Gray also expressed criticism toward the map and her South County colleagues.
The district lines in Lompoc, she said, are confusing and “all over the place.”
“There’s going to be a group of people who have no idea what district they’re going to be in,” she said. “At least draw a straight line. Lompoc is on a grid; it would be very easy to do.”
Gray requested several times during the meeting on July 12 that the board majority allow Lompoc residents to choose their district’s north-south line.
As it stands, the new line zigzags through the city from the airport toward Willow Avenue, dividing Lompoc between the 3rd and 4th districts.
The split creates a feeling of déjà vu for Mayor John Linn. (The California Citizens Redistricting Commission similarly divided the city earlier this year, until protests from the Lompoc City Council elicited a correction.) On July 12, Linn and three other City Council members spoke during public comment, asking that the Board of Supervisors refrain from doing the same thing.
“I think there was a good opportunity for the Board of Supervisors to bring the county back together after the bad feeling from the last redistricting, but the opportunity was missed,” Linn said. “What was most disturbing to me was that there were two standards: [The majority] emphatically refused to split [Isla Vista] and UCSB, but had no problem splitting Lompoc.”
Early in the discussion period, Lavagnino, backed by Gray, moved to split Isla Vista and UC Santa Barbara between the 3rd and 2nd districts, but was stymied by the other three supervisors.
When asked to comment on the redistricting process, Supervisor Carbajal said, “The most important thing is that the process abide by the letter of the law.”
He said it’s not uncommon for cities to get split.
“Lompoc’s already slightly divided, and so are Goleta and Santa Barbara,” Carbajal said. “Are you going to tell every other community that they’re not as important as Lompoc?
“Some people are going to view this as political. But I’ve learned that if you win, you never say it’s political. If you lose, you say it’s political,” he continued. “You’re never going to make everyone happy, but unfortunately that’s part of the redistricting process.”
Third District Supervisor Farr said her district is “so finely balanced that it has swung back and forth, back and forth” between politically ideologies for years. The balance, she said, is “keeping it a very competitive” and more politically moderate district.
“You can’t win the district with votes from just IV or just the valley,” she said, adding that the Isla Vista/UCSB issue boils down to elections.
“A lot of people don’t think that students should be able to vote in the community they live in. They’re viewed as transient and not knowledgeable of the issues,” she said. “But the law is the law.”
During her years as supervisor, Farr said she’s never had students get involved with district issues outside of Isla Vista.
“IV is an invisible community,” she said. “So it all comes back to elections and its influence on elections. There are concerns that [IV will] dilute the vote.”
The new map will go before the board for a first reading on Aug. 2. All three South County supervisors told the Sun they’re open to further discussion of that matter at that date.
Contact Managing Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 21-28, 2011.