On November 8, the City Council approved a tentative new redistricting map, keeping the vast majority of the Second District intact. As happens every ten years, population shifts required that the tentative map would make some substantial changes in the Second District (including the loss of parts of Studio City and the addition of Toluca Lake). Still, 90% of the districts current constituents will remain in the Second District.This marked a significant victory for the residents of the district, after Councilmember Krekorian vigorously opposed a much worse, outrageously disruptive proposal of the Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission (LACCRC) that essentially would have eliminated the Second District as we now know it.
Under the failed LACCRC plan, one of two new districts would eventually be identified as the Second District and assigned to Councilmember Krekorian, and the other would be identified as the Fourth District (the LACCRC avoided deciding which of the new districts should be identified as which -- it left that decision to the Council). One of these new districts shared no common territory at all with the current CD2 -- so literally none of the people who live there would ever have voted for Councilmember Krekorian. The other district included only 60 percent of the current CD2. Either of these results would have been wholly unacceptable, would have disenfranchised large swaths of the Valley, and would have deprived hundreds of thousands of voters in the Second and the Fourth Districts of the representation they voted for only a year ago. Of the 12 Neighborhood Councils in the Valley that submitted community impact statements, ten strongly opposed the LACCRC plan, including Greater Valley Glen, North Hollywood, Studio City, Sun Valley Area, Valley Village and Van Nuys.
The City Charter provides that the Commission makes recommendations to the Council, which has final responsibility for designing district maps in compliance with voting rights laws and the Constitution. The Commissions suggestions were taken up by an Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee of the Council, which directed the Office of the Chief Legislative Analyst to prepare two alternative plans for comparison: one that simply adjusted the district boundaries to achieve equal population among districts; and a hybrid map that would combine features of that minimal adjustment with the plan proposed by the LACCRC.
The Ad Hoc Committee met in open session on November 5, and after listening to public comment from every caller, approved a version of the hybrid map, with small adjustments, for consideration by the full council. That hybrid map was then approved by the full Council with minor changes. The map approved by the Council can be found here. The Council will conduct a special session on November 23 that will be devoted entirely to public comment on the district maps. The Council will vote on an ordinance codifying the district maps on December 1.
See interactive map of all districts with street-level detail.