District map coming soon in Foster City 

Most of the council has been vocally opposed to the change, claiming it is unnecessary, as households of various socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities and races are dispersed throughout the small city. But the city is facing pressure from a complaint filed in June by resident and former mayor Jim Lawrence, who threatened legal action if the city did not take steps to adopt district elections, saying his Plum Island neighborhood, as well as others throughout the city, do not reap the same benefits of robust development and growth compared to other areas.

Many cities in San Mateo County, including Burlingame, San Mateo, Menlo Park and Belmont, have made the change in recent years, many prompted by letters like Lawrence’s. A city’s chances of winning a CVRA lawsuit if it doesn’t immediately comply are grim. In fact, California hasn’t seen any cases where a jurisdiction won the battle, prompting the Foster City Council to forgo the risk of a costly legal challenge. 

During a Nov. 4 meeting, Redistricting Partners, the contracted consultant, presented several potential district maps, taking into account public input.

“There were some themes we saw in the maps,” Redistricting Partners Redistricting Manager Liz Stitt said, noting most included a central and eastern district. “It’s mostly the southern and western portion of the city where we will need to figure out what kind of divisions you want to see.” 

The districting process uses a variety of criteria to determine communities of interest, which could include public policy matters like education, public safety and health, housing or access to social services, a staff report noted. It could also comprise socioeconomic characteristics and cultural districts. Public input from the community were particularly interested in using school boundaries, homeowners association locations and renters as relevant criteria to use specific to the city. 

But a significant part of complying with the CVRA means determining “whether it is possible to create an election district or districts in which a minority group is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district,” according to the report. Over half the city’s population are of Asian descent, according to census figures, with white being the second highest population group — 33% — and then Latino at 7%. The Black population comprises less than 2% of the city’s total. Even though the Asian population is a majority within Foster City, it is still legally considered a minority group, meaning the district mapping must still take steps to ensure their population in each district could be close to a majority. 

The preferred map includes one central district that comprises the Pilgrim-Triton neighborhood, the town center and Leo J. Ryan Park. Another district would be directly south of that, and the third district would cover the entire levee on the Bay side up to around Mariners Island Boulevard. Another would cover residents living along the southern portion of the city, around Port Royal Avenue. The fifth would cover the eastern part of nearly the entire city, from north to south. 

The fourth public hearing will be Nov. 18. A final map will be adopted during the fifth public hearing.

Note to readers: The story has been updated to accurately reflect the name of the Plum Island neighborhood in Foster City.