Redwood City eyes new election maps

The city’s attorney negotiated an extension for the adoption of district boundaries because there were widespread concerns among residents about the map the council voted for on first reading in March. Roughly two weeks ago the city’s demographer, National Demographics Corporation, informed the city for the first time that it was in fact possible to address both the community’s concerns as well as legal obligations in alternative draft maps.

There are now six draft maps in the mix and while there are tradeoffs with each of them, it seems just about everyone considers the latest maps a significant upgrade over the previous options.

Many Latino residents have been calling for maps that include two districts with Latino majorities in terms of voting age; the pervious options included just one. Each of the latest maps does include two Latino voting age majority districts and they’re also compact and adhere to other districting criteria, including balanced populations, according to a staff report.

“I want to thank City Council for listening to the Latino community,” said resident Arnoldo Arreola. Speaking on behalf of the local advocacy group Latino Focus, Arreola endorsed map 21f, as did every other resident who spoke during public comment.

That map meets almost all of the common preferences, including Redwood Shores getting its own independent district, but the downtown neighborhood is not together in one district and there is one pairing of councilmembers in a district: Councilwomen Giselle Hale and Shelly Masur are both in District 2.

If that map and the proposed sequence of elections is adopted, then Masur would complete her four-year term in 2020 and could not run for re-election in District 2 that year because Hale’s term extends to 2022. Masur would be eligible to run in 2022.

Not every draft map includes a pairing of councilmembers, but every map with a pairing includes one with Masur. That said, Masur, who is running for a seat in the California Senate in 2020, favored 21f.

“I’m sticking with my original things that when I didn’t support the previous map we voted for I said two things: I wanted to respect the wishes of Redwood Shores and put them in a single district and I wanted to find the greatest representation of the Latino community in other districts,” Masur said. “I’m really happy we’re reconsidering [the map] and I’d narrow it down quickly to 21f and 13h would be fine as well, they’re relatively similar except for the pairings. I’m fine with either of those.”

Hale applauded Masur’s position on the matter and also expressed support for those maps.

“What you heard from Councilmember Masur is leadership. That’s leadership — stepping aside when it’s the right thing for the community, when you want to acknowledge the needs of the community and take those to heart. … This process is about the community, it’s not about saving seats,” she said before articulating her preference for 13h and 21f. “I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between [those maps] at first glance. They are both good maps, they check a lot of the boxes that we heard and my preference is solely based on the community input, which has loudly been for 21f.”

Councilwoman Diana Reddy, on the other hand, favored a map called 13g that does not pair any councilmembers in a single district. It also places Redwood Shores and Bair Island together in the same district, splits downtown into two districts and preserves just seven neighborhood associations while 13h and 21f maintain 10 and nine neighborhood associations respectively.

“I continue to support combining Bair Island and Redwood Shores,” Reddy said. “This is a unique community, they’re both east of 101, they both have horrendous traffic and soon sea level rise issues and those issues cannot be ignored.

“There are things to celebrate about 13g,” she continued. “In addition to there being now two newly formed minority majority districts, voters in both of those districts will be able to vote in 2020 and neither will have to vote in 2022. In that vein, I was also pleased to determine that Bair Island has the same voting age percentage of Asian residents as Redwood Shores so it doesn’t dilute Redwood Shores as we first feared.”

Hale agreed that sea level rise, for example, is an increasingly significant issue for the residents of Bair Island and Redwood Shores and that’s why she wants them in separate districts.

“For me personally, the argument to put the Shores with Bair Island for sea level rise — pardon the pun — it doesn’t hold water,” she said. “I want to see greater representation for those issues and I think you achieve that by having two councilmembers focused on that issue.”

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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