Work continues on redistricting in Redwood City

“The responsibility of ours is to acknowledge those demographic changes and see how we might not lift the voices up for everybody in Redwood City,” Advisory Redistricting Committee member Dr. Jose Manuel Peña said during a committee meeting Wednesday, Nov. 3. 

After reviewing maps drawn and submitted by community members, and three maps drafted by consulting firm Redistricting Partners, the committee largely agreed that the city should have at least two majority minority districts where Latinos account for at least 50% of the voting population. 

Hyla Lacefield, the committee member representing District 5, said preserving the two minority majority districts for Latinos is “vital” for ensuring underrepresented community members have a voice in city politics. The move would provide Latino residents in those districts with the opportunity to place two representatives on the seven-person board.

In agreement, the committee voted to remove a draft map from Redistricting Partners from consideration because it only included a single majority minority district, an outcome encouraged by Committee Chair Rudy Espinoza Murray. 

“I think that is within the spirit of the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Maps Act,” Espinoza Murray said.  

Some committee members also shared an interest in keeping as many neighborhoods complete in districts as possible rather than dividing them among two or more districts. But to do so, the city would have to be open to splitting the Redwood Shores neighborhood, a move that would need to be balanced against community testimony pushing against the idea, Chris Chaffee, Redistricting Partner’s chief operations officer, noted. 

Two maps drafted by the consultants keep Redwood Shores as one district while preserving two majority minority districts but in the first, titled Plan A, only eight of the city’s 17 neighborhoods are whole while only six are in the second Plan B map. 

Redwood Shores is the largest neighborhood in the city and the most isolated. Keeping it intact would make it the largest district as well. Louis Covey, the committee member representing District 3, argued that keeping the neighborhood as one limits council representation of nearly 13,000 residents to one person. 

But Amy Buckmaster, representing Redwood Shores in District 1, argued against the split by noting the neighborhood largely differs from the others including Bair Island, another waterfront community largely isolated from the rest of the city.

“With Redwood Shores, I think it needs to be one. It just shows, the data shows,” Buckmaster said.  

Similarly, Covey argued that pushing to keep neighborhoods intact was a “red herring” and suggested most city residents aren’t familiar with city neighborhoods or in which one they live.  

Still, the committee directed the consultant team to research the ways splitting Redwood Shores could help increase the number of complete neighborhoods in other districts while keeping at least two majority minority districts in play. 

The consultants were also directed to draft a “minimal change” map that kept districts as close to their current configurations after accounting for population changes. 

The committee will take the new maps into consideration while keeping two other draft maps from the consultants in mind at its next meeting on Nov. 17. The meeting will feature a public hearing on the collection of possible maps before committee members make any final recommended changes and provide their support for which map they believe the council should select.

The council will hold two additional public hearings on Dec. 6 and Jan. 24, when a final map selection will be made. 

Community members may continue submitting maps through the city’s website or in person at City Hall and the downtown library until Tuesday, Nov. 9. Newly submitted maps will be taken into consideration during the next Advisory Redistricting Committee meeting. 

Visit redwoodcity.org/departments/city-clerk/redistricting-process to learn more about Redwood City’s redistricting process and to submit a map of your own. 

sierra@smdailyjournal.com

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