City Council Preview - April 17 (Part 2)

District elections are on the agenda for Tuesday night (Item 22). There are two major issues - what districts do we select and when do we implement the selections.

CHOOSING THE DISTRICTS

Drawing up districts was supposed to be based on some principles, the major one being “One Person One Vote”. Beyond that, we were supposed to create districts that maintained communities of interest in tact, and were as compact as possible. These principles were to guide us in the initial district creation, and in the future district creations, which might be re-done twice in the next four years.

Last year the Council approved 5 districts for the 2018 elections. I argued at the time that we needed to adopt a rationale for designing districts that would serve us in the future, but my pleas fell mostly on deaf ears. One Council member voted for plan 116b because it was a plan that disrupted communities of interest. Another Council member simply said “I like it” with no rationale, other than the fact that using map 116b meant he had no competition from existing Council members. The third voter offered no rationale at all. (Click Here for more info about the vote).

In this analysis I will look at Map 116b, chosen by Council members Hamilton, Voigts, and Robinson, and compare that map with the two maps that led the list of maps on the dimensions outlined above.

ONE PERSON ONE VOTE

“One person one vote” (OPOV) is the most important consideration in choosing a district map. It means that each district has approximately the same number of people in it.

Map #109 had a total of 110 deviations from a perfect OPOV schema. Map #110 had 145 total deviations. The map chosen by the previous Council was 116b. That map had 889 deviations, far worse than either 109 or 100, and among the worst in the entire list of 15 maps.

You can view all the maps by clicking here.

COMPACTNESS

Compactness refers to the extent to which a district is compact, measured by comparing it to a circle. The idea here is that the people live close to each other and so the area represented by the Council member is relatively homogeneous.

Here are the scores. Note that the higher the score, the more compact the districts.

Map 110 was the most compact (.50) followed by Map 116b (.47) and then Map 109 (.40).

COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST

Several polls were conducted and in all of them, people said that they wanted their communities of interest (COI) kept intact to the extent possible. I identified 8 COIs (e.g., Lake 1, Lake 2, “Creekside”, “Foothill Ranch”, mobile homes), and all together this involved nearly 40,000 people.

Here are the number of people in communities of interest displaced by the various maps –

1. Map 109 – 4,659
2. Map 110 – 5,388
3. Map 116b – 5,989

Map 109 displaced 4,659 people, the least of any of the schemas. Compared this to #110 (5,388) and 116b (5,989).

SUMMARY

Map #109 was the best in OPOV and in Communities of Interest. May #110 was the most compact, and was second best in OPOV and COI. Map #116 was second best in compactness but last in OPOV and COI.

Map 116b is obviously the map that achieved the worst record. It not only shows up poorly in terms of rank order, but the magnitude of the differences is large. In terms of OPOV, #116b has more than 8 times as many deviations as #109.

TIMING

We couldn't have picked a worse time to transition to district elections. Councilman Nick and I put the issue forward years ago, but we were outvoted at the time. Now we are moving to district elections just in front of the 2020 census, which will require re-districting in 2022, based on the 2020 census, since our current districts are based on the 2010 census, and we anticipate 10,000 to 15,000 more people.

Right now, for 2018 we have 5 districts, but we agreed to place on the ballot the voter's choice for how many districts they wanted. Let's suppose that people want more than 5 districts. Here's what could happen -

• 2018 - We according to the 5 districts
• 2018 - At the polls, the voters decide they want a different number of districts
• 2019 - We re-do the districts
• 2020 - We vote using a different set of districts
• 2020 - A new census is taken
• 2021 - We draw up different districts to accommodate the new people in the 2020 census
• 2022 - We vote on the new districts, which are different from the ones we voted on in 2020, which are different from the ones we voted on in 2018.

Some people will end up voting in 3 different districts, some in two different districts, and some will stay in the same district throughout. Either way it will be confusing. Depending on how we cut the cake, some people may even lose the chance to vote during this process.

Wow. I wish the Council had decided to transition to districts when Councilman Nick and I first suggested it, so we could have avoided this minefield.

One solution to the problem is to implement the changes voted on in 2018 in the 2022 election, thus avoiding the problem of the intermediate change in 2020. Another solution is to postpone the vote on how many districts we want until 2020, to take effect in 2022. The advantage of that solution is that people will have experience with districts and may be in a better position to decide whether they want more or less.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest where he serves as Mayor. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His Twitter handle is @DrJimGardner. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a town hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be May 17 at 7 pm at the Lake 1 Clubhouse (Ridge Route).