District Elections - Keeping Communities Intact

Yesterday we looked at the 5 proposed district maps in terms of the communities of interest. Today we’ll look at them in terms of the maps, using the data from the previous analysis.

KEEPING COMMUNITIES INTACT

The demographers who create the districts tell us that communities of interest should be kept together. But there is an argument that a community of interest may wish to split itself up into two districts. Kept intact, a community of interest if it is large enough (e.g., FHR, Lake 2) can have a major influence in selecting a representative. Split in half, that community can have influence with two representatives, although the influence is diluted. Take, for example, Lake 2. As a "community of interest" with some 9,000+ people, when kept intact it can represent more than 50% of a district. When split, with 4,000 to 5,000 people, it is still a meaningful number, but then composes less than 1/3 of a district.

Regardless of the numbers, I conducted several polls, one at an HOA meeting and three online at Lake Forest Town Square. In all cases, the majority of people asked that their community be kept intact.

MAP #109

• The only map to keep Lake 1 intact.
• Along with Map #110, keeps “the lakes” intact
• Along with #110 and #128 kept the Creekside homes intact

MAP #110

• Along with #109 and #128 kept the Creekside homes intact
• Along with Map #109, keeps “the lakes” intact
• Along with Maps #115, #116, and #128 keeps "the woods" intact

MAP #115

• The only map to keep Foothill Ranch intact.
• Along with Maps #110, #116, and #128 keeps "the woods" intact

MAP #116

• Along with Maps #115, #110, and #128 keeps "the woods" intact

MAP #128

• The only map to keep all 4 mobile home parks in the same district
• Along with #109 and #110 kept the Creekside homes intact
• Along with Maps #115, #110, and #116 keeps "the woods" intact

Maps #109, #110 and #128 did the best job in keeping communities intact. Of the 8 communities identified, these maps managed to keep 3 of them intact. Maps #115 kept 2 communities intact and #116 kept only 1 community intact.

MOSTLY INTACT

Some of the maps split a community of interest by only a little bit. If you add those to the existing list we get another view. (Note - For these purposes, 75% or more is considered "mostly intact")

MAP #109

• The only map to keep Lake 1 intact.
• The only map to keep “the lakes” intact
• Along with #110 kept the Creekside homes intact
• Kept FHR nearly intact
• Kept Lake 2 mostly intact
• Kept mobile home parks mostly intact
• Kept most of “the woods” intact

MAP #110

• Along with #109 and #128 kept the Creekside homes intact
• Along with #115, #116, and #128 kept "the woods" intact
• Kept FHR mostly intact
• Kept Lake 2 mostly intact
• Kept mobile home parks mostly intact
• Kept most of “the woods” intact

MAP #115

• The only map to keep Foothill Ranch intact.
• Along with #110, #116, and #128 kept the woods" intact
• Kept mobile home parks mostly intact
• Kept Lake 2 mostly intact

MAP #116

• Along with #110, #115, and #116 kept the woods" intact
• Kept FHR nearly intact
• Kept mobile home parks mostly intact

MAP #128

• The only map to keep all 4 mobile home parks in the same district
• Along with #109 and #110 kept the Creekside homes intact
• Along with #110, #115, and #116 kept the woods" intact

SUMMARY

The analysis based on whether the maps kept communities intact or mostly intact are interesting.

• Map #109 does the best job of keeping communities of interest intact , whether wholly (Lake 1, “the Lakes”, Creekside) or mostly (FHR, Lake 2, mobile parks, “the woods”, "the lakes"). In fact, Map #109 split no community in half.
• Map #110 comes in right behind #109. It kept 3 communities intact ("the woods", "the lakes", Creekside) and 3 communities mostly intact (mobile homes, Lake 2, FHR). The only community of interest split was Lake 1 HOA.
• Map #116 did the worst job. It kept only 1 community of interest intact ("the woods") and kept only 2 communities mostly intact (mobile parks, FHR).
• Map #128 performed well in keeping 3 communities intact (Mobile Homes, "the woods", Creekside), but seriously split up all the rest of the communities, sometimes splitting them into 3 different districts (Lake 1, Lake 2). Map #128 was the only map to split communities of interest into 3 different districts.

ONE PERSON VS. COMMUNITIES

It’s more than interesting that the analysis for conforming to the “one person one vote” mandate provides very similar results as looking at "communities of interest". The map that has the best alignment (#109) breaks up the fewest communities. The map with the second best alignment (#110) breaks up the next fewest communities.

Next time we'll look at "compactness" of the maps.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. 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 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 mini town meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be on Dec 2 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.