Redistricting Committee Selects New City Council Districts

It wasn't a consensus, but the Community Redistricting Advisory Committee approved a new map denoting the seven Watsonville City Council districts Wednesday night and will present it to the council on Sept. 13.

The map, dubbed "Plan 6B," keeps incumbent city councilors in their home districts and preserves the voting bloc of Bay Village, a senior community on the east side of town.

The seven-member committee approved the map 4-3, following two failed votes for maps 2 and 6.

The committee started meeting in April to come up with new City Council districts, a requirement because the 2010 U.S. Census figures documented growth in the city's population, and the council districts need to be approximately the same population size.

throughout the process relocated Mayor Daniel Dodge and City Councilman Oscar Rios, who live just a few blocks apart, into the same district.

The committee worked to make as few changes as possible to the district while preserving the seats of incumbent city councilors.

It got a little messy; the districts often were referred to having "hitchhiking thumbs" and "fingers."

“I would like to see clean, well-divided lines … but let’s face it, the city limits are very irregular,” Councilman Lowell Hurst said to the committee Wednesday evening, addressing the group as a Watsonville resident. He elaborated that the census tracks and the population density of the city also are oddly shaped. “Whether you like it or not, you’re going to have a jigsaw puzzle of some kind.”

Although the committee did select a map, the City Council has the liberty to scrap that recommendation and chose a different plan for the new districts. Nothing has been implemented based on the Wednesday night decision.