Districting debate continues

MALDEF criticizes district composition as more maps put up for consideration

The Lodi City Council held a public hearing to discuss draft voting maps and election sequencing during its meeting Wednesday. During the meeting, new concerns were raised by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund over whether the city was doing enough to address their concerns.

It was the fourth of five public hearings in the city’s process of transitioning to by- district elections. The city made the decision to switch to a by-district election system after receiving a letter from MALDEF claiming that the current at-large system violated the California Voting Rights Act by diluting the Latino vote. The letter threatened litigation if the city did not change its election system.

City Attorney Janice Magdich informed the council of a letter they received from MALDEF which claimed that none of the four focus maps included a majority Latino citizen voting age population district. MALDEF wanted one district to have at least a 50 percent Latino citizen voting age population — a criteria none of the maps currently under consideration meet.

“Failure to include a majority Latino citizen voting age population district may expose Lodi to liability under section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act,” MALDEF staff attorney Tanya Pellegrini said during the public comment portion of the meeting.

MALDEF also submitted a map they thought the city should use, which included a district with a majority Latino citizen voting age population of 51 percent.

“I’m not a fan of having someone outside of the City of Lodi, which does not know our community nor the communities of interest, provide any maps that I would be interested in even looking at” Councilwoman JoAnne Mounce said.

The council also reviewed Map 119, which was previously submitted for review, but tabled for further revisions.

According to Magdich, Map 119 has two districts that include the Downtown area and two that include the Eastside.

Map 119 has a population deviation (the difference between the district with the highest population and the district with the smallest population) of 1.55 percent. To meet requirements, the deviation must be below 10 percent — but 5 percent is the preference, Magdich said. In Map 119, district 4 located on the Eastside, had the highest Latino citizen voting age population of 49 percent. With Map 119, Mounce would be in a district on her own while Council members Alan Nakanishi, Doug Kuehne, Bob Johnson and Mark Chandler would be in the same district.

Magdich informed the

council that during a Tuesday night workshop, at least 12 new maps were drawn based on the four maps chosen at the previous public hearing. The new maps will be posted Friday on

and will be reviewed during Tuesday’s special meeting at 7 a.m. in Carnegie Forum. The four focus maps chosen at the previous public hearing include Map 105, Map 108, Map 117 and Map 118.

Kuehne reiterated the council’s distaste for the whole situation.

“None of us I think are in favor of districting. It has been forced upon us. It’s a lesson in irritation for the most part but we have to do it,” he said. Mayor Nakanishi agreed. “None of us wanted this it

was forced upon us because of a suit. It’s not good for Lodi,” Nakanishi said.

Several members of the public spoke during the public hearing portion of the meeting.

Lodi resident Arlene Farley said after studying the four focus maps, the only choice she saw that made sense was Map 108. She said that Map108 didn’t appear to shred any neighborhoods or exhibit blatant gerrymandering. She was concerned that Maps 117 and 118, which were submitted by the National Demographic Corporation, the demography company hired to assist the city in the transition, made it so that three of the council members who live in the same neighborhood would not have to run against each

other.

Lodi City Council candidate Spencer Rhodes expressed frustration with having to split the city into districts. He said that Maps 117 and 118 had no part in the city because they were created by outsiders, had districts that were not contiguous and ensured that council members living in the same neighborhood would not have to run against each other.

Tony Amador, a resident of Lodi who is Latino, said he wasn’t in favor of the city being forced to switch to a district election system, referring to it as the Balkanization of Lodi. Amador said he was embarrassed and sorry that city was in this situation.

Another Latino Lodi resident,

Chris Gutierrez, told the council he was disappointed with the turnout at Tuesday’s workshop. He said he drew a map consisting of the number “1” with a circle around it because every council member represents the whole entire city.

He suggested that MALDEF focus more on educating the Latino community instead of forcing cities to switch their election systems.

Gutierrez said he was disappointed that the city didn’t fight MALDEF, but understood that it would have cost the city a lot of money. He said that the transition process has already cost the city a lot of time money and resources that could be devoted to other issues the city is facing.