SUPERVISORS DISCUSS EARLY STAGES OF REDISTRICTING
Every 10 years, counties around California go through the process of redistricting based on census data, however, the process comes later than usual this year due to the census release being put on hold in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During it’s Oct. 12 meeting, the Butte County Board of Supervisors discussed early options for the county’s new district map.
Paul Mitchell, an outside consultant with Redistricting Partners, helped guide the discussion with use of submitted maps that will ultimately be adjusted into a new draft and presented to the board during a November meeting.
“It’s intended to be an interim process so we can make changes as we go through this,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said the options consisted of three different maps based on input from residents. The plans were labeled Plan A, B and C.
The presented maps attempted to reconcile with all of the changes in populations from various fires and therefore looked dramatically different than what has been the norm in Butte County.
Chair and Supervisor Bill Connelly did not favor any of the three maps because his district would be cut shorter than in previous years.
“I’m definitely not giving up Lake Oroville if I can,” Connelly said. “Feather Falls, Berry Creek, Clipper Mills, Forbestown, all of them should stay in my district because I have access to them. Nobody else will. They’ll either have to drive out of their district or at least drive all the way down to Oroville to get there.”
Supervisor Debra Lucero, whose district takes up a large portion of Chico, noted that in her attempts to draw maps, it didn’t seem as though it was possible to draw the new map without three, possibly four, districts bleeding into Chico.
Mitchell explained that with the dramatic population drifts since the Camp Fire, it will be difficult to keep things close to the way they have been.
“I think there are big challenges in trying to apply too many of the structures
from the existing plan to this new plan given that major cutting of population in Paradise and an almost equal increase in population in Chico,” Mitchell said. “The architecture might have made sense in the prior structure just simply doesn’t work. There’s too much gravitational force coming in towards Chico.”
One example of this is from Draft Plan A, labeled
“Morningstar.” This map shows a considerably larger District 5 that wraps around a smaller, more Chico-focused, District 3. District 5 would also push District 1, Oroville’s district, deeper into the southeast of the county. Meanwhile, District 2 would also shrink in footprint and District 4 would rise toward the northwest.
Supervisor Todd Kimmelshue at one point asked Mitchell if the county was in jeopardy of being in conflict with the Voter Rights Act depending on how the map adjustments play out.
“It would be impossible for you to be in jeopardy of the Federal Voter Rights
Act in the traditional sense of majority/minority districts,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell will be bringing new proposed maps back to the board at a later meeting.
An interactive map of the current districting can be found at www.buttecounty. net/boardofsupervisors.
The Butte County Board of Supervisors meets at 9 a.m. every second and third Tuesday of the month at its chambers located at 25 County Center Drive, Suite 205 in Oroville. Meetings are free and open to the public. Those who are not fully vaccinated are required to wear a mask while in the building.