‘Textbook’ gerrymandering by CUSD trustees

Readers need more information about how Trustees of the Chico Unified School District ignored almost all public input and conducted shameless partisan gerrymandering last week. For more than two years the District, dutifully and in a professional manner, has been coming into compliance with the Federal Voting Rights Act by putting forward unbiased draft elections maps for five trustee areas, based on objective criteria such as topography, school boundaries, neighborhood diversity and socioeconomic data. At the outset of the project in March 2020, staff and consultants were told in no uncertain terms to ignore the addresses of incumbents when drawing potential maps — at the time such an approach seemed unsavory and short-sighted.

That all changed two weeks ago when staff released two new “Orange Maps” — nearly identical — that carve up

CUSD into five carefully-manicured areas based upon one principle factor: addresses of incumbents. To this trustee it seems that CUSD staff and the 4-1 liberal majority of Board members, at the 11th hour, became panicked that multiple incumbent trustees landed in the same district when they used the “objective” approach. The brand-new Orange Map fixes that problem and instead treats the District as a nice, cooked Thanksgiving turkey to be carved up and served back to the majority come November, when three of the five trustees are up for re-election.

The popular Blue Map was summarily drowned in the bathtub by the board majority last Wednesday in order to clear an easy path for the electioneered Orange map. Textbook gerrymandering.

— Matt Tennis, Chico