Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

Redistricting completed by county commission

Rick Monroe

Special to the Village News

It’s official. Fallbrook will remain in District 5 of the County of San Diego for the next 10 years. Last Thursday, Dec. 16, the Independent Redistricting Commission finalized its vote on the boundaries and plan.

Local residents and leaders who urged the area remain in District 5 were rewarded when the current plan prevailed instead of an alternative that would have placed the greater Fallbrook area in the East County district that stretched 75 miles to the south.

This was the first time that district boundaries were set by an independent commission. The 14 members completed their final public hearing and meeting on Dec. 15, right on the deadline to make the final approval and present the document to the state. During the year, the commission held 49 public meetings, at least one in each of the county’s five districts. They heard from more than a thousand people live at the hearings, virtually, or by email.

The five districts in the county will be for the County Board of Supervisors, as well as the County Board of Education and other county services. The districts are re-established every 10 years based on new U.S. Census data to ensure voting districts contain roughly the same number of people.

Commissioners considered 35 draft maps during the process and the final two weeks were spent fine-tuning the districts, with the snag being what district to place El Cajon in. The Catholic Chaldean community with an estimated 25,000 members in El Cajon, successfully lobbied to be in East County District 2. However, when nearby Rancho San Diego was left in District 4 with Spring Valley and east San Diego communities, the vocal Chaldeans were upset. They said the 25,000 members from Rancho San Diego were splitting their community and have threatened litigation.

Keeping Rancho San Diego in District 4 helped make that area a stronger voice for the Black community, said Commissioner Ramesses Surban.

“This is the best possible outcome,” he said. “I’m proud of what we accomplished.”

Commissioner Ken Inman noted that all municipalities, as well as most planning groups and fire districts, were not split.

“We’ve been flying this plane while we were building it,” said Vice Chair Rosette Garcia at the final meeting. “And now we're getting ready to land it.”

Garcia called on fellow commissioners with “eagle eyes” to bring anything else to discuss, which resulted in minor tweaks that commissioners said were insignificant but noted and corrected.

Commissioner John Russ said it was an excellent job by all.

Kristine Kruglyak reminded fellow commissioners of an earlier goal to write about “lessons learned” as a help for the next commission in 10 years. This was the first time there was an independent commission. In previous decades, Supervisors made the decisions.

Chair David Bame said the commission would meet again on Jan. 12 to develop a “lessons learned” report. At the conclusion of the meeting, Bame emotionally thanked his fellow commissioners, all volunteers.

“It was my humbling pleasure to be your chair,” he said. “It was even more important to be part of such a great team.”

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Here is are how the districts are now aligned:

District 1, currently represented by Supervisor Nora Vargas, is a majority Latino district, with 61.4% of the population and 58.2% of the voting age population identified as Latino. District 1 includes unincorporated areas and the cities of Imperial Beach, National City and Chula Vista.

District 2, currently represented by Supervisor Joel Anderson, is mainly an eastern district and includes unincorporated areas and the cities of El Cajon, Poway and Santee.

District 3, currently represented by Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, is mainly a coastal district stretching from Carlsbad to Coronado.

District 4, currently represented by Chair Nathan Fletcher, includes unincorporated areas around parts of the cities of San Diego, Lemon Grove and La Mesa.

District 5, currently represented by Supervisor Jim Desmond, is mainly a northern district and includes unincorporated areas and the cities of Escondido, Oceanside, San Marcos and Vista, as well as Camp Pendleton, Fallbrook, Bonsall, Rainbow, De Luz and east to Imperial County. It includes all the Tribal lands.

District 2 and District 5 are the largest geographic districts.

The redistricting commission’s final maps and reports are available on the county’s redistricting web page, https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/redistricting/.

 

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