L.A. City Council Set to Vote Friday on Redistricting Map

The Los Angeles City Council is scheduled to vote today on a proposed new map of the members' 15 district boundaries.

The proposed boundaries were recommended by the City Council's Redistricting Commission and would be in place until after the next census in 2020. The product of months of contentious public and private meetings, the map has raised the ire of some neighborhood councils while triggering a treat of a lawsuit by two City Council members livid over the results.

Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller recommended that the map be approved, but with 18 changes, including a move to keep all of Westchester in Councilman Bill Rosendahl's coastal district.

The Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee will take up the map during a morning session, today, followed by discussion by the full City Council at 10 a.m.

Miller's report leaves the fate of parts of Studio City, Toluca Lake, Stonehurst and an area north of Adams Boulevard between Normandie Avenue and the Harbor (110) Freeway unresolved.

The Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council and other Korean community organizations want Koreatown to be united in Councilman Eric Garcetti's 13th District. The Korean American community amassed hundreds of people to attend redistricting hearings in recent weeks to push for the changes.

But the commission placed most of Koreatown in Council President Herb Wesson's 10th District, and Korean American Coalition Executive Director Grace Yoo said her group will sue if changes are not made.

City Council members Bernard Parks and Jan Perry have appeared on radio shows in recent days to argue that the Redistricting Commission failed to heed public testimony and used race as a factor in moving boundary lines without proper study required under the Voting Rights Act.

Arguing that the commission's map is legally indefensible, Parks and Perry have submitted an alternate, and an attorney for the two sent a letter to the city threatening a lawsuit if the commission's map is approved as is.

Under the new map, Parks would lose the black neighborhoods of Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park to Wesson's district. Parks would also lose the University of Southern California to Perry, who would lose the lion's share of downtown and Little Tokyo to Councilman Jose Huizar.

"The head has been cut off from the body. For the last 70 years downtown Los Angeles has been connected to South Los Angeles, and as the representative of the area I've been able to leverage private investment with public funds to build two new grocery stores, 5,000 units of housing, bring in 90,000 new jobs," Perry told KTLK AM 1150 radio host Josefa Salinas on the eve of today's meeting.

"This relationship has been terminated by the redistricting commission under the leadership of Mr. Wesson."

Wesson declined to comment on the map, but spokesman Ed Johnson said the council president is backing a change that would move part of Baldwin Hills, which includes Parks' home, back into Parks' district from Wesson's. It would also give the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall back to Parks, refuting claims his district would be left without an economic engine.     If the map is approved, the city attorney will draft an ordinance to finalize the district boundaries before a June 1 deadline.

See the agenda and reports here.

— City News Service

Check Westwood-Century City Patch later for updates.