At 5:40 PM, and with the sun setting over the twin ports, over 50 Long Beach residents stood anxiously in line outside City Hall chambers as a steady stream trotted down the long mall to join their neighbors.
Residents of all walks of life had assembled. Some on canes, others in cargo shorts or spiffy business attire. Even local clergy were on hand. Two hours later we would learned that while the residents had joined in one place their opinions and interests varied - if not conflicted - on how to divide the figurative pie in what has been a nearly year long redistricting process.
At 5:46, the doors opened and residents walked in while a smiling Long Beach Police Officer merrily greeted them. Many toted graphic signs or enlarged maps glued to black foam boards.
By 6:19, the meeting scheduled for 6pm finally began. Notably, more than a quorum of redistricting commissioners were present, with the overflow sitting where City staff usually sit during City Council meetings.
Things kicked off with a presentation from the consultant hired to work alongside redistricting commissioners. He explained that the importance of this meeting was that it would result in “the draft map presented to the City.” That fact had a lot to do with the outstanding turnout at City Hall chambers.
With a PowerPoint clicker in hand, the commission’s consultant didn’t shy away from the more controversial redistricting lines that many residents had skipped dinner to leave 2-minute public testimony regarding.
One hot-button issue was the new lines proposed for District 6. The consultant matter of factly stated that the map he seemed to prefer was “drawn to preserve the Cambodian community and fully captures the historic African American community.” While not universally held, there were members of the Cambodian community who shared the consultant’s view.
However, more than a dozen Black residents in attendance couldn’t have agreed less. Dr. Lydia Hollie was among them. She lodged that Central Long Beach had been “sliced and diced” in the drawing. She lamented that the proposed lines would effectively “obliterate the Black electorate.” One sixth district resident described the new lines this way,
“Snoop Dogg said ‘we putting Long Beach on the map’ but this redistricting map is crazy.”
Jeremiah closed his comments by asking the commission to “get it together.”
While 6th District residents turned to homegrown rap artists for inspiration, North Long Beach residents from the City’s 9th District closed one or two public comments with a memorable rhyme pattern of their own. The poem read:
Don’t mess with District 9
We are just fine
As long as South Street
Is our Southern District line
One 9th District resident stood hovering over the microphone to remind commissioners that “some of their maps would cut the village and culture we’ve worked so hard in building.” Dan Pressburg, too, knows a lot about the decades of effort that went into forging the present neighborhood culture among North Long Beach neighborhood groups like his in DeForrest Park. After years of service in the 9th District, Pressburg had a pocket park named in his honor. Ironically, unless something changes, his home and the recently dedicated “Pressburg Parkway” could be drawn out of District 9 and join the 8th District. A district currently represented by a council member who took every opportunity to block the small park being renamed to honor Pressburg’s life time of community service.
Parks and Library’s were chief among the talking points for 9th District residents. Several 9th District residents were outraged that the state-of-the-art library, that Jordan High School Student’s participated in naming the "Michelle Obama Library", would be stripped from the District responsible for its erection. Effectively, the students who named the library would be educated in one district while the only branch library that serves them would sit in another. Pressburg, frankly charged the drawing as “gerrymandering” and “redlining”.
Notably absent was Vice Mayor Rex Richardson. A usual vocal advocate for 9th District residents, unlike other past and current council members who rallied behind their constituents at recent redistricting meetings, the Vice Mayor had a scheduling conflict. Although he has raised a record amount of campaign dollars for his unopposed reelection campaign for the 9th District, he scheduled a competing fundraising event for last night. Redistricting meetings are schedule weeks if not months in advance. Aside from the Uptown Commons development, the Michelle Obama Library is one of Richardson's single greatest achievements while in office.
Similarly, Blacks in the 6th District remarked how historic assets such as Poly High School, Memorial Hospital, and Long Beach City College would be lost in exchange for uniting the Cambodian community into a single voting block. Local Black business owner and millennial investor Senay Kenfe successfully circulated a social media post raising this Black concern.
Some commissioners seemed to want more evidence supporting that the grounds for redrawing District 6 were in fact substantiated by the real number of Cambodian residents. Commissioner Jackson asked that greater “respect” be shown for other Asian minority groups such as Pacific Islanders, Koreans, and Vietnamese.
She pressed that Commissioners had never been given sufficient data to assure that lines were being drawn based on actual numbers that did not lump all Asian communities into an artificial voting block. The Deputy City Manager responded that he was “working” on the numbers but “they don’t yet have them”.
This is the Commission’s tenth month and the Cambodian voter issue was probably the overwhelming concern from day one. In part, because their redistricting had been one of Mayor Garcia’s promises to the once refugee community. A promise that helped him secure, if not camouflage, a multiple measure bid that included not only helping Cambodians but also increasing his and City Council member term limits.
In the field of equity, race wasn’t the only matter at stake. Equitable park space took the floor at public comment as well. One 9th District resident explained that the proposed lines would reduce her community from a flimsy .08 acres of park space down to .03 acres of park space. Even the “Long Beach Equity Map” presented by Westside Latino advocates, she said, would have this devastating impact on one of Long Beach’s most populous Latino Districts.
Still, the most organized group at last night’s redistricting meeting was a federation of predominantly Latino community members who assembled under a unified banner of Centro CHA. Many wore matching green gear and came armed with sizable signs that were raised high when their comrades stepped to the microphone. Each speaker heralded what they coined the “Equity Map”. There were more than a dozen of the colorful enlarged maps glued to black heavy foam boards.
Many of the group’s speakers were Spanish speaking and at times there were loud outbursts from the audience complaining that the City’s translation was inaccurate. At one point the initial translator struggled to interpret the word “population”. Audience members annoyingly aided him while others called for his swift removal and scolded the City for, yet again, short changing language access.
Later, a City Attorney came to a substitute translator to give him instructions on how to perform moving forward. The new translator was nearly flawless.
But Centro CHA’s message was so strong that the redistricting consultant scurried to their three rows full of local activists and politely urged them to explain how he could found their “Equity Map”. The organizers offered him one of the large foam boards and a matching 8 by 11 colored flyer.
Centro CHA’s salient points were that the maps would reduce Latino representation from two council members to one because the new lines for the 7th District - currently represented by Councilman Roberto Uranga - would make it hard for the district to elect a Latino representative. Former 7th District Councilmember, Tonia Uranga, called this potential outcome, “not redistricting by dissolution of the the Latino vote.”
One 1st district resident, Jerlene Tatum, explained that because her home sat in a “little swath” of the 1st District adjacent to an industrial area she is often neglected by her 1st District councilperson and tends to rely on her neighboring 7th District for services. Tatum sentimentally urged Commissioners to be careful not to create more swaths like her own that leave already vulnerable residents without sufficient representation.
The entire audience, however, was put on legal notice that Centro CHA supporters meant business when one speaker announced that they were prepared to “litigate any map that is adopted” that would prevent the election of a Latino elected official in current Districts 1 and 7.
According to the Commission’s outside attorney, The wrong map could trigger Constitutional grounds for a law suit.
Moments before the threat of litigation, redistricting commissioners phoned-in their outside counsel. The entire chambers briefly teleported to what felt like a law school lecture hall as the outside counsel attempted to explain Supreme Court precedent and case law in 10 minutes or less. A tough crowd, considering they’d skipped dinner and waited in line for an hour.
In summary, the attorney explained that of the three prong Supreme Court test, the most important is that “a minority group must be able to show that it is compact and large enough to be a majority” in a district of citizens based on voting age population. In Long Beach, he concluded, the only demographic that can meet the first criteria are Latinos.
Blacks and Asian populations he said, “would have to double in order to even come close to Latinos.”
Later the attorney remarked, “It is with the Latino community that we would be most concerned about” with regard to redistricting triggering a violation of the voting rights act.
According to the attorney the Supreme Court’s test requires “strong evidence that Latino voters are being blocked from electing a candidate of their choice.”
While Latino’s on the Westside threaten litigation, 4th District advocate Joe Mello asked what he called a “$275,000 question.” Mr. Mello quipped, “Why is it that the redistricting consultant refuses to draw a map that divides the airport between districts 4, 5, 7 and 8?” Mello reminded commissioners that they had, more than once, requested the drawing but that it had yet to be delivered. Mr. Mello suggested that the consultants $275,000 fee was unjustified were he not to follow the Commission’s instructions.
The prevailing sentiment last night can be summed up by a comment made by a senior resident of District 1. He proclaimed that the “whole Eastside was hardly changed but we were all chopped up.” Of course, public testimony left by Eastside residents regarding the air port and changes to the character of the third district don’t support that conclusion. But the spirit of the comment rings true in some regard. Without a doubt, based on the multitude of competing issues raised at this meeting by Westside and North Long Beach residents, it is clear that a great many more districts on those sides of town are unhappy with their slice of the pie.
The consultant said before wrapping up his presentation, “For minor changes there is room within the margin to draw changes to the map.” But the looming question is what changes urged at this meeting are too big to draw?
Author: Franklin I. Sims