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SLO County supervisors vote again on redistricting, lawsuit threatened

December 8, 2021

Richard Patten map

By KAREN VELIE

Amid threats of a lawsuit, on Tuesday the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors again voted 3-2 to make substantial changes to the supervisorial districts, with supervisors Bruce Gibson and Dawn Ortiz-Legg dissenting.

Of the 36 members of the public who made comments, 28 spoke in favor of adopting the “preferred” Patten map. Proponents of the Patten map said it corrects past gerrymandering by keeping most communities and cities whole.

An opponent of the Patten map, Charles Varni of Oceano, said the preferred map will dilute the influence of Latino voters in District 4 by 3.4%, which he claimed was illegal. Varni then touted plans to sue the county if the board adopts the Patten map.

In response to threats of a lawsuit, the trio of conservative supervisors said they believe the Patten map is legally defensible.

On the pro-Patten map side, several commenters accused supervisors Gibson and Ortiz-Legg of illegally attempting to consider party registrations in setting district boundaries.

Supervisor Ortiz-Legg again made a motion to have staff investigate party registrations in the proposed districts, arguing it is the only way to determine if the Patten map is partisan. The conservative supervisors rejected the motion, saying they are not supposed to consider party registrations while redistricting.

Redistricting, which occurs every ten years following the census, requires multiple approvals before changes are made. The issue will return to the Board of Supervisors at its meeting next Tuesday for final approval of the Patten map.


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Based on geopolitical demographics, it’s quite easy to gerrymander with out explicitly considering political affiliations. We all know which areas are left and right leaning.


3

Did Republicans file a lawsuit when Cal Poly was gerrymandered into the 5th District and San Bolshevik Obispo was cut into three pieces to spread extreme-Left Regressive influence into other districts in 2000 and 2010? No! Deal with it, the Patten Map complies with the state of California required parameters regulating re-districting. Elections have consequences, remember? Who was it that said that?


30

Next Tuesday approve the district map for the final time and move on to doing the the people’s business. There has been ample public imput and discussion and it’s obvious the majority supports the Patterson map.


If the Progressive/Socialist crybabies want file a suit, it proves that they don’t really care for the will of the people. It is, was, and will always be about the greed for power and control for them. They seek to demonize, and destroy with false accusations those who differ from them. Cowardly at best. They are deceitful, intolerant, dishonest, and mean-spirited. The late Adam Hill, Gibson, and Ortiz-Legg have always lacked integrity and character as politicians. That wouldn’t change no matter what map was chosen. The past track record for all of them is very evident of that.


33

conservative map – lefty map … who cares … neither side controls gov’t overspending.


20

So true, especially regarding exorbitant salaries of middle and upper management.


27

Bingo


10

There are a number of ways to evaluate the objectivity of this map issue: 1) The staff report, which was delivered at the initial public meeting, confirmed that the existing map satisfied the required parameters and no changes were required by law. 2) The Board of Supervisors agreed to move forward anyway and entertain a number of proposals that were legally consistent with maintaining balance in population and communities of interest. 3) The Supervisors voted to accept the map prepared by a volunteer citizen, which in one district, merges northern coastal communities that are water needy for growth with northern inland communities that have water they are not using. 4) All communities of interest have not changed but some communities of interest may now involve more than one supervisorial district. In at least one community of interest (Santa Margarita Area Advisory Council), submitting a letter of recommendation to the appropriate Supervisor could become an issue, depending which of the three supervisorial districts overlay are within the sphere of influence this elected body represents.


There are always consequences with change, some intended, some unintended. My personal concern with this redistricting is that a better read was not available for public viewing prior to a public vote. Now we are at the year’s end, the holiday’s are here and I am haunted with the history of deadline governance repeating itself.


Feliz Navidad


4

They aren’t elected by the public. They run a private election. They do have a specified area of representation, but “sphere of influence” isn’t the correct term. SOI is a term used by LAFCO to define future growth area of cities.


The adopted map reduces the ridiculous gerrymandering of SLO that occurred in 2000. Good comments otherwise.


14

No and yes.


0