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that's right

Phil Bacerra

Recording in progress.

Okay, Mayor, we are live now.

Good afternoon, everybody. Let me go ahead and call this meeting to order and welcome you all here to our special meeting of the Santa Ana City Council for March 7, 2022. Let me go ahead and just make some opening remarks before we get started. The meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and teleconference via Zoom and the public can access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel and the city's website. And as always, please bear with us as our technology may fail and interrupt the meeting while we're going through it. Tonight, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to the clerk, so she'll call roll.

Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Present.

Councilmember Lopez?

Jessie Lopez

Here.

Councilmember Mendoza?

Thank you. Councilmember Peñalosa?

Present.

Thank you. Councilmember Fan? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Becerra? Here. Mayor Sarmiento?

Here. I'm going to ask Mayor Pro Tem if he'll lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance this evening. Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil Bacerra

If everybody would stand.

Phil Bacerra

Place your right hand over your heart and begin.

David Penaloza

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. So this brings us to the public comment section of the meeting, and we'll hear those that are in person first, and then as usual we'll go ahead and transition to members of the public that wish to address the council that are online or with us virtually. And just to remind everybody if you'll please for the record just state your name and if you live in the city Please let us know we don't need to know a specific address Obviously just let us know whose ward you reside in and with that Let me go ahead and begin with the only speaker card that I have here for tonight in person is mr. Carl Benninger

Boarding is Red Wing Jersey. I love it. Thank you mayor and council last one say mister was from the IRS but we'll move on with that.

I appreciate the time. I appreciate all the effort that you're having. And I'm really here to support two maps, and that's map F and K. If you look at these maps, it was mentioned about lack of the effects on different neighborhood associations. And thanks with the help of Daisy, we're able to get the maps overimposed. And if you really look at it, those are the two maps that affect the neighborhoods the least. It keeps neighborhoods together, not just the north side, south side, but all through the city, whereas the other maps tend to break up the neighborhoods. And so I'm really here for supporting those two.

And I really like map F because in the end, it makes the distribution plurality through the city. Each five wards the same with the extra ward that is Asian plurality, which we wanted. it also very importantly does not leave any ward unrepresented and that's to me is significant you look at what's going on with the county you look at what's going on in other cities and they're blowing it because they're having their people not represented for a while and I don't want to see that in Santa Ana and though there were some to try to say it's meandering it's really not it's

common sense on it and so it what it does it doesn't put any of the council people against each other, leaving some ward not represented for a while. So I hope tonight that we end up reducing it to the two maps, F and K. Thank you.

Thank you, Carl. I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to the clerk so she can call on members of the public that are with us online.

Thank you, Mayor. Zoom ID, or I'm sorry, numbers with the last three, phone numbers 309, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Thank you, you may proceed with your comment.

This is Jeffrey Katz, Ward 3. In a process which is often hijacked by political agenda, I'm just imploring the council to use intellectual honesty. And I'm concerned, some have not, and I will focus again on council member Hernandez's comments from the February 1st meeting. I hope he can hear me. Although what I'm about to tell you, Jonathan, may go in one ear and out the other. I say this for the disenfranchised residents of our city that you have snubbed. You said, quote, when we talk about uplifting voices, don't exclude the black community.

And you have found that most maps were horrible because they were excluding the black community and black voices, justice impacted communities. And what you're doing when you do that is you are accentuating white supremacy, close quote. Look, the black community absolutely deserves a voice. And I'll tell you what I'm doing in my neighborhood if you'll call me. But the context of redistricting, I don't know what you're talking about. The black population is 0.9% of Santa Ana. The U.S. Supreme Court opinion, Thornburg v. Jingles, Justice Brennan wrote,

as to the first element that must be satisfied is that the minority group must be able to demonstrate that it is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single member district. So let's do the math in Santa Ana. 154,000 voters in Santa Ana, divide that by six to get six equal districts of 25,725, divide that by two to figure out a majority, which is 12,862. So if you put the black voting population of the entire Santa Ana, 2,383, into one district, you would still be 10,000 people short of a majority, meaning there is no way to draw a map that gives the black community a majority.

So when you self-righteously reject maps because they exclude the black community, Jonathan, you are grandstanding. You are talking for the sake of talking, but you are doing absolutely nothing. And my experience with you is that's exactly your MO. In December, an Asian-American and I approached you about helping us with a basketball clinic for Hispanic kids at risk. You dropped the ball and never called us. An indigenous family begged you to tour the Santa Ana Arts Collective and you ignored it. Your grandstand.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently released a poll which found that voters think that the Democratic Party is preachy, judgmental, and caught up in culture wars. Jonathan, you have become exhibit A for preachy, judgmental, and caught up in culture wars. You went on to say at the hearing, quote, there's a lot of discomfort in truth. Unfortunately, that's my job to speak the truth. Well, thank goodness we have a 30-year-old freshman council member to teach us all the truth. Jonathan, your comments do not uplift our great city. They are extremely divisive. And while I defend the right to leave the chamber

for the Pledge of Allegiance, you were the last person who should be forsaking a pledge of loyalty to the idea that we are to be one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. As Tupac wrapped, it takes skill to be real, time to heal each other.

Thank you, your time is up.

Okay, Council Member Hernandez, now you can make some noise.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, if you don't mind, let me just remind members of the public that are going to be addressing this council, if they could please keep it to the comments on the subject matter that are before us, and if they could address the council members as council members with their last name.

Informality is good, but this is an agendized formal meeting, and if we could just preserve the decorum.

And I did fail to mention that we did also receive written communications. Just want to report that out before going to our next virtual speaker. And that is we received one comment on map 115467. That does not split neighborhoods. But there is a 10% deviation, over a 10% deviation. And then 12 Santa Ana residents in support of maps provided by Santa Ana Redistricting Coalition, eight in opposition to map F, and one in opposition to map K.

And with that, caller with the Zoom ID, Martha Hernandez.

Persona con el nombre in Zoom, Martha Hernandez.

Zoom ID, Biff Baker, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Yes, thank you very much. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak on this subject. my name is biff baker i'm a member of oco the orange county congregations community organization and uh for 30 years a parishioner at episcopal church of the messiah in downtown santa anna i would like to join the others here who support the maps of the coalition sarc1 and sarc2 to To summarize, these maps are compact with high continuity, low variance, and respect scrupulously the city's communities of interest, especially low-income communities.

They were developed with community input and have continued to use community input for important modifications that appear in the most recently proposed versions, and especially as regards the black community in Little Texas, the Little Texas neighborhood. The support that the coalition maps have received from a cavalcade of organizations in these meetings show clearly that they are the people's maps inspired by a passion for justice and the common good. The other maps under consideration violate communities of interest, especially the environmental impact corridor on the city's east.

One of them even includes the Delhi neighborhood with the city's south. Notice, note that the coalition is proposing two maps. One of them unifies the south center of the city. The other makes different choices, but both are fair, thoughtful, carefully crafted by a coalition that truly represents the city. I urge your strong support for these maps. Thank you.

Thank you.

Zoom ID, Araceli Robles, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Si, buenas tardes. Mi nombre es Araceli Robles y vivo aquí en la ciudad de Santana por 21 años. Estoy llamando para apoyar que ustedes tomen la mejor decisión y apoyen el mapa de la coalición. Este mapa lo trabajamos conjunto con la comunidad and we know what we need in these moments. Ahorita we are still in pandemic, we don't know until this will happen. And I know that these maps will be for the next 10 years. So I ask you to take into consideration all the resources that we need in this time for us and for our families.

So I ask you to support the map of the coalition. Thank you and have a good night.

Good evening. My name is I've been living in Santa Ana for over 21 years and I'm calling to support that you make the best decision and to choose the coalition map. We have worked together with the community and we know what the community needs, what we need, and we We are asking you to have this, the map. I know that the maps are going to be relevant for 10 years, so we need to consider this, consider the resources that we will need.

And I'm asking you to support the coalition map. Thank you and good evening.

Zoom ID Fatima Paquet, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

src1 y src2 porque miramos que son los mapas que no rompe los linderos de nuestros vecindarios buscamos mejorar nuestra ciudad para tener el mejor acceso a oportunidades de nuestras comunidades y que percan el pertar pertenezcamos juntas queremos que tomen las mejores decisiones apropiadas para los residentes de nuestra ciudad y no solo por intereses personales tenemos que pensar en el futuro de nuestros hijos ya que los mapas de estas que tomen la decisión ahora serán utilizados por 10 años y todo queremos que en un futuro los concejales que nos vayan a representar

sean equitativamente a la población de santana que escuchen la voz de todas las personas que vivimos en esta ciudad sin importar la situación económica la situación política migratoria o cultural, sino que trabajemos en pro de nuestras ciudades de nuestros hijos. Muchas gracias.

Good evening. I'm Mayor, City Council, members of Santa Ana. My name is Fatima Paque. I'm a volunteer with OCO, and I belong to the church of St. Joseph Church. I live around Washington and Santiago and I'm here to support the coalition map we have been listening to the community and we recommend maps SARC 1 and SARC 2 because these maps do not break up our neighborhoods and we want what's best for our community and for our cities and to have the best opportunities for our cities and to build the community and this is we're asking you to make the

best decision for the city and for the people and for the people in the city and this will be for the better for the future for our kids because these maps will be around for 10 years and we want our future council members to represent us equitably for the entire Santa Ana population and to listen to the voice of all of the community of Santa Ana and not just focus on personal gain but not not on politics, but listen to ourselves because this is for the betterment of our kids.

Zoom ID, Ana Charco, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. You may proceed with your call.

Awesome, thank you. Good evening Mayor Sarmiento and City Council members. My name is Ana Charco and I'm here on behalf of Latino Health Access with the Santana and a redistricting coalition. The submission of both maps represent the culmination and collective efforts of six months of engagement with the community. Therefore our proposed map represent the best interest of the community. Also we center on the life experience and needs of low income communities of color and working families. We did acknowledge the community input of Santana residents living in the Southern and Northern part of the city.

As a result, we created a Southern district in SIRC 1A. SRC 1A keeps the same Southern and Northern communities Plan F maintains. SRC 1A maintains Sandpoint, Fair Public Homes, Metro Classic, Thornton Park and South Coast as Plan F does. However, we do so in a way that it does not sacrifices or divide other communities of interest. Therefore, we urge you to not consider Map F and K and adopt SRC 1A, a community led map, which upholds the voices of residents living in the West, East, South and North Saisal, Santa Ana. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Caller with the last three numbers, 477, if you would please dial star six or the microphone icon on your device, you may proceed with your comment.

Yeah, good evening, Mayor and City Council. This is Dale Helbig, Ward 3. First and foremost, I wanna wish my thoughts and prayers to the people of Ukraine. Hope it's settled soon. SRC one divides up six neighborhoods, Valley Adams, Bella Vista, Santa Anita, Lyon, and downtown area. 1A does six divisions of neighborhoods as well. SRC two divides up Midway, Bella Vista, Pico Lowell, Santa Anita, Lyon, and Sullivan. I don't know where people are from these neighborhoods, or I should say why they're not calling in

and objecting to their neighborhoods being divided. But I find it sad that we come up with maps that have five to six neighborhoods being split up. People want to say we want to keep Sullivan together, but yet SRC2 splits it up in half. So what I've proposed is a map 115467. It doesn't split up any neighborhoods. and looking at the fair maps act, it doesn't say that it has to be a 10% threshold. And so my map or this map,

one, one, five, four, six, seven, has a deviation of 12.97, which is within the reasonable numbers that I think redistricting partners has told us is acceptable. So, you know, to me, I think it's important not to split up any neighborhoods, whether they're in downtown area or north or south, east or west, it doesn't matter. Keep the neighborhoods intact, adopt a map that doesn't split them up. This map provides the Asian plurality. In fact, it's a full percentage point higher than SRC one or two.

It has a 1.7% increase in the area. population for the Asians. So it meets all the criteria, except this artificial 10% criteria that we've put in place. And so we can avoid that. And let's adopt a map that's suitable for everybody. Thank you.

Thank you.

Zoom ID, Daisy Cruz, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

can you hear me yes we can hear you thank you good evening mayor and city council my name is daisy cruz and i'm calling on behalf of the kennedy commission for the redistricting maps we urge you to consider and adopt one of the proposed maps by the santa ana redistricting coalition the coalition created these maps in collaboration with community members to identify the needs and demands of the most vulnerable communities of interest and santana residents it keeps important communities together the sullivan community environmental justice corridor it upholds the

electoral power of low-income monolingual communities it considers demands and input of the community it's been a six-month effort and outreach to community members as well we believe that the proposed maps by the coalition accurately represent these communities interests AND NEEDS SO WE URGE YOU TO ADOPT ONE OF THEIR PROPOSED MACS. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. ZOOM ID. KAREN ALVARADO, IF YOU WOULD PLEASE SELECT THE MICROPHONE ICON ON YOUR DEVICE.

YES. GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND HONORABLE COUNCIL MEMBERS AND STAFF. MY NAME IS KAREN ALVARADO. I AM LEAD ORGANIZER WITH OCO, ORANGE COUNTY CONGREGATION COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION. And I want to start off by just thanking you all for the opportunity to engage in this redistricting process, more specifically on hosting these special meetings in the last few weeks. Once more, I'm here urging you all to support the Santana Redistricting Coalition maps. And for you to take a closer look into our revised versions, SARC 1A and SARC 2A, the

revisions that are reflected in these maps are a result of additional ongoing community engagement and in the last months you have heard from folks from various regions of the city come together to share why they support the coalition maps the voices you have heard have been very diverse and represent the work that the coalition has done in what has been a process of over half a year of of engaging hard to reach communities. I just also wanna highlight that maps F and K do crack very of the communities of interest that we have laid out and prioritized into our maps, such as the Willoway community, Santa Anita,

Little Texas, Madison Park, the mobile home parks, and the environmental justice corridor on the east side of the city. Also wanna reiterate that it puts the Delhi community with the South Coast Metro District, which are completely different COI. So again, I just wanna make sure that folks understand that the coalition is providing two maps for your consideration. You know, SARC 1A does respect the community of the South Coast Metro area, and it keeps them together, but it also centers other communities of interest. It is not just the homeowners associations

that make up our maps. As a matter of fact, right, we really do center the lived experiences of the vast majority of the population of the city, which are renters, housing impacted communities, and folks living below the poverty line. So we respectfully urge you to please consider supporting SARC 1A or SARC 2A for your consideration in advancing in this process. Thank you so much. God bless.

Thank you.

Zoom ID Patricia DeSantos, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hello, good evening, everyone.

I wanna address the Santa Ana Mayor and all the city council members. My name again is Patricia DeSantos and I live in the South Coast Metro neighborhood. I've lived here for 10 years, which is relatively short for a lot of people. and recently the neighbors and I worked together to organize reorganize the traffic in our neighborhood that was causing a severe threat to the life and safety of the students of the nearby school and the residents in the neighborhood we were successful because we were able to quickly dialogue with our city council member and the departments necessary to make meaningful change

I am very passionate that the current redistricting allow our southern neighborhoods along the the MacArthur Corridor to become one ward. To this end, Map F or Map K keeps our Southern neighborhoods together. This will allow us to work together along the MacArthur Corridor to make meaningful change to the numerous problems we have in our area, problems that are specific to our area. In working on the redistricting issue with my neighbors, I personally spoke with the leadership of many neighborhood associations. I spoke directly with Sue Grassi of Thornton Park neighborhood.

She expressed to me that her over 800 homes and over 2,000 residents are in favor of MAPF, as they are in agreement that the southern neighborhood should stay in one ward. Furthermore, I had the pleasure of speaking directly with Tammy Frias of the South Point neighborhood. Tammy who is recovering from COVID passionately relayed through her labored breath and coughs she and her over 800 households and over 2,000 residents also wish to consolidate with the southern neighborhoods into one ward and are in support of MAPF. Tammy also informed me that as a

long-time resident and involved in the leadership of South Point she would call Mayor Sarmiento directly to speak to him about the redistricting and map F. But unfortunately, to my knowledge, Mayor Sarmiento did not return Tammy's call. I also spoke to Judy Bryant of the Sunwood neighborhood. Judy is a PhD and also very passionate about the redistricting, allowing the southern neighborhoods to consolidate. Judy relayed to me that she and her over 400 households and over 1,000 residents wish to belong to one same ward. Judy and her neighborhood are in support of Map F.

As part of the South Coast Metro neighborhood, I am personally aware from speaking with many of the residents in our neighborhood that it consists of-15 seconds left. To become part of one ward. And South Coast Metro consists of over 1,200 homes and over 300 residents. I'm sure that all of you have taken positions on the city council because you love Santa Ana, you want to help Santa Ana. Here in the Southern area, we are not just interested in-Thank you, your time is up. Thank you.

with the name of marta hernández and zoom you can continue with your comment

yes good evening as a secretary of the council of the city my name is angel sánchez i support the map proposed by the co-location distribution of districts of santaana because respect to the the communities of interest in Santa Ana. Fielmente y defienden las comunidades. Esto es por el apoyo del mapa de la comunidad. SAC. Dave.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Angel Sanchez, and I support the maps that were created by the Santa Ana Redistricting Coalition because they respect the communities of interest in Santa Ana and they support the community. So I'm supporting the SARC map. Thank you.

Thank you. Zoom ID, Hilda Ortiz, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Can you hear me? Yes, we could hear you now. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. my name is yla and i'm calling on behalf of latino health access lha is a proud partner in the santana redistricting coalition which submitted maps that center around the lived experiences and needs of low-income communities of color and working families in santana the maps proposed by the coalition acknowledge and take into account the communities of interest that the community has brought forward these maps were developed with community input over the course of nearly half and emphasize the lived experiences of these communities of interest.

The proposed district maps represent minority interest while being compact and adhering to the necessary guidelines. On the other hand, the submitted plan F and K uphold the interests and demands of affluent families in the Southern and Northern South Anna neighborhoods. Both plans divide the Sullivan community. They divide environmental justice corridor east of main street, and they place the Del High community with the South Coast Metro area. diluting the voting power of low-income residents. The coalition submitted a map SARC 1A, which maintains a Southern district without sacrificing other neighborhoods

and communities of interest like Plan F and K do. The effects of the map that is adopted will be felt by our city's residents for the next 10 years. In order to uphold the city's value of equity and make certain that residents that have been suffering the consequences of political disinvestment are truly representing, we urge you to not consider plan FNK and to instead consider one of the two maps proposed by the Santana redistricting coalition. Thank you. Thank you.

Zoom ID, Kayla Asato, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hello, can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can hear you.

Awesome. My name is Kayla Asato and I wanted to address the honorable council members and mayor. My name is Kayla Asato and I'm a former Ward 3 resident with Orange County Environmental Justice, a proud part of the Senate and Redistricting Coalition. And I wanted to say that I appreciate the engagement and mobilization of the affluent folks in the South Coast Metro area. Like it takes a lot of work to mobilize your neighbors and community. and we've been doing a lot of that work with the most marginalized and ignored communities in the city with the Santa Ana redistricting coalition. We've looked at data, got input from community,

drawn and redrawn maps to best uplift communities that have been ignored and deeply impacted by many of these issues throughout the city. And while we may not have mobilized around traffic and walking kids to school, we have addressed issues with communities around soil lead, environmental toxins so severe that they impact learning and cause developmental issues.

We've worked with mobile home residents. We've worked with the Sullivan community, gotten input from Little Texas. And we believe that the SARC maps 1A and 2A really reflect a lot of the community testimony that we have been mobilizing around. While we understand the importance of our South Coast metro area and their voices, we looking at a lot of the data, they just don't face a lot of the same issues as the rest of the city.

And when we utilize maps like map F and map K to tear apart the city and tear apart a lot of our neighbor, and communities of color and low income neighborhoods. To me, it just really makes me wonder what kind of values we have as a council. We really should be uplifting the voices of those who are most impacted by a lot of these issues, by a lot of the communities that are hard to reach and not just cater to communities that have some of the cleanest air

and cleanest soil throughout the entire city. So all that to say, you've heard me speak many times in support of maps 1A and 2A. I will give time back to many of the other residents who are engaging in this process. Thank you.

Thank you.

Zoom ID Irene, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device?

Okay, good afternoon. Good afternoon, honorable Mayor and members of the Council. It's a pleasure to welcome you again. My name is Irene Bautista and I'm the leader of the community in OCO and the Episcopal del Mesías. Nuevamente me presento ante ustedes para pedirles que por favor sigan apoyando a los mapas SARC1 y SARC2. Estos mapas son cruciales para la representación justa de los residentes del parque de casas móviles de la ciudad, como una de las pocas opciones de vivienda asequible que quedan en Santana. Los parques de casas móviles brindan un servicio

indispensable para las familias de bajos ingresos de la ciudad. Para apoyar a estas communities and guarantee that they satisfy their needs

disculpe oh my god disculpe

I personally have worked very close with risk up well awake in the justice of the living the map of the coalition are the only ones that mantienen a la comunidad de huelo beca entera y los ponen dentro del mismo distrito con otros parques movibles me preocupa mucho que el mapa f quiebre a mi comunidad para unir a la comunidad del norte que comparta intereses a la a la nuestra el mapa f quitaría el poder elegir un candidato que representa los intereses de nuestra comunidad ya que estaría dividida les pido por favor nos escuchen la coalición es el único grupo que se ha tomado el tiempo de pedir nuestro aporte los

mapas de la coalición son los que consideran al pueblo muchas gracias por su atención y que dios los bendiga gracias

good evening honorable mayor and members of the city council and i am here my name is erina bautista a member of aoko and belong to the church of the messiah and i'm here to ask you to support MAPS SARC1 and SARC2. These are crucial to keep the community's interest together and to help the mobile home parks because they're one of the few opportunities to provide low-income housing and the services that we need for our low-income people. These fulfill the needs that we have as that community. I've worked together with RiseUp and Willowick

and this coalition keeps together, the coalition maps keep together these communities as well as other mobile home parks. And Map F breaks up the community and Map F does not allow us to elect the candidate of our choice to represent us. So please listen to us, and the coalition is the only organization that has taken the time to listen to our voices, to listen to the people. So thank you for listening, and God bless you.

Zoom ID Michael Nguyen, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hello?

Hi, you may proceed with your comment.

Yeah, my name is Michael Nguyen. I am a resident of Kodakai Moho Hong Park in Wao One. I support the map SAC1 and SAC1 and 2, submitted by the Santana Redistrict Coalition. The maps are crucial to represent to us the city mobile home park residents.

As one of the few remain affordable housing options, mobile home park provides an extension also service to the city low income family low income public in the in in order to support the community and ensure the housing needs are met the void of mobile home park household must be heard and priority mobile home park at the house of many

I am not, I can speak English, I don't care about whether or not Latino, Caucasian, whatever, but some older generation, the generation and the Asian here, they must support them because they cannot speak many languages, they don't understand English or whatever. So given the the history of the context of Little Saigon and the Asian here. Protect the senior who found the community, the entrument to worship the Asian culture in China. Please adopt the map to step forward in that reason. Thank you, the mayor. Thank you, the KC and the city council.

Gracias, amigo. Gracias, amiga.

Thank you so much.

Zoom ID Veronica Garcia, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Zoom ID Veronica Garcia, thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

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strick strick strick strick strick strick strick strick strick strick strick And strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman strickman mayor and city council members. My name is Veronica Garcia and I am here this district so we are here

to support and propose the map by the Santa Ana redistricting coalition because it respects my community and fulfills the needs of our community. I am against map F because it does not reflect the needs of the community. So I'm asking for map F and K, thank you.

Zoom ID says on Medina, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hello, see, me escuchan?

See, by the . Yeah.

A, buenas tardes, honorable member of the Consejo de, the Concilio de Santana. Un saludo al alcalde, Vicente Sarmiento, un amigo nuestro en especial. Los saludo a César Medina de Zuliego en Acción. Y nosotros respondamos por el esfuerzo que han hecho otras organizaciones por tratar de llevar adelante o de reflejar la voluntad de los sectores, de los distritos, de los barrios. We support the SAR C1, SAR C2, because we want a unit of mobile homes. We are divided by the street.

So we want to be in action, to be united with the leadership of a single concept. This sector is very low, very low income. But we also need to be in many things. is that the limpieza graffiti is also who has not been able to do the sector and for that reason because it reflects our responsibility to be directed by a single council we ask that we respect and we ask that we have done to ensure that we have done that we have done in action thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

thank you thank you

thank you

Good evening, honorable city council members. Hello to Mayor Sarmiento, our friend Sarmiento. This is your friend Cesar Medina from Sullivan in Action. And I'm here to thank you for all the effort that you've put into listening to the will of the neighborhoods. and I'm here to ask you to support SARC1 and SARC2 because these unites all the mobile home parks that we are divided by a street. And we want, this helps many people, many low-income people with many different needs, and this keeps us together.

We want to be represented by a single city council member, and this reflects the needs of the people to ensure this. So we are again from Sullivan in action and thank you mayor and city council members and good evening.

Zoom ID Vincent, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device and proceed with your comment.

All right, good evening council members. My name is Vincent. I'm the communication coordinator for VRIs. I'm calling in to support MAPS SRC1, SRC two proposed by the St. Annarie district and coalition. So these maps have been developed with community input for over the course of half a year and emphasize the lived experiences of communities of interest such as low-income people of color working families and people living in mobile home parks. These two maps allow for greater representation and empowerment for the AAPI community especially Vietnamese communities that have been historically marginalized in

in the city, they also keep Willowick community with Santa Ana neighborhoods, such as Sullivan neighborhood together, and also integrates, keeps integrity of mobile parks, especially the ones on first street and Fairview street together, but also the various mobile parks currently on Harvard Boulevard. And it also keeps the environmental justice interests together and maintains compact districts that maximize the representation of vulnerable and house burdened communities.

The West Side of Santa Ana is kind of seen as this origin place of Little Saigon. And a lot of Vietnamese seniors moved to, or have been residents of West Santa Ana for decades. And they're able to continue staying in the Little Saigon area and have access to their doctors, their lawyers, the grocery stores, all in Vietnamese because of the affordability of West Santa Ana. And it's integral to keep these communities together. And the various mobile home park residents I've talked to like Valley High, Conak High, Lake Forest, they want to be together

and they see the SCRC one, SCRC two actually does a job in uplifting their voices, but also helps other communities living living in the Sullivan community, living in the Del High community. So it's crucial that we take a very holistic approach to uplift communities that, you know, it traditionally have never had representation in the city council to put them at the forefront of this engagement redistributing. So please, I implore you all to pass either SARC one or SARC two, thank you.

Thank you. Mayor, that was the last caller.

Great. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Let me go ahead and just bring it back now here for the only item on our business calendar, which is to take additional public testimony on the draft maps and get some council consideration. I know we have the consultant on the line as well. I know we have a fairly lengthy PowerPoint presentation that he has queued up, but I I believe this is the eighth meeting in this discussion, so I'm not sure if anybody wants to see anything. If they do, we can maybe reference it by slide or something, but I think we've gone over it quite a few times. So I'll go ahead and, with everybody's heads nodding,

I think it probably is a good idea just to go straight to discussion, and I'll go ahead and bring it back to the council and see if there's any questions or comments. And I'll just begin by thanking all the members of the public who called in and who were present as well and who've been following this closely. I just want to say I'm sure there's, as with anything that's come before us, there isn't always unanimity and there isn't always the same way of thinking, but I think all of us want to get to at least some common ground. So I want to make sure that we all respect each other's opinions. I think they're all valid.

I haven't heard one single comment that was really outside the scope of what we're trying to do, which is figure out a good set of boundaries for the six wards. So with that, I'll go ahead and bring it back and see if there's any additional comments and questions. Councilmember Mendoza.

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. As our mayor has mentioned, we have had this discussion over several meetings and have listened to many opinions and many points of view. I have given serious consideration to every public testimony before us, as well as to the residents who have come before me and spoken to me throughout the city. After taking all of this into consideration and giving careful thought, MapF is still the best fit for the city. Many residents have strong feelings about how they feel about what the ward maps should look like.

Map F divides the least number of neighborhoods, and our neighborhood association system is the backbone of our city. While Map K is not a bad option, my preference is still with Map F. It is very clear, as we heard tonight and by the extensive emails that I've received and my colleagues have received, that many of our residents feel the same way, that MapF is the best map for our city. For the above reasons, I will make a motion to support MapF and approve it tonight.

and that we not continue this anymore because we've had enough information, we've had enough testimony, and thus I make my motion that we approve MAPF tonight.

I'll second with comment. Great. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. I'll go ahead and turn it over to Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, first, I too want to thank everybody that came out and spoke tonight, those that came here to the chambers and those who called in online. I appreciate everybody that not only has submitted comments, but has also gone so far as to actually draw maps and submit them because we know that can take some time. So thank you for that.

Phil BacerraItem 1

For those that have been following the process, I have been consistent in supporting MAP-F. And the reasons I do that, or I have been doing that, is because MAP-F meets legal requirements and it addresses what many on this dais have expressed as important to them. and as a representative democracy, what has been important to each of us has been reflective of what we've heard from our constituents in the community. So I'll just real quickly run through a couple of the items. Creates a ward with Asian plurality, and MAPF and K actually both have the highest Asian plurality. We have

Phil BacerraItem 1

the neighborhoods on the north end of town that are united together. It unites the neighborhoods on the south end of town together, it keeps the Sullivan neighborhood together, and it keeps the Delahy neighborhood intact. Now, as much as I've expressed my support for Map F, I look at Map K and I think, wow, it amazingly, it accomplishes all the things that Map F does, and it's even simpler. I mean, to me, I think it would be even easier for somebody to be able to tell somebody what ward they're in versus having to, for some of these other maps where they just kind of cut down side streets and alleys. So I do applaud the

Phil BacerraItem 1

author, whoever put together Map K, because I think that they did an amazing job in creating a simple map. I am still tethered to Map F because I do believe that with all the criteria that we've talked about, it meets that. Again, I see Map K as being able to do that as well, but I will keep with Map F. The proponents of SARC maps have claimed that they represent the community, but yet they've submitted maps that separate communities. And so that's, I have to admit, kind of frustrating for me, but at the same time, again, it doesn't dissuade me from continuing to support Map F. As Councilmember Mendoza put out there,

Phil BacerraItem 1

we've already gone through so many meetings. We're in our eighth meeting today, and other cities around us have already approved their maps. Anaheim and a couple of others, I think it would be absolutely embarrassing and just for us to go all this way, to do all this work and go through all these meetings, and then to just simply abdicate our authority to a judge. So I'm hopeful and optimistic that we can come to a compromise, but I will be supporting Council Member Mendoza's motion to adopt MAPF. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. And I think Council Member Hernandez has his hand up as well. Go ahead, council member.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I was just having my hand up for the for the sake of commenting. I'll go ahead and wait for the vote. And should there be an opportunity for us to have more dialogue, I will wait then.

Yeah, I think he I think he decided just to go ahead and wait until. Councilmember Van.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thank you. And thank you to everyone who's been emailing, petitioning, calling, showing up to meetings, joining on Zoom. We've had a lot. And I'm actually exposed to a lot of redistricting meetings. And I would say in Santa Ana, we've had probably some of the most robust conversation around this process. So I'm really thankful that we have an engaged community. We're as engaged as we can be, right? We're never going to get 100% of folks, in fact, in government or in anything else. So you're not going to even get 50% of folks often. And that's something we're constantly trying to work on.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And so with that, I guess I just have comments, really. One thing I do want to note is I do appreciate that all of the maps do have an Asian plurality district. That is, I believe, very important to me, to the community, as well as to the fact that we settled a lawsuit on that issue. So I do appreciate that. But one of the things is I also recognize that all of the maps before us tonight, which is just FK, SARC 1 and 2, I guess only two of them keep Sullivan and Little Texas together.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

However, I do understand SARC 1A and SARC 2A do achieve that. I am still struggling, unfortunately, you know, with these because we've had residents kind of speak on all of these different maps. But I guess the one thing or a couple things I want to address are, you know, one is when we're talking about dividing up neighborhoods. That is going to happen given that we have so many and because we, the way the numbers work. And actually to turn it over to Madam City Attorney, we had a caller who mentioned, well,

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

the 10% threshold is arbitrary or why do we have to comply with that? And from my understanding, that is based on Supreme Court case law or case law in general that says, you know, kind of anything above 10% is suspicious. Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct. It's the 10% deviation for equal population. is it's not in the Fair Maps Act, but it comes from federal case law.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Right, and the Fair Maps Act does say we have to comply with the U.S. Constitution, the California Constitution, as the Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. Therefore, we have to also comply with cases that interpret, you know, those laws and documents. So I did want to mention that because, unfortunately, in some areas, splitting up neighborhoods is necessary to comply with that provision of the Fair Maps Act and a case law. The second thing I do want to address is there have been a lot of commentary about, well, for example, the environmental justice corridor and I've really been looking into this issue and there are a couple

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

things that I want to say which is one, you know, you do have more industry I guess on the east end, but you also have a lot on the southwest side, which is kind of where I live. There's a lot of offices and whatnot, but when you look at for example soil lead concentrations, most of it is not in, for example, just the southeast side. It's a lot of it actually in central Santa Ana and northern Santa Ana. And then when you look at the maps for example environmental background analysis for the general plan update, and you see the environmental

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

justice census neighborhoods it really has an interesting 90-degree bend all through central Santa Ana and then to the east side and a little bit on the west so there's no way to put all of those areas together into one ward or district additionally when I think about you know splitting up districts and communities are they going to be serviced will they still get access to their council member, are they going to have someone who will listen to them? And I think of Santa Anita. And I know, for example, the Santa Anita is actually

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

split between Ward 5 and Ward 1. And often, and none of us are perfect, but often when working with the Neighborhood Association, sometimes they'll work with Jonathan, sometimes they'll work with me, sometimes they'll work with both of us. And I think that that is actually one particular benefit sometimes when there is a split, because now you have access to two council members who are otherwise, you know, have to be responsive to you. Not that you can reach out to everybody, but you do have that access. So I do want to make that comment because, you know, even if we're gone, the future council members,

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

that's their job to be responsive to the neighborhoods. And I don't think that, quote, splitting up their neighborhood means that they can't vote for someone that will be responsive to them. With that, to just conclude, I am definitely, you know, interested in all these maps. I do think that K meets a lot of the provisions for, you know, all the Fair Maps Act provisions as well as the compactness. I think much of it, especially Central Santa Ana, is very compact. And it does have, again, provisions for, well, I think it has a number of wards that does cover the environmental justice issues.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I am also, I also do think that SARC 1A, which is not a draft map, but I think we're able to elevate it because it has been published for at least seven days, also meets those requirements. But currently, I do lean for map A because the numbers for the Asian plurality is better. And as we know, over the next 10 years, when it's so close, it really could be adjusted. And these are all estimated population numbers. So with that, I'll leave it to my next colleague. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Councilmember Fan. Let me call on Councilmember Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. So, you know, I'm one of the council members that didn't come into this process being tied to one map. I really wanted to make sure that I was hearing from different people from around the city. And I have, and I'm really thankful for those folks that have reached out and have had a conversation with me. you know one of the things that we heard from the council members from from a lot of us up here was the importance of achieving the highest Asian plurality that we could have of making sure that

Jessie LopezItem 1

we had a map that protected North Santa Ana and created a new south looking district that had a low deviation that protected you know some of the communities that we heard early on from in this process and you know it's one of the reasons why I supported several maps you know throughout this entire process map J being one of them and so when you know when this council made sure to kind of not support that map that would achieve those things I wasn't really sure what we were doing here anymore and

Jessie LopezItem 1

you know I agree with mr. Helvig's comment in regards to you know where are the other voices that that belong and that reside here in the city and we're talking about you know separating their communities and this is the eighth public hearing but I think I also agree with countermember fan that there are maps here that I am interested in seeing I'm not ready to pick one map tonight and I won't be supporting your motion countermember Mendoza and you know with map everybody knows that I'm a big proponent of supporting and maintaining

Jessie LopezItem 1

our historical districts together and I heard from one of our historic resources commissioner today and she you know let me know the map F was separating I believe it's Henninger Park and so I will not be supporting map F on those grounds I think that there will that they will be upset to know that you know there's probably an effort to support a historic community here in the city of Santa Ana and I also had a question regarding the deviation but thank you for answering that city city attorney and you know because this is the eighth public hearing I also want to thank the public for coming along this process

Jessie LopezItem 1

with many of us I think for all of us it's the first time that we do this well it is for me anyway and so it's been a learning process and again there you You know, right now I'm looking at Santa Ana Redistricting Coalition Map 2. I am also looking at other maps, but again, not ready to commit to one map tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lopez. Council Member Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I definitely am supportive of Plans F and K. after listening to Councilmember Fan speak, which I appreciate your comments, Councilmember Fan, I do agree that the compactness is something that could be more beneficial to the larger majority of the city. And in regards to, you know, not every neighborhood is going to be, I mean, there's always going to be a couple, one or two neighborhoods are going to be, you know, split into two wards. And at the end of the day, that's not necessarily a terrible thing,

David PenalozaItem 1

because I think back to 2018, then candidate Penaloza went to a neighborhood meeting on the west end of town back when the west end was split into three wards. Not that that's ideal, because we want to make sure we have an Asian plurality, but it was regarding the vice situation going on on Harbor and Hazard. And at the time, that west end of the city was represented by three council members. And I remember going to this meeting as a resident just to inform myself and learn what was happening. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, the mayor at the time showed up to the meeting as well.

David PenalozaItem 1

So they had a full quorum at this community meeting, and they had to stop it halfway through because of obvious quorum issues. They were answering questions. and it was just so interesting to see the work that was able to be accomplished when you had that many representatives answering to a specific neighborhood regarding an issue that not many of us in the city face. So I also want to point out the fact that we did redraw the district boundaries. I mean, I wasn't part of that process, but back in 2018, because of the CVRA lawsuit

David PenalozaItem 1

that we had, we had a disenfranchised community. The Asian community was disenfranchised in our city historically for decades, even though they make up a large part of our population. So that was able to be accomplished via a lawsuit, unfortunately, it took, and we were able to come up with an Asian plurality award. and F and K have a larger plurality than SARC 1 and SARC 2. So I'd be supportive of moving forward with F and K. Obviously, we can't pick two, but I would feel comfortable supporting the motion for F at this time.

David PenalozaItem 1

And I also just want to remind people that our city is 75-plus percent Hispanic. Hispanic. And when I hear comments saying that we're trying to break apart the communities of color in the city, comments like that just don't make sense to me. Because again, we are 75% plus Hispanic. So I don't know what you mean by that, but it's unfortunate that you have to pull the race cards and call people South of Warner affluent. I mean, I've spoken to hundreds of families South of Warner, and I can guarantee you that

David PenalozaItem 1

they are working class residents that are not affluent at all and are just struggling and living paycheck to paycheck, just like most of us in the city. So comments like that are not appreciated because you're painting a picture of something that's not a reality. So with that said, those are my comments, Mayor Sarmiento. I'm supportive of, I think, what the most achievable of just hearing from everybody we could achieve with F and K. Those are my comments. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Madam Clerk, is Paul on the line?

Yes, he is.

Paul, can you hear us?

Yes, I can. It's good having you with us again. Listen, I just had a couple of quick questions for you because I know you and I have been down this road before. So usually when it gets to this point, there usually isn't one map that kind of survives from beginning to end, there's usually this moment where there's some, you know, some drafting or some changes along the perimeter of boundaries and some shifting of some numbers. And that's normally the way I've seen these redistricting processes, you know, happen. Because, again, there isn't a perfect

map. I don't think there ever was, is, or will be. I think there's always a process in order to get to that compromise where you try to achieve everything that you possibly can, but knowing there are limitations. I think there are good, compelling arguments that could be made for any one of these maps or any one of the maps that may have not been, may not still be with us. But I did have a question. Do we take into account any of these areas with respect to voter propensity, which is different than voter registration, right? So do you do you log any of that information?

Yeah, well, that generally is more the domain of the polarized voting analysis, like a racially polarized voting analysis that could be done that would look at, say, the effectiveness of a community and being able to impact the outcome of an election, either under the CBRA context, which is the kind of conversation we were having the last time we did this in 2018, 2019, or in a federal Voting Rights Act context, if we were looking at this under kind of a section two of the Federal Voting Rights Act. So those are things that can be done. It's rare for it to happen directly on top of the actual redistricting process because it makes

the process seem maybe too political to be talking about voters and turnout and propensity and so on. But it definitely is something that would fall under an analysis. And as an example, the reason that the claim was successful in encouraging you to convert your districts at the last process we did under the California Voting Rights Act was analysis that the plaintiffs put forward to suggest that the Asian community would have the ability to elect a candidate of choice if you created a new district on that Western side that had

that Asian plurality and that I think bore fruit in the last election. But that kind of analysis is generally something that's more lengthy and is done through a process of analyzing election vote history, past prior performance of candidates and so on.

Got it. I know when, you know, when we were an at large, before we went to a district, you know, by district election system, I know there used to be clusters of the city that would dominate the election cycle and you would just, it was common knowledge that you would kind of market and do most of your walking in certain parts of the city because that's where the highest voter propensity was. So I know we've moved away from that and it's gotten a little bit better, but there's still are gaps where there's much, much lower propensity in some of our areas in the city.

And to me, I think that, yeah, I think it was mentioned about sort of the racial makeup of the city. To me, it's more the socioeconomic differences that we have and whether, you know, there are differences in people living in multifamily households versus single family and making sure that, you know, both of those interests are heard and considered. For me, you know, I guess I'm the one person up here that's probably going to be unaffected by whatever boundary lines are drawn. So I'm pretty objective and neutral. I just want to see something that's

going to be fair. Again, I don't think that there is an ideal map out there. You know, there is, though, the process, and I think that's what we're doing, is going through the process of trying to see how we can come to some agreement, and I guess if we can't, you know, it'll have to move to a, you know, another, you know, element of our government, which would be the judiciary to go ahead and do this. But, you know, for me, what I've seen, and I've lived under three sets of maps now, maybe two or three sets of maps. I think when I came on prior to 2010, there was a set of maps,

and then post-2010, a second set, and then in 18, you know, a third. So I don't think the city was ever ungovernable that way. And I'll give you an example. Right now we're going through a really tough time in the downtown, and there are merchants that have, you know, a certain need that needs to be addressed, and they have two council members representing them, and it's a very, very sensitive subject. It's because it's going through construction right now and there's some, you know, there's some difficulty with respect to accessing, you know, just the area. And so I've been really, really

pleased with the two council members that represent the downtown and being able to make some very strong vocal, you know, advocacy on behalf of those merchants and residents that live in the area. So I think it can be done. We'd rather not have things split as much as we can. But, you know, Just, I guess, the final thing I would say is, one thing that we don't want to do is look at maps and say, let's keep people in their districts so they're not in the same district. I kind of want to applaud the school district because they made a very difficult decision in developing their maps.

They put three members of their board in one district, which is difficult, but they realized that the lines were drawn in a way that made sense and sort of uplifted the priorities that they had, but that is a very tough place and tough place to put those members of that board because you have some members that have been serving on that school district for years. So I certainly applaud their willingness to just be, and the purity of their process, to go ahead and just look at what priorities they saw as a school board and a school district. Finally, the one thing I would say is just on the southeast end of town, I think Councilmember

Fan is right. There's other areas that have these environmental justice questions, but one thing I don't want us to forget is that southeast area has a couple of layers now of issues, because before there was this groundwater contaminant called SA, I think it was called SABIC, and so it's a plume that's in the groundwater that meanders from Irvine, and it meanders sort of, you know, north, northwest, and it goes into the Delhi neighborhood and goes, you know, a little bit further. That's one impact, but the other one is now this PFAS, this compound that is coming down from the watershed.

So it's coming from the, I guess, from our east into the area and it's moving west. And it's taken out, I believe, seven or eight of our wells already. So we do certainly know that there is this environmental impact in addition to the lead contaminants that we have along this corridor. So those are things that we certainly need to address during our general plan discussion and further. and how we can remediate that problem. But there certainly does exist in our city these levels of particulates and contaminants, both groundwater, in the soil and in the air. So yeah, I will not be supportive of the map F

because it hasn't really been, I think in my opinion, it stayed sort of the same and static and that's not really the process. At least what I've seen in the past is, you know, where we have some disagreement on maps, we all kind of realize where are the adjustments that we can make. And, you know, that one is a little more drastic than I'd prefer to see. I think that, you know, what we had in 2018 is fairly close to what we're, you know, what we're trying to grapple with here. And so I'm, you know, still sort of, you know, willing to go ahead and

see what we can do to come up with a compromise on something that, you know, not everybody will get, not everybody will think is completely fair, but that's what a compromise is all about. And that's what this process is all about. So let me call on Councilmember Fan once again.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for those comments.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

So in listening to everybody speak and what they're interested in, I still do believe that when looking at actually Map K, not Map F, but Map K, it has, I think, only three neighborhoods that are actually divided up.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

So to me that to me it has a kind of everything what people are looking for it does have The south end the north and it keeps Sullivan together Little Texas together the largest Asian plurality district of the maps that we have and as soon the environmental justice areas I guess I'm not sure about Some of the groundwater contamination that you had mentioned but again those types of EJ areas are kind of spread throughout the city. So to me, it seems like it would be more if a citywide issue

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Than only just that corridor. And so with that I would like to make a sub motion to adopt map K. Thank you

Thank You councilmember is there a second for that substitute motion? I'll second the motion just

David PenalozaItem 1

because I do want to take into consideration Henninger Park, which, you know, it was somewhat split in Map F, and Map K fixes that. So I'd be seconding that motion.

Great. So we have a motion and a second for the substitute motion to adopt Map K. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council for any additional discussion. I pro tem.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate some of the comments that my colleagues have made. I think that, you know, one comment that I heard from folks I called in that I forgot to address and I wanted to address, and that is the idea of the neighborhood associations and whether those boundaries reflect the neighborhoods. And yes, I think that shared interests, shared life experiences and commonalities are very important. The one thing that the neighborhood associations did was kind to formalize those in certain areas. And I think that now neighborhood

Phil BacerraItem 1

associations do not encompass 100% of the city, but I would say that, you know, the work and the organization that the folks that are involved with those associations put in, I definitely reflect, you know, the input, the value of those areas. And I want to apologize to the person from Hinegar Park who had emailed us earlier today, she is absolutely correct that Map F does split Henegar Park. And, you know, I look at Map K and, again, as much as I've really been supportive of Map F, Map K, I mean, you can explain this to somebody. You don't even have to show them the map. You can tell them where they're

Phil BacerraItem 1

at. I really like the simplicity of this map. That's really what appeals to me, that compactness. In regards to what Santa Ana Unified did, the mayor's absolutely right. I mean, talk about a tough decision, especially going to wards. The one thing that Santa Ana Unified did, though, which was very similar to what the Rancho Community College District did many years ago, was that they had incumbent trustees that practically lived within walking distance of each other up on the northern side of town. And so I think the blessing that we have here today is

Phil BacerraItem 1

that there is a way to draw a map without targeting incumbents, because we do live far enough apart. And originally when the wards were created, even though we weren't electing members by ward, it was meant to create geographic diversity, not to have everybody north of 17th or south of Warner. And that previous system did that. And we've now evolved into the by ward system. So I, again, as much as I've been supportive of MAP-F, I really could get behind MAP-K for all the reasons I stated. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from the council? Madam Clerk, is Council Member Hernandez, is he good?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Yes, I'm ready to vote.

All right. Why don't we go ahead and take up the substitute motion, which is to support and adopt MAP-K.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Madam City Clerk, my vote is no.

Jessie LopezItem 1

All right, I have a clarifying question. Who seconded the motion?

Oh, okay.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Sorry. I thought it was, yeah.

How are we doing back there?

If I can have you just announce your votes. Councilmember Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

No.

Councilmember Lopez? No. Councilmember Mendoza? Yes. Councilmember Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem 1

Yes.

Councilmember Fan?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Yes.

Mayor Potem Becerra?

Phil BacerraItem 1

Yes.

And Mayor Sarmiento?

Phil BacerraItem 1

No.

Okay. So motion does not pass. We need a supermajority in order for it to be an adoptive.

We have an underlying motion on the floor as well.

Yes.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Madam City Clerk, what was the count?

I have four, three. So I have Council Members Hernandez, Lopez, and Mayor Sarmiento dissenting. and I have council members Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Potembe, Sarah voting yes. So it's four three.

Great. Why don't we go ahead and go to the underlying motion that was to adopt map F.

How's our devices working? Should we do a voice vote on this?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I'm not able to vote on my device for some reason. The application is not working, Madam City Clerk. So I will vote and let you know that my vote is no.

Okay, thank you.

I'm going to give you guys a 10-second roll. I can't get in 10 seconds.

Just kidding. Is it going?

No.

I do. Please.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Control-Alt-Delete.

Usually my device that's an option.

Yeah, I'm not sure why it's not displaying. Turn it back off and on. Yeah. Go ahead and do a voice. Yeah, motion did not pass. I captured. Sorry.

I, um, and this is from motion KF.

I have Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, and Mayor Sarmiento voting no. Councilmembers Mendoza, Fan, and Mayor Pro Tempocero voting yes. And...

David PenalozaItem 1

Daisy, what are you talking about? We haven't voted.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Oh, we did.

We just did. And actually, I was just going to announce, Councilmember Pineloz, I did not capture your vote. Yeah.

Okay, so now I have Council Members Hernandez, Lopez, and Mayor Sarmiento voting no. Council Members Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, and Mayor Potem Becerra voting yes. Motion does not pass, as we need a supermajority.

Got it. So, you know, I think the question was asked of Sonia Carvario, our city attorney and now Madam Deputy City Attorney. Sort of the same question, you know, again, I think we know the answer to this to the extent that this council can't come to some agreement because our charter requires us to have five votes to adopt a map. and we know we have a statutory deadline on the 17th of April, which is fast approaching. So in the event that we can't come to some agreement, that would be turned over to the court. Is that the way your understanding is?

Right. So the Fair Maps Act says that if the council does not adopt council district boundaries by the deadline in the Fair Maps Act, the council shall immediately petition the Superior Court. for an order adopting council district boundaries. And then if we do not, a member of the public could.

Got it. So all I was going to say is that, Madam Clerk, if you can work with our demographer and our consultant, who's done this for many cities, many counties, and worked with us many times, you know, maybe there's a way that he can help, you know, gather some of the maps that, you know, some of us have supported. He's heard, you know, tonight some additional discussion on a couple of maps, but just to see how we can maybe, you know, he can look at blending some and maybe look at giving us some options. Obviously, you know, there seems to be some,

you know, difference of opinion on what, you know, we'd like to see in some of our maps. So, you know, hopefully that's his role as well. And Paul, I guess I'm speaking to you, you know, and just saying, you know, give us a hand. And, you know, I know you've probably had this scenario come to you in other jurisdictions. So here, maybe you can let us know where you think we might be able to make some headway. And you're certainly a neutral arbiter. You're objective and you've done this before. We now rely on your expertise to maybe give us some options as well.

And maybe that's what we've done in the past is we're presented with options. I know that the city manager, the city attorney have done that for us and some of our agenda items that we've had some difficulty coming up with. But maybe they, you know, maybe Paul and his team can come up with some options as well in addition to the maps that are before us. But that would be my suggestion unless there's anything else. But...

Jessie LopezItem 1

I do have a suggestion and a question. Because I did hear, I believe, four of us say that we're not going to be supporting MAPF based on one of the historical areas of the city being divided. So we don't have to see that come back for the next round. But one of the questions that I had was, in this point in time, can community members submit a new map for consideration?

Is that a question for the clerk?

Yes. Still absolutely. Okay. Thank you, Daisy. And the council could uplift any one of them. Okay. Got it. Thanks.

Great. Thank you. that's a good question and I think that was in the spirit of coming up with

some additional alternatives. If I may, Paul did you need anything from the council to give you a little bit more direction clarification as far as what you're looking at to maybe redesign any one of the maps? Yeah I mean we definitely

can and do do draft maps generally our draft maps are at the beginning of the process to kind of start the conversation and then we do look at the agency or in the case of a commission the commission members for suggestions about changes to plans or maybe to build off of a plan that that the council or the commission likes as a starting point so if there's anything that can be contributed from the council members to say that they maybe want to start with one of the plans and one of the things maybe they want to fix in that plan in order to get them to be able to

support it I think that kind of information would be most helpful without that we might feel a little rudderless as to how to make changes and what plan to kind of start with right now if you're not going to bring back those two plans you just voted on to the next council meeting you would have the the SARC 1, SARC 1A, SARC 2 and SARC 2A, both be eligible right now. And we would be happy to take one of the plans that you just voted on, make some changes to those if there are recommendations or make changes to the SARC plans if there are recommendations.

But maybe at least giving us a starting point and a direction would be helpful. Because what we might think are the best plans might not be the plans that can get you to that supermajority vote, which is really where you're at. You've seen a dozen plans that all meet the criteria in terms of what redistricting partners feels is required under the Fair Maps Act. At this point, it's about preference of the council members who are actually voting.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Thank you for that.

Great. Thank you. I think I have Council Member Peñalosa and then Fan.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to point out, Madam City Clerk, that there were four members of the City Council that voted to move forward with draft F. So if we would continue coming back as one of the drafts, I would appreciate that. F, F and obviously K. The question I had for staff is, could a draft that gets submitted, is there a timeline between now and I believe April 17th, like what if somebody submits one on April 15th?

David PenalozaItem 1

I mean, is that, because I know it's a public hearing and I would hate to mean that the last eight meetings were obviously a waste of everyone's time if new maps are going to be submitted a week before the deadline or potential deadline that we have coming forward.

Yeah, and Paul, I think you can probably speak on this better and it's that it has to be published at least seven days before council adopts a map correct yeah not only submitted to the

city but elevated by the council and identified as a potential draft plan that's really where we find ourselves as we get closer to the deadline is that it's not just the deadline to actually adopt the plan you have to presume that the council has identified a final plan that will be adopted and then they do a second vote to actually adopt it at the subsequent hearing. So it is kind of a two-part process generally. So if somebody were to develop a new plan, we had a plan L, that plan would be before the council for discussion. It would be elevated to be one of the draft plans that's being considered for final adoption.

And then once it's been public for seven days as a potential draft plan, it could be adopted. So I think that's the structure you'd want to think about in trying to get there.

David PenalozaItem 1

So I would personally just like to see all four of these maps, aside from any additional ones that were submitted, come back to us. But I would like to make the recommendation that we drop these crazy acronyms, SARC and SARC2. I mean, let's just keep it, you know, F, K, L, or whatever letter comes after that. I don't know the alphabet clearly. So you're asking to... So we say consistent with the alphabet.

Okay. So you're requesting to just label it as the next following.

Yeah, as the next letter.

Okay.

Would we be labeling, would we be dropping the SARC 1 and 2 and just labeling with letters letters, the 1A and 2A, in order to use the most recent versions of their submissions only and essentially drop the earlier submissions? MR.

David PenalozaItem 1

Well, I mean, I'm not speaking for the entire council, but I would just like to be consistent when it comes to the lettering of any draft map that comes before us, just to continue the next letter that comes after whatever letter we're on versus having some with acronyms.

So 1A would be L and 2A would be M. MR. Right. And that would be it. So we would be having F, K, L, and M coming before the council in the future.

David PenalozaItem 1

Yeah, and if additional maps are submitted, obviously continue the alphabet versus bringing in some name, whatever name people give them.

Thank you. I know we have Council Member Fan and then Council Member Mendoza and then Mayor Pro Tem. We may have to do double Z and maybe double Y. I'm just kidding. I don't want to go that far.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

We'll go Greek alphabet.

Right.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Mayor Sargento, my hand is raised as well. I just wanted to let you know.

Go ahead. And Council Member Hernandez.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Madam City Attorney, this is, or maybe City Clerk, I don't know who, but this is just a procedural question. I believe we have to adopt our maps via ordinance, correct, or is it just resolution? It's by ordinance. Okay. And so I do understand that the deadline is April 17th, but our last regularly scheduled council meeting is April 5th Typically as far as I understand it a an ordinance can be introduced five days before a regular meeting for second reading on the on a regular meeting

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Which is two weeks before the deadline, you know So I guess in my mind, we actually have to adapt something at the latest by, say, the 31st of March in order to meet April 5th, the last regularly scheduled council meeting before the deadline. Is that correct? Or are we just looking for a first reading?

Yeah, the first reading would be, actually, I'm counting April, March 30th. and then seven days would be April 5th would be the second reading.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Yeah, okay.

That's correct, yeah.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I can't count. That's why I'm a lawyer. But so to be clear, our deadline is actually two weeks ahead of April 17th, which is April 5th, which leaves us with very, very little time. In fact, about four weeks, right?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Three and a half weeks, actually. So I do want to say that as we're all up here trying to hash this out because the last thing I want is for us to have to go to court with some court who doesn't know really anything about our city arbitrarily choosing kind of lines and then us having to pay for it again. So I just wanted to put that out there for everyone. The second thing is while I do appreciate Mayor your comments about Paul bringing back maps I feel like it's really incumbent on us on this dais right now during the session to tell Paul what is it that we want to see from

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

map F or map K or SARC 1A or SARC 2A for us to adopt it because right now I'm ready to adopt any of those maps I you know I've made it very clear that having an Asian plurality district was very important to me whether or not I was in it which is why I supported map J and councilmember Lopez and I were the only people who have supported Map J, but it had the highest Asian plurality district. However, with that in mind, I really think we need to give direction to Paul because I think he's kind of working without knowing what it would take for us to approve a map before us. Now, if there are other public submissions by

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

other folks later on, great, but I think right now we have to provide that direction and I'm willing to do that from the dais. Thank you.

Great. Thanks for those comments. Council Member Mendoza, then Mayor Pro Tem, then Council Member Hernandez.

My concern was very similar to my colleague, Council Member Tai. I wanted to get a clear cut on the timeline because we're drying up really close, and I would hate to have this go to court and expend more public funds for something that we could decide up here. And that was my one question, and the other concern that I have is that we had made a motion several, a couple months ago that we would be looking at these four maps, so it wouldn't be counterproductive

to have the public submit more maps, because we've already voted on that. I would suggest that we continue to look at these four maps that are already in there, or just give direction to Paul in incorporating F and K, because those two are the ones that meet the criteria, and they keep the neighborhoods together, and it doesn't split up any of the historical Henninger Park. And so if we have more maps here, it's just going to confuse the issue more,

and it's going to inundate us with more maps. And we may have no option but to go to court. So I would suggest that we just give Paul direction today and bring back these four maps for the next time.

Great. Thanks for those comments. Mayor Pro Tem and then Council Member Hernandez.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Thank you. you know, when I heard FKLM, my first thought was the, this is such a transit geek thing, but like the SF-MUNY, the FKLM lines in the city. So it was just kind of an ironic thing. Anyhow, I concur with my colleagues who, you know, for us to go backwards and start adding maps, I think would be absolutely counterproductive. I appreciate the mayor's suggestion in regards to maybe having Paul try to come up with something, but But I tend to agree with Councilmember Fan in that, you know, we're at a point now, under normal circumstances in other cities, we would be popping champagne, we've approved a map onto the next thing.

Phil BacerraItem 1

But our charter requires five votes. So we've got maps that have four votes, one shy of being approved tonight. So I think that for us, you know, maybe it's a matter of having the discussion, the hard discussion of seeing what we could do to maps F or K to try to tweak a boundary or two. Maybe it's something that we do have to give to Paul to come back to us and determine whether it meets the legal requirements, whether it satisfies concerns that council members have raised from the dais. But I do think that, yes,

Phil BacerraItem 1

we really do need to get this done. Just for confirmation, I don't know if this is Daisy, or Madam City Attorney, when do we need to do the first reading by?

Phil BacerraItem 1

What was that date again?

Well, the last date that I see, because it has to be at least,

it would be March 30th.

Phil BacerraItem 1

March 30th. Okay, so March 30th would be the last date. So between now and March 30th, this council has to adopt an ordinance approving a map with five votes. And then we would have the second reading, you said on which date? If we adopt...

April 5th.

Phil BacerraItem 1

April 5th. And that would get us in time before the April 17th deadline. Correct. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you.

Thanks. Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Yes, thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I just want to say thank you to the community members that have come together. I know it takes a lot of work to finalize and come to the conclusion that a map is something that is equitable and representative of the values of neighborhoods. And I agree with a lot of the comments of my colleagues. I would like to see us be able to come to a vote to support a map. Unfortunately, in this case, I will not be supporting map F or map K. However, if there is adjustments

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

and these maps are similar to SARC1 or SARC2, I would be more inclined to support these maps. Unfortunately at the moment I am not able to support Map F or Map K, but my comments to Paul is if we can have some of the inclusions from SCRC 1 and 2 and you can bring us something back that is representative of all four of these maps, I would be interested to see what that looks like.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I'm also not opposed to keeping the maps named as SCRC 1 or SCRC 2. I am not struggling with those names there. I think it's pretty fair. And that concludes my comments. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Councilmember. So, look, I think, you know, Paul, you probably heard from us a couple of times, and you've heard from us over several meetings. So I think as far as us giving you direction, I think you've heard there are, you know, and if you've been paying attention, which I know you have been, you know, there are certain priorities with respect to neighborhood associations, you know, environmental justice corridors, historic neighborhoods. goods, and, you know, look, socioeconomic boundaries as well that we need to consider,

multifamily versus single family, and just making sure that we have a good blend of those areas. You know, I would just suggest, and as people were talking, you know, short of there being some coercion or threat, and we've seen some of that going around, unfortunately, with other items that have come before us. Look, I can't support the maps in their present form, F or K. So I don't think that's going to change. So I think there was a question from one of the council members of why bring them back if suddenly somebody is going to get some moment of clarity and say, oh, by

the way, I just missed something that I didn't see for the past seven meetings. things. You know, so I think really where we are is that we have some maps, and I personally think that Map J was actually a good option. I don't know how that left, you know, these alternatives that we had. But, you know, right now looking at SARC1 and 1A are ones that I could see working with.

So that's where I guess I'm hoping to see if Paul can give us some, for him to step in the shoes of what a court would look at after listening to all the testimony that he's gathered from us and coming up with some iteration of what we've been talking about. Because I don't think, you know, here, I don't think some of my colleagues who've supported MAPF and K are going to say, well, all of a sudden, by next meeting, hey, I really like SARC1. So I just don't think that's going to happen, and I don't think, you know, you're going to have, you know, those that are supporting other versions are going to say, hey, you

know, I suddenly like this one again, unless there's some sort of threat or coercion between now and then. But, you know, I think what might happen, and this happens often, is that our demographer helps us walk along some of these priorities that he's heard and looking at both sets of maps come up with something that might be, is probably going to be not ideal for many. And it may put some people in the same ward. It may put some people in places, you know, or lines where, you know, are not ideal, but that's the compromise. And it has to come from both sides. And again,

looking at this, it just looks like we're unfortunately maybe not going to agree on one ideal map. And we shouldn't. That's not the way this process is. They call it sausage making for something for some reason. You know, it's not pretty. But you know, there are priorities that we all believe in strongly. I don't fault anybody that disagrees with me. I just feel like, hey, you know, their priorities are such that, you know, are different from mine, but we have a very diverse community as well. So we should be voicing those. And you know, I think all of us have done a good

job of advocating those positions. But look, I think we've kind of spoken about this already, you know, and I think we've already got an idea of what our deadline line is. So why don't we, you know, I think we've made a lot of comments. We'll go ahead and maybe if we make some final comments to wrap it up, I'll call the council member fan, Peñalosa.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Mayor, well, I do think that you say that Paul has gotten direction, but if I were Paul, and as a staffer, I have no idea what this council wants. No one has told me why, for example, they don't like map K? You know, is it because Little Texas and Sullivan should be with District E? Or should the, you know, northern boundary of District F be further north? Should, you know, I think that's kind of what staff needs, actual direction. For example, SARC1, we've not taken a vote on it tonight, so I don't know if it'd be supported by three or four

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

or two or zero, but if someone doesn't support SARC1, I think they need to actually vocalize it because telling the demographer, hey, listen to everything we've said and draw a map, I think is kind of spinning around in circles because that's what has been done, right? Every time these maps happened over time and they can be adjusted. Now, or maybe the demographer or staff can meet with each one of us and go through the four maps and say, these are, you know, I need to see the line in Santa Anita and map K to move further north.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

So it includes all of Willowick area into district E. If that's what it is, I think that's the specific direction we need to give to staff for them to actually be able to do their jobs. because I have, sitting up here, I have no idea what the issues are. And so that would be my recommendation for the council to give to staff.

Thank you. Council Member Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I have to agree with Council Member Fan. I think we're doing the entire city of the service and our staff and our demographer in not giving proper direction. The only direction that a tomographer has seen up here from some of our colleagues is, you know, people are rich and white. You know, this isn't high school ASB. This is a legislative government for a city that serves 330,000 people. Not a little, I don't know what this is, but there's no direct direction to anybody.

David PenalozaItem 1

We're all speaking in windows and not doing something, not giving solid direction.

David PenalozaItem 1

Mayor Sarmento, you asked the open question, what happened to Draft J? Well, that was probably the most productive meeting we ever had, and it's because you chose to go to a political fundraiser for a candidate for the state of Ohio. I don't know how that benefits Santa Ana, but you chose to do that. So we got shit done. And now we're going around in circles again, asking staff to bring back drafts.

Council member, you shouldn't use profanities. I'm going to have to call you on that as chair on the decorum rules. Look, just keep... Apologies. Let me apologize for using that word. You've interrupted people. You've spoken out of turn, and now you're using profanities. Look, you're degrading this conversation, and you're disrespecting the decorum. Well, my apologies.

David PenalozaItem 1

My apologies for using that term. But it's the reality, and it's the community is fed up, and everyone here is fed up because we don't, this is probably the most ineffective procedure I've ever been a part of, because now we're asking for maps to be brought back that were eliminated by a majority of the city council, and we're not giving direction to the demographer, which they need to do their job. And so if it's something where we have maps in front of us, let's tell them right now what we want to see. Should we shift, you know, the Bristol Street border to rate or first 17th?

David PenalozaItem 1

I don't know, but that's something that we should give the demographer tonight.

Thank you. Are you done? Yes, sure I am. Council Member Lopez followed by Hernandez.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Thank you. So this is what everyday people out there like me would call political theater. you know we talked about four of us council member Pinhalosa being one of them you know saying he's not going to support MAPF because the community that he's supposed to represent Henninger Park is being divided and then we then we voted and he said yes and so of course Paul doesn't know what to do the council members themselves don't even know what they want so I agree let's have one-on-one conversations with Paul as council members so that he hears

Jessie LopezItem 1

directly from us maybe behind closed doors people will feel comfortable saying what they really want to see it's happened before I wouldn't be surprised if it happens now but also you know I've heard of I asked about bringing back a specific or not a specific map but a map that we haven't seen because one of my constituents had asked me if you know based on the conversation that we've been having in the past couple of weeks if we can't agree if a new map could be submitted and I thought that was a fair question and I think it's a fair scenario that we should consider because clearly we are not in agreement here so

Jessie LopezItem 1

I don't think we need to close the door on community members that want to submit a map but you know if the majority of the council wants to do that then that's something that they will have to eventually answer to the community for. But I do, you know, I have heard about Plan J, so I'd like to just make a motion to bring back Plan J so that this council can consider it since I've heard so much about it tonight. Thank you.

I'll second that for purposes of discussion. Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And thank you for making sure that there's quorum in this meeting today. I shared similar sentiments. I would like to see us have the ability to meet with Paul one-on-one. I have stayed consistent from the beginning that the only maps that I supported were

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

the initial map A2. And I actually had critiques for map SARC1 and map SARC2. I met with both of the, I met with the coalition, San Enibee District and Coalition. I shared that although there was a caller earlier that dismissed members of our black community, it shouldn't have to be tens of thousands of members of a community for us to acknowledge the important role that they play in the city. Whether there's a thousand members of the black community or one family here, their voices and their stories are important.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

So I want to reemphasize that the only maps that did take into account members of the black community was SARC map one and two, which there's a long and storied history of the black community in Ward five. And that's why I'm supporting SARC map one and two, but I'm also not opposed to seeing map J coming back for topic of discussion. But more importantly, I do want to make my direction clear. I would be open to meeting with Paul. And that concludes my comments, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for those comments. Just a couple of things. Let me start by just responding to Council Member Peñalosa's question, or comment, I guess. So I did go meet with a potential congressional representative that represents the sort of the area of larger Cleveland in Ohio. Look, anytime I can talk about our story and talk about, you know, somebody helping us and being a member of Congress is always a good thing. So I think that that time is well used and I would encourage anybody else to speak to

any other congressional representatives to make sure that they understand what our needs are in this city. With respect to, you know, Madam Deputy City Attorney, if you don't mind, you know, circulating something with respect to our decorum rules, you know, I want to make sure that as we get passionate about anything, and I think passion is good, I don't want us to lose sight of being disrespectful and violating the public's sensibilities. Because when you start saying profanities, we have people that are underage and are minors looking at our meetings as well.

And this is certainly not a good example. We can disagree. And as I said, personal attacks, and this is not the first time the council member has made these, and it looks really unfortunate and silly. It degrades again our discussion. But look, I'm not shocked. You know, I know that it's something that you know has been a pattern in practice, but you know, look, it's unfortunate. So I do agree with going back to the demographer and being able to explain one-on-one what these issues are that we have, but I'll go ahead and kind of state mine for the record. I think

it's important that we keep the EJ corridor together, and if you look at SARC1. That's why I see that it's not perfect. I think there are things that I see could change and evolve. But if you look at the standard avenue corridor, you have a lot of environmental justice neighborhoods that share certain common concerns that are together. So that's something I would say is a concern of mine and a priority of mine. I think Willowick having one district or one ward that wraps it is important as well, as much as possible, and that seems to cover that. It looks like Ward E would cover that entire neighborhood or that entire area.

And also the API, you know, making sure that we respect the settlement that we came to in 2018. That's another priority of mine. And also, you know, I'm not really too thrilled about having Washington Square as being part of Ward 3. So those are just specific items, if that's what you're looking for, Paul, that I'm certainly happy sharing with you and sharing more. But again, I see that this is not a perfect map. There could be some changes around some of the edges of these different wards and boundaries, but happy to have those conversations with you as well.

But I think we've been all saying the same thing, except some people are just fixated on a single map and saying, look, this is the ideal map, and we're going to somehow ram it through because, you know, we all live in different districts and none of us are going to have to run against each other. That really seems to be the underlying theme here. So you know, look, I just think that we've all said this ad nauseam. As Councilmember Hernandez said, he was very specific on his items. I was always specific on mine. The EJ corridor is extremely important to me.

So you know, look, to the extent you're hearing it again for the seventh time or eighth time, you know, it's there on the record. I'll go ahead and meet with you again and see what you can come up with. But, you know, if there's no other discussion, I think there's a motion in a second. And any further discussion on that one? Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm just going to say it right out in front. Let's just call it what it is. You have four maps before us tonight. Two of them do an amazing job of addressing legal issues and comments you've heard from the council. Two other maps, what they do, they deliberately target certain incumbents. It's not like, oh my gosh, we didn't know we targeted these ones in this one map and then these ones in another. It's clear that there's targeting taking place in two of the maps. That's it. End of story. So when we go and have our one-on-ones with Paul, I mean, I hope they're productive and I applaud the idea of

Phil BacerraItem 1

actually having them because nobody really wants to say it on the dais. It's incumbent targeting. That's all this is. There are proof, or there is proof in front of us, that we can draw maps that actually satisfy all these different requirements and things that have been expressed by members of the Stias. But you know what? That's fine. You know what? When we get to the point when we're before a judge, what you'll see is you'll see a council that couldn't get over trying to target their peers. That's really what it'll be. And it's very disappointing.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I do not support bringing any more maps back, not because we want to shut out the community. In fact, quite the opposite. I think we've done an extraordinary job of engaging the community. I want to commend our clerk for all the work that she did. I know at the beginning she was so frazzled. She was running around having meetings with anybody that would ask her to talk about the maps and what they could do. We've had an online portal where people can submit maps. We had, Madam State Clerk, how many maps did we have submitted?

A lot.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Right? Yeah. So my point, that's okay. Like what, over what, 30, 40, what?

Yeah, well over 40.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Okay. So we definitely, and thank you to the community, we've received plenty of input. I think at some point, because we do have an April 17th deadline, we need to start narrowing it down, and we are going to have to make some tough choices. So obviously tonight's conversation up here got heated. I mean, I think we just got to rip the Band-Aid off and say some of the things that we've had to say. But at the end of the day, I do applaud the idea that maybe it is going to have to come down to one-on-ones with our consultant, but I really hope, I really hope that we can work together and put together a

Phil BacerraItem 1

map that doesn't target each other because there's no need for it. This is not like other legislative bodies where you had incumbents living within, literally, I mean this, walking distance of each other. We don't have that here, and there's no need for it, but there's obviously a deliberate attempt to engage in that activity, and it's very disappointing, is very disappointing. So I think we do have proof in front of us that there are maps that can accomplish all the things that we've talked about without engaging in that, but we'll see if we can come together and actually put forward a map that works for everybody. Thank you.

All right. Mayor, if I may, before Council votes, I think Paul did want to chime in here on the one-on-one conversation. Paul, did you want to go ahead and address the Council?

Yeah, I just want to speak up about the idea of how we get to making changes in maps. We believe that all those suggested changes are going to be done in a public setting. We're not comfortable doing one-on-one discussions with council members on mapping issues. We haven't done this in over 100 redistrictings that we've conducted this year. and it's because of the fact that when those kind of meetings happen, there's no record of it for the public. The public doesn't get to know why or how certain changes were made or what things were

considered within that meeting with the consultant. So we do have the online mapping tool, obviously, where people can submit maps. I can go into the actual redistricting software. If somebody has a specific question like I want to look at map F if I change a line here is that possible we can crack open the software and do it we know that one plan has four votes if any of the three that voted no on that want to suggest a change then that might be an avenue to look at the same thing could be

true with the SARC maps. If I'm hearing right, maybe there's four maps, four votes on that. And if there are people who are opposed to those maps, if there are changes they would want to see to those to allow them to be able to vote for one of those, that's the kind of more constructive conversation. And we're just not comfortable doing meetings outside of the public view on mapping issues. We have, to be clear, been willing to meet with school board members or council members about non-mapping issues, like when are we gonna have our first hearing, or do the maps have to be on the website, things like that,

but not on issues pertaining to the construction of maps. And especially if this is going to go a judicial route, I think you would wanna have any conversations about potential line changes being done in a public setting rather than being behind a private meeting

that isn't made publicly available. Great. Thank you for those comments. So you heard mine, Paul. I heard yours. Yeah. That were my priorities from the beginning. They haven't changed. And it's not supportive of one map or another. It's just those priorities that will hopefully

help you draw a better map. And I think it was the EJ corridor in Sark 2, like 2A was the

suggestion the center the central portion of the city I think mine is more SARC 1 if you look at if and I think it goes along standard uh boulevard running both north and south

okay but that was just one of my four uh criteria in addition to some others that I mentioned to you but uh in any event I think it's a good idea that um you know if you look at the maps I think you know, F and K tend to be similar. I think if you look at SARC 1 and 1A, they tend to be similar as well. So you get a sense of kind of where the priorities of the different council members are. Again, I don't think it's to the discredit of one map or the other. I just think that, you know, some things are uplifted in one map that some feel strongly about. So in any event, we have a motion and a second before us on bringing back map J.

And I believe that was a motion by Council Member Lopez and seconded by me.

And it's technically J2. J2? All right.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Madam City Clerk, my vote is yes.

Okay, thank you.

Council Members, you should be able to vote.

How's our devices? Are they working?

Could be. Yes. Yes. Okay. So it passes with Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Fan, and Mayor Sarmiento voting yes, Councilmembers Mendoza, Peñalosa, Mayor Potemba, Sarah voting no.

See, we can get stuff done up here. So in any event, that is something that will come back to us as well as hopefully, Paul, if you can, you know, just continue to work on your end. If you don't want to have, I guess, one-on-one meetings or individual meetings, I think that hopefully you've heard enough direction. I've tried to be as specific as possible. I heard some others being as specific as they can. But, you know, again, I think, you know, what we're suffering from here is just rigidity. And I think we have to leave that behind at some point.

Mayor Zarmiento. I'm sorry. If I may, I just, I didn't want to interrupt you, but I did want to echo, you know, what Paul said about having discussions in public. And then I wanted to let you know, or just remind the council that under the Fair Maps Act, there is certain criteria to be used for, you know, drawing the maps. And, you know, geographically contiguous, equal population, the things that Paul has been discussing with us.

So those are the items that the council shall consider in adopting the maps.

Great. Thank you.

Mayor, before proceeding on, I wanted to find out if the council has any appetite or any interest in having Paul do that, what he suggested, which is essentially bringing in the maps and having council say, okay, let's move this line, and he can use the tool so that way the council can see where the changes are.

Look, I wish he would have done that today, right? I mean, he's seen that things have been kind of stalled for a little bit. But look, if he can bring that back at the next meeting, I guess, that we have.

Okay.

And he can maybe do things in real time.

Yeah, I can do that at any time.

All right.

Okay, thank you.

Great.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Go ahead. Maybe you might be going in this direction. Well, first thing I just want to clarify, at least I'll say for myself, I've not – the term rigidity or just being rigid as far as being attached to a map. I really have been attached to a map, without a doubt. Seeing changes, as we all should be able to kind of adjust once we evaluate them. And like I said, I've looked at the map that I've been supporting throughout most of this process. I definitely could support another map in this process. So I just don't want us to all be pegged as, well, because we're voting a certain way, that we can't be fluid.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I think that we're trying to get to a point where we can compromise. I mean, I started off with F. I really am starting to like K just for its simplicity and its compactness, still accomplishing all the other goals. But where I really wanted to go was, so are we looking at then, when would we want to schedule another meeting to do what we're talking about with Paul and kind of doing a live redraw with him and the mapping tool?

You know, I'm going to have to look and make sure that Paul has availability, but maybe the next council meeting that we have. If not, I will have to pull another special meeting.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I just real quick while I have the floor, I would just say I think we should do a special meeting. I do not think this is going to be a very quick exercise. I hope it is. That'd be amazing. But since it probably won't be, and I think for all of us here to have our full attention on this item, I think...

If I can bring it back this week, I definitely will. I'm going to work on it.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Pham.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thank you, Mayor. Paul, just for clarification, are you prepared tonight to help us move those lines?

Yes, I was prepared tonight to do that.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Okay, because I actually did send an email to our city clerk. So I think that since we're all here, we should do that. At least as initial step, I don't see why we shouldn't. That's what this hearing is for. Otherwise, I don't think we've really moved anything forward. In fact, we would have gone a step back because we added a map. And so with that, you know, I'd like to see what, I guess, you know, with SARC 1A and 2A and then F and K, what my colleagues would want to see changed and tell Paul now.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Because I know, Mayor, I think you made some very specific comments about Willowick, Washington Square, and then the EJ corridor. So, you know, is there anything that you would change from K or F that would make it appropriate or meet your requirements? It's what I'm trying to understand because same thing with any colleagues that might not have supported SARC 1 or 2, say what it is now so Paul can actually address it in the map so we can see I don't see it. I don't, I haven't, I still don't, other than those two comments, I don't see anything that's definitive enough and he's ready to go to work with us right now.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I think we should do it. Oh, sorry, Mike.

Yeah, so we, I don't want us to, you know, having conversations or discussions back and forth. I think we need to, you know, kind of move ahead in sort of our, you know, our regular order. But I think let's get, I think we have a motion and a second, but let's move towards that and also, you know, give some direction.

Did we vote on that?

Yes, you did. And it did pass for it to be considered. I'm sorry. Yeah, to be uplifted.

So that's out of the way. So now are we going to look at discussing with Paul moving things now or giving him some additional direction? because we have a map that we just included, so I'm not sure if that's before us right now, if he has that ability to maybe put that up. Yes, he does.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Yeah, because it's been published for seven days, and all maps are under consideration in perpetuity, right? Got it.

So he's got the map to go ahead and adjust there. Councilmember Lopez?

Jessie LopezItem 1

Yeah, so I was just going to say, Councilmember Fan, I heard you mention the coalition map, so maybe we should vote on the coalition map so we know if there's a majority on either 1A or 2A and then we can talk about any of the improvements to the coalition maps if that works with, okay, got it.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Sure.

Jessie LopezItem 1

So I'll actually make a motion to approve

Jessie LopezItem 1

SARC two.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Aye.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I'll second Councilmember Lopez.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Sorry, was that SARC 2 or SARC 2A? Well, 2 for now.

Jessie LopezItem 1

I mean, we can talk about 2A later.

2 was already part of...

What's that?

I think 2 was already part of tonight's... To move forward, Daisy. Oh, okay. Yes. To approve. Oh, I see.

We have a motion and a second for MAP SARC 2.

That was a second by Councilmember Hernandez.

My device is frozen. There it is.

Council Member Hernandez? Okay, thank you. I have a motion does not pass for at least for adoption for Council Member.

Jessie LopezItem 1

It does pass on my end, Daisy. Oh, I'm sorry.

It should be failed.

We need a super majority for it to be adopted, so technically it's a fail. It's Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Fan, and Mayor Sarmiento voting yes. Councilmembers Mendoza, Peñalosa, and Mayor Potem Becerra voting no.

Great. So we have two maps that have received four votes now. And they're pretty different. So that's where I think, you know, that's where the direction, I think, needs to come from the Council. Three maps have received four votes. So, you know, again, if there's any movement on any one of those, I think we could get to some finality. So if Paul, do you want to bring something up, I guess, before us and, you know, and.

I'm happy to just to, I need to, there we go. I'll just show you what the looks like and what we can do if we choose to go the direction of making any changes. As an example, this is draft plan F, and I've made a new cloned version of it. I've just named it F2 internally so that I can do that without worrying about it. If, as an example, you wanted to recommend some changes in the central portion of the city in order to reorient some of these districts or to make some changes, then we could do that. If, on the other hand, there was a council member who was maybe so close to maybe voting for one of the SARC plans,

but there was something that they didn't really like in one of the SARC plans, then we could open up one of the SARC plans and make the changes. This program isn't really made to be presentation software, so it can be a little bit slow, but I can definitely make changes here and then be able to get for you the calculations on the fly as to how it impacts the deviations and the ethnic composition of the districts.

All right, does anybody want to start?

You did, but you also supported other maps that are completely different, so that's why I guess it's a little confusing.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Well, I think that, you know, there are a hundred different criteria under communities of interest, and, you know, one map might support 60% and the other might support a different 60%. So I am happy with those maps. I guess for my colleagues who, for example, did not support Map F, should work with Paul to say why, or if it's SARC2, right, we just voted on that, specifically say why and fix that. But to me, all of them meet a number of criteria. They just aren't perfect, as you mentioned, Mayor. But they are good enough under the Fair Maps Act, in my eyes.

Great. Let me go ahead and start. And I guess, you know, what I can say that I think maybe is something that I see a flaw with MapF, is that it doesn't, again, it doesn't keep communities like Delhi, Madison, and other environmental justice communities together. It looks like it breaks it off at some point, and it keeps Delhi separate and apart from Madison Park and many and other EJ communities. It also includes Washington Square, which I think is odd. It has that one kind of square that just

hangs down south of 17th. That's just my opinion. Again, and also on Willowick, it looks like it does have more than one district that wraps that area. And that's been a topic of conversation for this council. So, you know, those are just, hopefully, Paul, that's helpful. But, you know, it is some direction. Those are the issues I have with that map, and I'm not sure if those can be to be cured.

Male Speaker 1

David PenalozaItem 1

Point of clarification, just wanted to say that I'm looking at draft F and the Delhi community is not split up, and it is together with Medicine Park. I want to make sure I'm following along on the correct map.

Male Speaker 1 You are, and it does break off, I think, many and Cornerstone, so which is another EJ community. Okay, but not Delhi, correct?

Female Speaker 2

Okay.

So to address the questions kind of like from the most easily addressed first off, the portion here is Washington Square that comes down from C into E. We could definitely cut that and do something where we moved over some equivalent population back into C. Or we could see what that would do if we did that. I'll just do that for right now just to show what that impact would be and see if there's a balancing move that would be recommended to do that. This program will tell me what the pending changes are. If we did move that,

it actually wouldn't affect the total plan deviation. So that could be something that could be done as a cleanup to F right now. It's a rather simple cleanup, but that doesn't require even a balancing. That's just a change.

Do you want to go into the other ones and maybe suggest some areas where I can start moving some pieces of these and we can see if we can address a couple more of these?

Sure. I mean, in my opinion, I guess if you can start making MAP-F look like SARC1, then that would be helpful.

And you're talking about in this area because it also doesn't look like this area.

Yeah, it's in the southeast, right? So it's basically looking at Ward F and making it run more north-south rather than east-west.

So that would be a major construction change, not just a kind of moving some areas. But if we wanted to impose those, we could look at doing something like that. in the middle of F. I think the question is, if we were to impose those, will some of the people who voted against F kind of move over?

David PenalozaItem 1

Mayor Sarmiento, may I add a suggestion to this? Go ahead.

David PenalozaItem 1

Paul, so since you were able to address that, I know that one of the concerns that was heard from draft F, obviously none of these maps are 100% perfect, was that Henninger Park was split, which is that little strip, and Madison Park. Is there a way that we could make Madison Park whole

David PenalozaItem 1

and drop the entirety of it into what would be Ward F? No, I'm looking at the wrong map. Let me find direct F.

David PenalozaItem 1

Ward B and then move Henninger Park its entirety into whichever one would be easier to accomplish.

Yeah, I think it'd be easier to accomplish to put Henninger Park entirely into F. So if we put Henninger Park entirely into F,

this is just numbers. So I'm not speaking to it from a perspective of

that it's the most appropriate move, but it is one that might be more easily, easily balanced. So let me see what happens if I take B and take Madison park and make it whole.

And B.

Now the challenge is that we are okay with the deviation on B. So making Madison Park doesn't have a problem. It doesn't create a different, another problem. Making Henninger Park entirely whole in F does create a challenge between D and F and now that D is underpopulated by 8% and F is overpopulated by 6%, almost 7%. So we have to create some other trade-off now between F and D where we're giving something to D from F. So if there was a way along this boundary here, either the New Horizons neighborhood,

actually moving into the mid-city, splitting mid-city would probably be the most obvious choice, or it would be bringing this New Horizons neighborhood down and taking in part of Centennial Park or Valley Adams in order to make this balance. So we do have to move, you know, about a thousand people from one district to another in order to fix this deviation issue.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Hey, Paul, I guess I'll just throw it out there. What if you move F over to encompass or to give 18 and 35, or to give, I would say, let's see, Centennial Park to D and 35, which is Valley Adams to D. And then I don't know if that would help with the deviation.

Let's see what happens. It might end up being too much. Let's see. So if we were to give both of these areas to D, that actually does the effect of just exactly flipping the deviation. So now D would be over by 6 1⁄2 and F would be under by 8 1⁄2. So we can do that. We would still needing to balance one or the other. If we only took Centennial Park into D,

that would work.

Council Member Phan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I was just going to suggest doing one of them to balance the population.

Do you want me to accept this change and see what it looks like?

Yeah, I guess, you know, what might not be a bad idea is as you're getting suggestions on this map and, you know, F and K are kind of similar, are you going to do the same thing with SCRC 1, 1A, kind of, you know, put that before us and see what adjustments can be made to that?

Jessie LopezItem 1

That's what I thought we were doing. Actually.

Well, right now we're making changes to F. Right. We can also go in and make changes to D. So we're making an F2 to see if some things can be addressed that you were raising. This would balance the plan and seek, it would achieve the goals of keeping Henninger Park and Madison Park hole and also putting Washington Square back into E so you don't have that lip down. Now when we step back and look at this plan, do we say to ourselves, well, that is a better version of F or something that more people could get behind. And we can do the same practice with

the SARC 2 as well if we want to, to go through and see if there are changes we can make there. But this is essentially what the process looks like in terms of trying to look at potential

Phil BacerraItem 1

tradeoffs. Got it. Mr. Mayor, if I could just real quick. I don't think F and K are similar or only other than that they achieve certain things. I mean, looking at this map, I love that we're playing with this map, but I mean, again, if I was to try to tell somebody what ward they're in utilizing this map, I mean, that would be a difficult thing to accomplish. Whereas with Map K, we've only split two neighborhoods, which would be Santa Anita and Madison Park. I would actually like to engage in the same exercise with Map K as a standalone exercise, and see, for instance, if we were to keep Madison Park together,

Phil BacerraItem 1

where else would we need to cut a little or tuck a little to maintain the right deviations, keeping the five Section 2 wards that MapK currently accomplishes.

Phil BacerraItem 1

That's you, Paul.

Yeah, I'm happy to do that if you want me to switch from playing with F and then we can go over to K.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I'd like to see that. I feel like K might actually probably require less explorative exercises here because I think we've got such clean, compact lines. There's only two neighborhoods that are split. I'd like to see, Paul, if you could take Map K, and if we were to unite Madison Park, where else would you need to modify the boundaries?

Great. So before you do that, Paul, let's just, if everybody's spoken on MapF, because then we don't want to keep coming back to different maps. So let's not just say, hey, let's go to K, let's go to SARC1, 2. So, you know, has everybody had a chance to comment on adjustments to MapF?

All right. Hearing none, I guess what we do is we can take them in sequence and go next.

Hernandez has to.

Go ahead, Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. Thank you, Paul, for for bringing this up and allowing us the opportunity to, to make recommendations now, utilizing this tool. I do take issue with the fact that Plan F does remove the Washington Square neighborhood from from item from what we would call district E. And, and the reason why is many residents have reached out voicing their dissatisfaction with being removed from that district. And they would like to stay together. In addition to that separation of the Sun that need the neighborhood and Willowick,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

many residents have voiced their concerns of being separated. And in addition to that map F does exclude little Texas, which is from first street to Willits. and that's something that is also important to the black community. And although it is a small community, it is still an important community that we should make sure to include in our process. And so those are the challenges that I see when it comes to supporting map F. If I can see some adjustments there, I would be open to taking a look at what plan F looks like.

Council member Pham.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for your comments, Council Member Hernandez. I just have a few clarification items, Paul. So when we're looking at map F with the changes that you just made, can you bring that back up?

Yeah, I was just duplicating K in case we need to do that. So let me do this here.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

No worries.

Yeah.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Okay, so with the comments that we just heard with these edits, Washington Square is part of District E, right? So it stays together. It is not being moved. I think that addresses my colleagues' concern. As to Little Texas, we're talking about first all the way through Willits. As far as I can tell based on this map, it is together in District D, correct? I don't see it being separated. I don't see Sullivan being broken up. It looks like they are, in fact, a community that stays intact, right, from first to Willits.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Sorry, my little map on my PDF doesn't have all the street names, but I think it does.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

The only other comment I have regarding Willowick is, so Santa Anita is split up in every single version of maps that we have before us, including Plan J 2 that we just voted on. There's not one map that is before us that has been elevated that does not split up Willowick and Santa Anita, which is one neighborhood association. So, or Santa Anita, which encompasses Willowick. So I do want to make that comment. Maybe if on the west

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

end where you have kind of that L by Willowick golf course from harbor to first street and west of the river if you add it to district A I wonder if it's still population balanced.

I think it dilutes the Asian CVAP when you do that from memory from when we did this last time

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

but I can look at it. Yeah maybe it does but if it's still a plurality I think that might still be acceptable to my colleagues. I just don't know. But I do know East of Harbor is very

Latino heavy. So are you saying? So north of first. Let me just zoom in here. Yeah.

So north of first and west of the river. West of the river. Yeah. Okay. So kind of the L shape. Oh you went past the river. I'm just trying it might just be the shape of the census block there you go that's the that's it right there. So that's a change of of roughly 5,000 people.

It makes a deviation in a well overpopulated so we'd have to lose population somewhere else. It brings the CVAP population down, I believe. Let me see.

Yeah, it brings it down by 0.5, from 43.5 to 41.8.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

So then it's no longer probability and it's overpopulated.

Yeah, and so what we would end up losing would be higher density Asian communities, most likely knowing from memory where these districts go. and those populations so that 41.8 might even go lower after you were taking out the population to rebalance it. I remember that this shape here was something that was, I hesitate to use the word required, but it made the drawing of that Asian district more effective in creating this cut into a, and having the district instead go further south.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thank you, Paul. And I think that was really helpful to have this exercise to demonstrate that, you know, trying to do at least in the context of this edited version of MAPF, we would not have population balance and have the Asian plurality, which were the two, I think, kind of initial issues that we had brought up. So I don't have any more comments. I just wanted to see how that would look in context of MAPF. Thank you.

Great. Thanks. Hearing and seeing no other comments on map F, I guess, is the next map that we're going to tackle. Paul, is that K?

Sure. Let me go ahead and get that set up here to bring up K.

David PenalozaItem 1

Point of clarification while he finds it, Mayor Sarmiento. with these exercises that we're doing, are these edited versions, are they coming back as a, with all of these, whether it's FK or any of the Sark maps, are they coming back to us in their

edited format as well? Paul? You'll be able to make that choice. I made that one, called it F2 so that we don't destroy the kind of vintage F that was created earlier.

Got it. And so you can make the decision. Really, I think the decision becomes, you know, maybe the people who supported F like it more now that it splits fewer neighborhoods. Maybe somebody who didn't support F might say, well, if it came back as that F2, I might vote for it. So that's really the hope with that. So this is K2.

And I think the question was about the neighborhood balancing again. Do we want to try to do both things that we did to the to F? Unify Madison Park and put Washington Square back into the.

Do we want to try doing that?

Phil BacerraItem 1

Actually, I'd like to take take a drive on this thing for a minute. everybody else has had a spin. I'd like to try to play with the lines a little bit.

Well, Mayor Pro Tem, give me one second. Let me, because I think, Paul, what you had asked us to do is those of us that were not supportive of this map, you wanted to hear from them because I think, Mayor Pro Tem, you supported this map as drawn. Correct. Right? So I think your goal, Paul, here is to see if we can reach some sort of two-thirds majority. In other words, five people do agree on this. So if we already know four people agreed on this, maybe the exercise is better for those three that didn't support to give recommendations on maybe how this map could be improved so that maybe they can't support it.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Council Member Phan supported F, and she was making changes as well, right? So maybe some of the changes, God forbid,

But he asked those first that opposed before those that supported. I understand.

Phil BacerraItem 1

So she supported the map and was making changes and now you're saying those that supported can't. No, no, no.

But he asked those that opposed the map to speak first to see if they could come on. Okay. So do you see the sequence, the logic of things, and maybe that one additional person could come on? So you'll have a chance to speak, I promise. Anybody who didn't support this map want to make any comments on Council Member Lopez?

Jessie LopezItem 1

Paul, I guess we can start off with the same things that we did to us in terms of keeping Washington Square in the yellow section, making sure that Madison Park stays whole, making sure that 42 Santanita stays whole, which is at the top west corner.

Jessie LopezItem 1

And then can you let me know the deviation on the purple section now that Washington Square has been removed?

Yeah, so the deviation on the northernmost district is,

let me see, 2.5% underpopulated, looks like. Let me look, let me make sure that it redoes this here. It seems like it should have gone down a little bit.

Yeah, it looks like E is 1.7 over and C is 2.4 under. So it made a that that just essentially flipped which one was under popular which one was overpopulated and map F in this plan is at 4% over by taking in the remnants of Madison Park just from those two changes both those changes can be made without having to have an offsetting change.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Okay, got it. So what if we, that yellow little tail towards the, towards the blue, what if we color that bright blue?

If we make this blue?

Jessie LopezItem 1

Mm-hmm.

I'm sorry. It'll, we can do that. The challenge will be that it will create that problem where we are putting about 5,000 people into district A. we're bringing down the Asian citizen voting age population of it and overpopulating it to the point where it will have to lose population somewhere else. Like it might could lose like this Edna Park portion.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Right. And since the purple area is under deviation, to me, that makes sense that that stay whole up there.

Yeah.

Now that is going to make C overpopulated. You might want to do something with D, like bringing it over here and taking part of C over here? Because D is underpopulated?

Jessie LopezItem 1

Yeah, but the top corner,

Jessie LopezItem 1

so Fire View and 17, it doesn't need to drop down.

Oh, you want this into E?

Jessie LopezItem 1

Yeah.

Sure.

So we're still needing to balance this. Both E and D are underpopulated. If there's a way for either of them to go a little bit further east, or both of them to go a little further east, that would help balance this plan. But these pieces are definitely something that can be done. Let me look at district A real quick. I'll go ahead and I thought I did it earlier. I'll go ahead and adjust these when we're done here so we can look at the CVAP population of the Asian district in A.

But we do know that district A looked a lot more like this and looks more like this in other plans. So we can look and see what its Asian population is.

Is there anything that could be suggested to move E or D to the, or both of them, to the east? Either taking in, having D take in this neighborhood here, or having E take in a portion of Mayberry Park or Saddleback View?

Does that make sense?

Jessie LopezItem 1

Yeah. Yeah, I would say, can you zoom out please?

Yeah.

Jessie LopezItem 1

And by how much do you need to grow E?

Not too much.

E could probably grow by a few hundred people and it would help balance it so that you get under the 10% deviation.

Okay.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I would not be opposed, my apologies, Council Member Lopez. I would not be opposed Paul to see District E move toward the Willett Street or further past First Street. If that is a possibility, I wouldn't be opposed to that either. Is that to the East here?

Jessie LopezItem 1

I think it's central.

Jessie LopezItem 1

West Central.

No.

It's having an E going to C up here.

So, Council Member Lopez, do you no longer have the floor?

Jessie LopezItem 1

I think it's-Are you good? Council Member Hernandez.

Okay. Let me go ahead and call on Council Member Hernandez. Was that a question for me, Paul?

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out where you want to move E to take some population in.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I would say on the side closest to Central City, if we could move past First Street, I would be opposed to that.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

So you're talking... Example of the boundary would be right in First Street, extending from first to Willett street.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Paul I think he means Little Texas on the west end close to the river.

Okay so I was trying to go over here.

Thank you. So over here.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

If you can zoom in just a tad bit more. it's going to be closer to to rate street and first oh this is first street right here yeah so you're going to go further down um no opposite direction okay yeah

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

okay go back to the first street border

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

this is the first street border right here okay so you're going to go to um the rate street um So right now we're on the outskirts. We're close to Spurgeon Park. You're gonna wanna go further down. Okay, so keep moving that direction. Keep moving downward right here. Keep moving down. All right, so when you see the street that is closest to it right now, so right now we are on first and, so we're gonna go down to Raitt Street.

I'm looking for that.

This is McFadden down here. Here's Ray, that's Raymar.

Willis Street, Dutchess Street, Myrtle Street.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

It looks like you're going to want to zoom out just a tad bit.

The street names kind of disappear there. Okay. The challenge is we're talking right now, that what we need to do is we need to add to E and add to D by taking from C.

C is over by 6.7%. So that's our biggest challenge. If C wasn't over by 6.7%, we'd have a legal plan. But since this is over by 6.7% and both these are right at four and a half and almost five, that's a problem. We need to figure out a way. We can do something like that. that's not a problem to do something like that. But then at some point we need to figure out a way to put some of this population from C into E and D, both of them or at least one of them.

Okay. Like I don't know what would be the view of something like

something like this.

No, that's too much the other way.

I mean, really we're maybe talking about just taking,

I mean, this is really densely populated here, something like that and putting that into D.

If we had something like that, we'd have a plan that now would be within the 10% deviation.

Jessie LopezItem 1

or you could just put it into f paul and then bring down d d into f that makes sense to me

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

yeah I concur that that that would make a lot of sense do I put this into

Jessie LopezItem 1

bringing this part into f into f yeah

should it be the whole thing or just a portion of it just a portion that I was looking at just then that's fine.

Sorry.

Okay. So if we put that into F.

Now F is severely overpopulated but then you're saying that you want to make an adjustment to D.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Yeah bring D down.

Okay.

So let me color these neighborhoods real quick so we can see these a little better.

Okay, so if we brought D down, do we want to put Madison Park into D?

Jessie LopezItem 1

Yeah, I mean, we could just try it.

Yeah, I think that would make a lot of sense. Let's see.

I'm a little concerned about the population, but we'll see what it looks like. It might work.

Oh, D ends up, it ends up flop flipping it again. So D ends up being now 11% over.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Would you please zoom out just a bit?

So we can do this. We can put Madison park hole into there, but now we're still, we might have to take this other area into F as well. Do you want me to try to see if I can make this work?

Phil BacerraItem 1

I have a quick question, Paul. I guess I was what Council Member Hernandez was talking about, that dip that was going to go south the 1st Street into what's on here, Ward B. Did we ever do that to show what that might look like?

We haven't done that, but we can go back and do it. It was just first was like the critical 10% deviation challenge here.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

My apologies, Paul. And to Mayor Pro Tem Becerra's point, I would absolutely be open to seeing that dip. in that area that is closest to B. Yeah, we can look at that for sure.

Oh, I wish we...

Jessie LopezItem 1

Sorry, Paul. This is one of these challenges.

The 10% deviation is not a fun thing to have to deal with. So we're able to make it work so that F and D D are a little bit balanced here.

We're down to now as D is over by 7%.

I don't know if it wants, you want to take in like the Bristol Warner into D. I don't think you want to cross first street on D.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Can I, Paul? Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Why don't you put Little Texas into E and then make Mid-City part of B? So if you see Mid-City, it's that yellow square.

Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying. So if we're taking from E and putting, if we're giving some of, let's help me find the Little Texas area because it's not one of our identified neighborhoods here.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Yes.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

So, or to the west, yeah. So council member Hernandez, you said it was first to rate to Willits.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Yes, from first and rate all the way up to Willits. That is where we have the largest amount of black churches and businesses.

Let's do this real quick.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

So the boundary, Paul, would be the example First Street to Willits, rate to Fairview.

So I see Fairview and First Street like this and this. Correct. I see Willits here.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Correct. So we can follow Willits down. You're on the opposite side of Fairview. So you're going to want to move closer. Okay, now you're getting closer. So rate is a smaller street. that is before Bristol. So it's a couple streets before. So it's going to be closest to, it's kind of hard to see the map right now.

Phil BacerraItem 1

It's the eastern boundary of Casa Bonita.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Correct.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Go east.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Keep going.

I see the Lincoln Elementary School. I see Myrtle Street, I see Casa Bonita.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Eastern boundary of Casa Bonita is right.

Oh, right. There we were way over here. Okay. Sure. I see rate and first street here.

And then Willits and what's the what's in Bristol?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Fairview. No.

Fairview. Fairview. All the way over to Fairview. Okay. So this is going to include Abraham Lincoln and elementary school. this whole area here. So we're thinking about, this is a big area.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

What would suffice if we could go from Raitt and Willits upward to, in this case, English Street, that could suffice as well.

Where's English Street? English is let me see. Pine, Walnut, then first. So an example would be in this case

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Sullivan Street would be would be fair.

The rate will it to Sullivan Street okay correct. I see what you're saying. So let's look at this. this from a population perspective real quick. If we were to take to Sullivan street, this area here.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Yes, that is the area that was formerly known as, as little Texas.

Okay. So we can put that area into E and then we're going to have,

B be under by five and a half and D be over by seven and then we can do a mid city balance to bring that back if that's what we want to do.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Yes, please. Does that sound right? Yes.

Okay.

So this goes into E and then

we're gonna swap with D.

That works.

So this would be a completely balanced plan.

If we were to just turn on streets, turn off the neighborhoods.

That would be a completely balanced plan, a new version of K.

Where it's within the 10% deviation. And so the Little Texas neighborhood is in E.

We did a lot of things here.

The Washington Square is taken out of C and put into E. So Washington Square and Little Texas in E. The Madison Park neighborhood is whole in D.

and then mid-city as whole in B. Those are the main changes that we made.

After, of course, first putting this northern portion of A into C, this little portion here

into E. So we made a number of changes here. Paul. Go ahead. So what we were doing is I'm glad that, you know, Hernandez, Lopez, and others were talking about this map because they oppose it. And I think when you were outside the room, we were saying, let's have those that were those that opposed to make comments first. But now let's just open it up to everybody who has any other adjustments to this that might be helpful. So go ahead, Council Member.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I was just trying to help with the population balance. Paul, will you remind me what the Asian plurality numbers are for this? Yeah. Let me, I'm going to go ahead and take it off screen

in real quick so I can add that data in. And then I'll bring it right back up. I promised I would do that. I'll do that right now.

Paul, can I ask you something while you're doing that? Yeah. I know, you know, and I think your suggestion was a good one to do this, to not do this, to meet with you personally. But couldn't we have done this individually? In other words, those that were not supportive of the map maybe make some changes because we do have these tools that are available to us individually and submit those maps. I know that, you know, that's kind of the way I recall us doing that in the past where we submitted maps or iterations of maps that were uplifted and just kind of toyed with them and sent those over to you. And that way you'd see

where maybe the preferences would lie. This is actually a good exercise, but your tools are are not as nimble as I thought they'd be like as quick. Yeah. You're getting there. You're getting better. But I know with, you know, I mean, the fact that we could really, you know, get pretty detailed with some of the stuff that we have at our disposal. But, you know, I just, you know, I know we have quite a few maps to, we have a couple more maps to go through this exercise. And so maybe in addition to this, if there are any changes that anybody has to those maps that you've made,

I guess they could submit those to you without meeting with you and those would be brought before as well.

I do have the CVAP data on here now. You're right. This software isn't really made for presentation. Unfortunately, there are very few vendors of this software around the country. They only make money once every 10 years. So the CVAP Asian numbers here for District A is at 42.18.

So that's that district here.

The others, we have four majority minority Latino and one that's at 49.08. So almost majority minority Latino.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

So I guess for district A, it's still technically an Asian plurality is what you're saying.

It's an Asian, what we would call an Asian influence district. The Asian plurality word is something that is, that you guys have been talking about a lot, but in terms of like its ability for Asians to influence the outcome of an election, which is the metric under the citizen voting age population, I would say that it still is an Asian influence district. It is at 42.18. There is 43.66% Latino in that district as well. But obviously that's a lower voting population. So it'd still be effective as a Asian district in the CVAP standard or in the California Voting Rights Act standard.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thanks, Paul. And I think it's because Edna Park is actually very Vietnamese heavy, Asian heavy overall. And that's why we've seen some other maps included in there and why Willowick was not, or parts of Willowick or Santa Anita was not included in that Western Ward. And actually all of the maps, they've been split up because of that. I wouldn't be able to support that because part of the settlement was to create an Asian plurality district. That was, I think, the language of the settlement, not an Asian-influenced district.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And I do understand under redistricting, it's a little bit different for the CVRA as well as the Firm APPS Act. But that would be my position on that change and this exercise. Thank you.

All right. Any other comments or questions on this one?

Jessie LopezItem 1

Sorry. So you said no, Councilmember Lopez? No, you are not?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

No, because the main community of interests that I have represented and that the city has committed to in settling the California Voting Rights Act lawsuit was to create an Asian plurality district. And while it's, quote, Asian influence under redistricting terminology, under CVRA, it is, you know, the way, I guess the way I remember the settlement language was like it's a plurality district. So because it doesn't have that, I would not support this. Thank you.

David PenalozaItem 1

I have a question, Mayor Sarmiento. So with this map, Paul, because I am really enjoying this exercise and I hope we do it with all the maps, which I know we're going to, but because this addressed many of our concerns, the environmental justice corridors in one, how can we, is there room to make this in Asian plurality ward on that on that west end versus a with the I mean is there any changes

David PenalozaItem 1

you could make whether it's bringing back in a park or or is that out of the out the window

no it's definitely not out the window and we can definitely look at that I was actually just trying to bring up a theme coloring to look at the Asian CVAP. But yeah, if nothing else,

bringing that part back into A is something we could do and take a look at. Right now it's trying to kind of boot me off my computer. So I'll be able to get back on here in a second and take a

David PenalozaItem 1

look at that. And I just want to say that I appreciate this exercise because I personally don't know how the software works, so going through this and watching it move has been, and I'm sure hundreds of thousands of our residents don't either, so I'm sure that watching this as, you know, not as fluid as we'd want it to be, but it's been a learning experience for sure. And it adds to the transparency that we want to accomplish, and we always strive to better ourselves. that is just being transparent with the process that we're doing. So thank you for that.

I'm trying to get back onto the computer here. So maybe if other people have some questions while I'm trying to get this restarted for us or we can start talking about the SARC maps.

Yeah, Paul, so I don't think I've commented on this. And yeah, I think this doesn't actually address the EJ concern. I see that here, well, I don't see your map, but I'm looking at the vintage, I guess, map K.

You know, what I consider the EJ corridor doesn't stop at Ettinger. It continues. And if you follow it north, it goes into the Cornerstone Mini area, which is closer to McFadden, even a little north of McFadden. It almost goes midway to First. And there are multifamily dwellings and units along the railroad tracks just east of Standard. And on the other side of those railroad tracks east of that are where there's a lot of heavy industrial.

And that's what a lot of the site where there is a lot of lead contamination there in those areas. So those are major changes to this one because it would alter Ward F and Ward D quite a bit. So those would be some major changes to what you've already done there. I think it will be difficult, but it certainly does not address my EJ concerns, Councilmember. That is a priority of mine, and that's something that has to be addressed before I can support any map.

It is as important as the API question and making sure that that ward respects the settlement that we entered into, but making sure that those environmental justice neighborhoods, those that are impacted by that, you know, that is something that to me is a major, major priority.

How's your map doing? it's coming back sorry

it crashed like most of us are exactly somebody said control I'll delete in that meeting

Thank you.

Are you trying to pull up another map or pull up the map that we were working on?

I'm trying to pull up the actual computer again.

Are there any other comments on this map from the Council?

Hearing none, seeing none. Paul, when you incorporate some of these changes, will this be map K2? Is that kind of the way you would enumerate it?

Yeah, if there's an interest in bringing it back as K2, we can do that. And so we would have F2 and K2. And I think if we can get this restarted, we can get a, if people wanted to make changes to one of the SARC plans, we can try making a SARC. Here we go. I was gonna cancel doing what I was doing. I'm back in.

The question that was posed here that I wanted to try to look at was whether or not something could be done here to remake A as a plurality Asian CVAP. I'm sure that I could do that if we wanted to make that be one of my homework assignments afterwards to this K2 in order to bring that element back to this plan. If, especially if this changes in the interior here were sufficient to get some people maybe who hadn't voted on the K plan to support this without losing some of the people

who maybe were supportive of the K plan to begin with, if you know what I mean. Is it?

Phil BacerraItem 1

How long would it take to actually figure out or determine the Asian plurality question? Can we just do it now?

I can do it pretty quickly, yeah.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Then, yeah, why put it on the homework list?

The easiest thing to do, there's two ways to approach it. One would be to look down here into this F area to see if there's a way to address it there. The other way, and kind of the easiest way to do it to be backtrack where we did that move earlier on the northern portion and see if that could do it. So if we went and put...

Phil BacerraItem 1

I thought Edna Park was what we were talking about earlier.

Jessie LopezItem 1

I'd actually like to see the south part of the city be incorporated to see if we can get to that plurality.

Yeah, let me see if I can do something then.

Thank you.

So, the,

there'd be a couple ways maybe to approach this. One would be to take away from District A some of the portions that might be more heavily Latino. The other way would be to make district, make A capture some of the portions that are more heavily Asian. Let me see what happens with Latino. See you up quick.

Thank you.

So let me see what happens if I do this with F.

And let me see what happens if I do this with a. Thank you.

So yeah, this is getting closer, but essentially doing things like this, and I can play around with it some more to see if I can do something else, but doing something like this would bring that very close. Now the Asian CVAP in one is 42.69 and the other is 43.04% Latino. So it's a difference of 7 tenths of a percent.

So narrowing that gap and finally getting that to be entirely together would be one. Obviously another thing we could do just to kind of capture this and be done with it pretty quickly would be to get from this one area here.

And if we were to capture this area here.

This is just taking from E, the portion from E.

Yeah, that's still now, now you end up being 12 tenths of a 1.2 10 one. Let me see. That is very close. 42.84 to 42.96. So a little bit more fine tuning could get you back to that plurality status. Yes.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Paul, could you just entertain me, take in part of Edna Park, like west of the river, just to see if that would solve the issue?

So it's interesting is this Edna Park portion is very heavily Latino. I think it's more heavily Latino than Asian.

Let me look at this real quick.

So this Edna Park portion is 33.15% Asian and 48.1% Latino. So that's actually more Latino than Asian. So putting that into A wouldn't close the gap at all. Okay.

Jessie LopezItem 1

And bringing it all the way down south wouldn't close that gap, Paul.

So if we did, it looks as though, let me look real quick, let me do this.

Let's look at that area south here.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Here we go, splitting the south again.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Well, we need an Asian plurality.

I'm just going to give you a calculation. I'm not going to cut anything. I'm just going to do this.

Like this whole area here.

Let's look at first this part here.

So this area here, just to get a clear, a calculation of what it,

it definitely would reduce the Asian population.

It goes to 39% Asian and 44% Latino. This little area here that I highlighted is only 14.2% Asian and 51.8% Latino. No.

So that's why moving it down doesn't achieve that.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

So just to bring it back to my colleagues, the initial change that affected the Asian CVAP was splitting Santa Anita by First Street instead of the original way that it was split under map K.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Right, as soon as we did that, so for example Willowick so Willowick and Santa Anita so Willowick is part of Santa Anita neighborhood Association and so by putting all of Willowick and Santa Anita from first street north into district a that's how you messed up like the Asian CVAP got changed because that area is highly Latino and so the the way that it was set up earlier was what kept the Asian CVAP the way it was supposed to be or in the plurality.

This is now back to plurality. I fixed that portion of A. So A is now back to plurality Asian CVAP. Cool, thank you. I knew it would just be like a little fine tuning. So this version of K2 with all the changes, I want to reflect on the fact that we made a lot of changes that had to do with neighborhoods and the rank criteria, not using race as a predominant factor in the drawing of this entire plan. That we were able to get to a plan that now is balanced, creates that district on the Western side with the high Asian citizen voting age population,

unifies more neighborhoods. The unification of that little Texas area does split neighborhoods in terms of the architecture that we were provided, but that doesn't mean that it's not unifying communities. So that would be fine under the rank criteria

as a community of interest. So this would be a version of K that we've been able to make substantial changes to. And if it's something that the,

that you guys want to bring back as a K2 at a future hearing, we can do that. And I don't know if anybody who voted no on the plan wants to say right now, like, yeah, that's always something I want to support, you know?

Phil BacerraItem 1

Paul, can I ask one more tweak to this? Yeah. Can we look at on that? See, right now, I think you have on the lower half of Ward A, can we drop that down to Alton and Greenville to see how that would work out instead?

Yeah.

So can you go with me again? You said on District A?

Phil BacerraItem 1

Right, so drop it down to Alton. Right now you have it at Sagerstrom.

Oh yeah, that will dilute the Latino population, the Asian population.

So if we were to do that,

Phil BacerraItem 1

Well, let's go drop just between Greenville and the city boundary. Not just straight down right, but let's just drop that southern boundary down Alton to Greenville. How does that work out?

Like this is Alton right here.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Right.

Like that?

Phil BacerraItem 1

And then you're at Greenville, yep.

Yeah, that makes it 43.5% Latino and 42.3% Asian.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Okay. Thank you.

All right. Any other comments on this map?

I just want to say, Mayor Sennett. Go ahead, Councilman. Yeah. That there's a lot of good suggestions here. and I'm allowing my colleagues to go first because I know we all have the intention of representing our constituents properly and equally, so the suggestions are good. And right now, I'm not sure which map is going to have my support, but the one that will get my support is the one that does acquire all the criteria that we had mentioned.

And so I like that we're working on this for here for the public to see so that they can see that we're being open and not being rigid. I'm willing to work with whatever map is the best map for the entire city of Santa Ana.

Thank you for that. Can I ask the council a question regarding the neighborhoods? In Madison Park, I've seen in different cases that it is either unified as a big square or it includes or doesn't include the Cedar Evergreen Co-op small area. Should that be in Madison Park or not?

I think so.

Jessie LopezItem 1

It should be, yeah.

Okay, I'm gonna put that in then. It doesn't mess with the deviation. It's just a, it was just a, wanted to make sure that if we're putting this out, so we don't have more changes.

Okay, we're good.

All right. So is there a desire to do this for SARC two? Or one of the other SARCs? Keep going.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Sorry, can you just run through the deviations of each area, please?

Yeah, so the northernmost district C C is under by 4 tenths of a percent. E is under by also 4 tenths of a percent. A is under by 3.17. So these three districts are the ones that are all three under populated. These three districts are the ones that are overpopulated. The B 1.4, D 1.9, and F at 1% overpopulated. So the total plan deviation here, the difference between the largest and the smallest would be basically 5% total plan deviation.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Paul, really quickly, can you just tell us, I missed it, what area did you add back into A to make sure it had the Asian plurality? It was just this area here. It was

It doesn't even have a name, but just this area here in F, I noticed when I was looking at it that,

there's this area here.

I'd come down and included this area here. And when I took out that adds 481 people. and when I took it out, it ended up just rebalancing it.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Got it. Thank you.

Uh-huh.

Mr. Mayor, is there a suggestion of where I should go next?

I think, well, we're pretty much done with this map, so what are the other maps that were uplifted, I think? I think, was it SARC?

There was a vote on SARC 2, but we could go into any of the SARC 1, 1A, 2 or 2A. Let's start with 1.

And don't forget about Map J. We uplifted that too, so.

I'm just bringing it up.

Thank you.

This is Sark 1.

Are there some, is there somebody you want to go to first?

Yeah, why don't we do the same exercise, Paul? Let's go to those that, you know, weren't supportive of this map. They should, I think, speak and see if there's any iterations or any changes to the boundaries that they might be able to adjust to make them, you know, maybe feel more supportive or more comfortable with the map. So I'll open it up to those council members.

Mayor Pro Tem?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Mayor, can I just?

Sure, Council Member.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I am actually in support of all of these, but maybe a recommendation is I know SARC 1 and SARC 2 are substantially similar to 1A and 2A, but 1A and 2A do include, I guess, Little Texas in District D. Maybe that will save us some time and energy.

So go to 1A and 1…

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And 2A instead of doing 1 and 2.

Got it. Let's go ahead. That's a good suggestion. Let's go to 1A and then 1, 2… excuse me. 1A and then 2A.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And then we'll go for that.

Okay, I'll go ahead and swap that out real quick.

And 1A is gonna be called L.

And so we'll call this L2.

If anybody remembers that band.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Isn't it U2?

You're getting punchy, man.

Phil BacerraItem 1

That was L7.

L2. L2 was a band. L2. They opened for Nirvana. Not U2. L2.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

There are four millennials on this diet, so we don't know what you're talking about.

L2 was an all-female band that opened for Nirvana. L7. L7. Thank you very much, Vice Chair.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Not to spike the football my age, but yeah, it's L7.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

L7. Again, for millennials, bro.

L7, it was like that.

You know, for you millennials, so my son is 22. He thinks you guys are super old.

All righty. L2. Hopefully there is no L7 map.

But L2 is right there. We're happy to take any suggestions. These are things that we want to look at.

It does have a very different construction of A. We know that A goes all the way south in this plan.

and A is just barely plurality. But I think as we demonstrated in the last one, that the Asian plurality number in A would go up if C were to come across. Which map is this called? This is Sark 1A, which has been renamed L. and so it's l2 meaning I've made a new copy of that map l

so this is in the sarc 1a in your packet

go ahead so I'll go ahead and anybody want to make some yeah comments mayor sedimental this is Councilmember Hernandez. Councilmember, so I think you were supportive of this map, so what I was going to do is I was going to open it up to, if you don't mind, and you're going to get your turn as well. Let me open it up to see if there's anybody who was opposed to this map that may want to make some changes or edits to this and see if they can kind of what we did on those on the previous maps on the F and K. Those council members that maybe weren't supportive of it originally, maybe they, you know, made some changes.

TO SEE IF THEY CAN GET COMFORTABLE WITH IT. SO LET ME OPEN IT UP TO THOSE COUNCIL MEMBERS THAT DIDN'T SUPPORT THIS MAP TO SEE IF THERE ARE ANY CHANGES THAT THEY COULD MAKE. BECAUSE I THINK, WERE YOU SUPPORTIVE OF THIS MAP, COUNCIL MEMBER HERNANDEZ?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

THAT IS CORRECT, MAYOR SADNANTO.

OKAY.

OH, OKAY.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

YES, I WAS SUPPORTIVE OF THIS MAP.

Great. So I'll go ahead and, you know, in the spirit of flexibility and not being rigid, I definitely want to hear from those council members that may want to take a look at this, take a crack at this to see if it's something that, you know,

makes some constructive changes to.

Council Member Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. One thing that wasn't, you know, doesn't seem right with me with this map, is just the various and I mentioned this with a couple of the other maps that were submitted. I think there was a Viet Ries map that was submitted that had like staircases throughout the central part of the city and this one what I call staircases it has multiple staircases cutting through neighborhoods and the lines are not concise and not easy to identify by our residents where the ward boundary changes. So any changes that we can make that would address that

David PenalozaItem 1

would be appreciated. And also just because we've heard from hundreds of residents via email and in person about the south part of the city being one ward, I mean, that would be what I would like to see shifted.

So yeah, what we could look at doing for some of these stair steps would be to essentially try to unify these neighborhoods into one of the districts. In terms of the south portion of the city, we could do something where we say added to C across A, some of this population here to make C go along a little bit more south, and then bring this E down to take in the Valley Adams to get rid of that stair step. Potentially figure out if we want which district we want to give this Bella Vista neighborhood to so that there's not that stair step and then figure out which district we wanted to give

downtown to to eliminate that stair step. Is that the kind of thing you're thinking about?

David PenalozaItem 1

Yeah. And also just because I mean, I know that the environmental justice component is an important component that we should keep in mind across the board or as much as we can. But this map here, all it does is basically really if you look at that what it is east side part of the city, you know, it keeps that a solid kind of you know where that boundary is versus the other boundaries that just crisscross through the entire neighborhood, through the entire city in various areas.

David PenalozaItem 1

So it's not concise of where these wards lie, which is why I, you know, ended up being more supportive of K, because it could tell you exactly where the boundary lines were. So that's the concern I have with this one.

Let me ask you then if we did things like this, like if you were to unify downtown into D

and then rebalance that by unifying the Bella Vista into E,

Is that the kind of thing that you feel makes that plan make more sense? More concise lines?

David PenalozaItem 1

Absolutely.

David PenalozaItem 1

And obviously trying to keep that south end of the city together as much as we can.

Let me see what I can do here.

David PenalozaItem 1

Kind of like what the mayor said, but flipped. We could make this look more like map K or K2. That would be ideal.

So let's look at this.

And then.

So something like that has unified three neighborhoods, brought sea across there on the southern side. it actually makes the Asian CVAP plurality district more Asian, higher Asian CVAP.

You could, if you wanted to, I wouldn't want to take C anymore into A without giving portion of like Santa Anita back to A. We'd have to make A look more like it did in K. But we could, if we did that, take more of this into C. You know what I'm saying?

Would you want to try to do that too? Or is this going across the south? You could also go a little bit more across the south into F here if you wanted to.

David PenalozaItem 1

Can you zoom in a little bit, please?

Yeah, sorry.

David PenalozaItem 1

Now, the eastern part of the city, is there a reason why that follows along Main Street?

This right here?

David PenalozaItem 1

Yeah, because either they should all go horizontally or vertically.

I mean you can do obviously we have a combination of both elements here you've got these two roughly three districts more horizontal here the northern district's horizontal and probably every plan I've seen a is always vertical and then in this plan F is vertical in the other plan F kind of sits below you know and it is more southern you could kind of introduce a little bit more of a

southern district into C. And this is so much less densely populated than the other parts of the city. That you could do something like that that does bring more of that southern portion together.

Jessie LopezItem 1

I don't know. I was just going to say that doesn't look like clean lines at all to me,

Phil BacerraItem 1

but that looks like Tetris. Yeah. Any other comments? Yeah, I'd like to jump in. I'm just going to say that with this map, I mean, this whole thing about environmental justice, first of all, the heat map that was presented to us regarding environmental justice as far as lead contaminants shows lead contamination going west of the proposed boundaries for the so-called EJ ward. The thing that I've liked about MapF was that really I see the wards being more horizontal, as we were talking about the north of 17th Ward, the southern neighborhoods being combined together.

Phil BacerraItem 1

So I feel like we're trying to create something that really environmental justice is an issue. It's not something that is that regardless of who's elected to represent the area can't represent. So we're carving this area out. But I feel like the way we've been showing it on these other maps, it could easily just as well work. So I'm looking at this. And it's not that I don't want to try to, you know, see what we can do to tuck and pull here. But I look at what we were accomplishing with these other maps where we had less neighborhoods split. We had the agency map. We had all these other things met.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I appreciate the effort here with this exercise, but I don't know how much we can keep this District F together the way that some are insisting that it stay together and then somehow still accomplish all these other things. So I think right now looking at the, what's that, District C, it does take in the southern neighborhoods, but I think really, again, I think for what we've seen in some of the other maps, it would probably make more sense to have horizontal districts going through as opposed to these vertical ones. So I don't know what we could do here.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I think, to me, this would be one of those ones where I'd want to sit down longer and really try to figure out what we could do. But I don't know on the fly tonight trying to figure out how this would work with this map. I just can't at this point.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Well, let's try because we had to do it for the other maps. That's the point of this.

Phil BacerraItem 1

The maps are easier to do it with. That's why. I'm sorry? I said the other maps are easier to do it with. That's why. Try.

Let's kind of take some turns here. Let's make sure we respect the rotation. So are you done, Mayor Protein? I'm done. Yeah. Let me just chime in. And I was going to, because I haven't spoken on this, and I think, did everybody who didn't support this map. I know Council Member Peñalosa, Mayor Pro Tem, I think Council Member Mendoza, have you had a chance to maybe think about any changes that you could make adjustments to on this? Well I didn't want any of the neighborhoods to

be split up, but it's it is quite difficult because there's so much so many changes coming up that it's actually confusing, so maybe we should just, once you're done with making the suggestions with this map, we can have clean maps sent to us so that we could make an informed decision.

And I think that's what Paul is going to do. He's going to save the original versions of the maps and then name these, I guess, you know, L2 or whatever this is going to be called. world. But I guess what I was going to say is that it's interesting how, you know, those that were supportive of maps, you know, were really willing to dig in and make some changes, but when you're not supportive of a map, then your, you know, your flexibility seems to leave. And that's just an odd thing, saying that one map is superior to the other. That's a very subjective statement to say. So, I mean, I could easily say, well, this is a

much more workable map in my opinion. You know, opinions will differ. I don't think anybody has a monopoly on the right idea up here or the right call. I think all of us, you know, have our opinions. I think that if you want to go through, if we want to go through the exercise we just went through with map F and K, then look, I think the floor is open for adjustments on this. But it sounds like those who are opposed to this map just don't want to even try to see how it can be even more palatable. So that's all I'm hearing.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Mayor, with all due respect, I don't think it's really productive to sit there and say that we're not flexible. I mean, I'm legitimately looking at this map and trying to make an effort. I can't come up with something at the second. That doesn't mean I'm absolutely rigid and not willing to bend. And for you to say that about any of us who are not supportive of this map, I don't think that's fair. In fact, before I finish, you know, we were productive the last meeting. We went from eight to four maps. Okay? We've been productive. This time, we've gone

Phil BacerraItem 1

backwards. So before you start pointing the finger at the rest of us, think about what we've already been able to accomplish and where we're at right now. Thank you. And I'm just talking about you,

actually, right now. So to the extent that, you know, look, we should try to go ahead and do this, make some adjustments, make some recommendations to this. If you say you can't, then look, then And that shows that you're unwilling to work on a map that you're not supportive of.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I didn't say unwilling. I didn't say unwilling. I need to digest it. I'm sorry I'm not just on the fly. I'm just coming up with the changes.

But that's what we were saying when we said we're going to do this publicly, is that it's a tough thing to do. It is. To just do it right on the... Look, but we were trying to make that effort. Those that were opposed to map F and K, I saw trying to make the effort to make it maybe more workable and make some adjustments and adapt. It doesn't seem like it's going both ways. But look, whatever the case is, fine. If you can't seem to make any changes to this because your head won't wrap around it, then look, that's fine. We'll take that as your decision at this point.

So if anybody else has any questions or any changes or any adjustments to this that they'd like to offer.

Go ahead, Councilman Pran.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thank you. Paul, is this map population balance?

I can't tell my it is the total plan deviation on this one is 8.35 or 8.37 right now okay

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

f is I think negative 2.1 percent yeah and what's it in the south for c you can put more in I think yeah so no I'm sorry I don't so for map c or sorry ward c I don't know what the percentage is I can't

read from help this far away sorry it's 0.6 is the percentage in in map c can you move um

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

let me make sure i have the correct um memorial park into either e or f

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

uh memorial park into e or f right oh you know you need more into c right

No, no, no, no. C is just a little, we could, we can look at moving Memorial Park into E or to F, but we'd probably have to have an offsetting change.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Because F is positive in population. Is that what it is?

The F is negative. Which one would you want to move it into E or F? Do you want to pick one?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Which one has the most negative population? So F I guess.

F, yeah.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I think that might be too many though.

It will be, but we can do an offset maybe. Okay.

Yeah, the deviation ends up being 18%. That's pretty huge.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Okay, that's what I thought. I don't think that there's enough population on the east side. Because I do know, you know, when you're looking at that Red Hill area, it is also I think actually socioeconomically more similar to the south end, but I don't think there's enough population to adjust. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Hey, Paul, did I hear you say F is underpopulated?

Negative 2.1.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Could you bring it down a little bit?

Could we bring that to be closer to zero?

Jessie LopezItem 1

Yeah.

Yeah. So one way we could do that would be to take in more into C.

So like you have this Delhide neighborhood. If you were to put the southern portion of that Delhide neighborhood into C

that would be actually too much. Oh okay. And then you see what happens if you take this other portion that's not the neighborhood, this might be fine.

So you could do something like,

actually this is, sorry, I'm going the wrong direction. To make F have more population to add to F, it'd be easy just to do this. Take this portion that I put into C and give it back probably.

Yeah, so basically here we have F and C. C is overpopulated by half a percent and F is underpopulated by 2%. And you can just switch that the other way. So now F is overpopulated by 8% and C is underpopulated by 2%. And just reintroduce that district are going all the way down. I had earlier gone the other way just to see about making something that went all the way across the southern portion.

Council member Hernandez, did you have your hand up? I think you might've wanted to speak as well.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

No, Mr. Mayor, I was just asking a question if this was also gonna be the topic of discussion for the council members that opposed this map.

It was, but I think they, I think rightfully so, had the first sort of bite at the apple to see if there were any adjustments that they wanted to make to this to see if it would be workable. And then just opening it up to anybody on the Council.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I did hear the comments from my colleagues, and I was hoping that they would be willing to work with these maps as we were willing to work with map f and map k um a little disappointed that i didn't see as much feedback from some of my colleagues and um yeah just hoping that we could work together i thought this has been this has been pretty productive thus far and um yeah i i was fully supportive of map sarc one and two so i i would like to see if my colleagues that were on the opposing side can work with us as we've worked with them.

Thank you, council member Hernandez. Any other comments?

All right, so I'm not sure how much was changed on this, Paul. So this stays almost, you know.

There were considerable changes. We unified three neighborhoods, and then we brought C across here on the southern end. but if the council decided that they didn't want to bring that forward again you want me to go to sark 2 and try that one that one does has very uh vertical districts right so

would that be a2 i think uh is that the one that uh council member fan was referring to the sort of iteration that had little texas and everything else put in there was that yes oh no that's it

this was this l2 used to be 1a right i was talking and so that's what we're working here that Little Texas is unified here in District D.

If we wanted to go next to the Sark 2A, I can make a copy of that. It would be called K2 or M2.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Yeah, and that also has Little Texas adjusted. That makes sense. Unified.

So that'll be M2. Yeah, and that'll be our presumably our last of the night. So I really think you guys get kudos for spending all this time doing this.

Thanks. Thanks for that, Paul. You do. This is a lot of work. It's also great for the public to be able to see this and

it creates a permanent resource for anybody who's looking back to see what considerations were made in the development of these plans and what you you guys were liking and disliking and everything. It's great.

So this is gonna be SARC 2A. I'm making a duplicate of it.

We're calling SARC 2A now plan M to stick with the alphabetical request. And so this second version of M will be called M2.

Can I listen to my screen?

Mr. Mayor, do you have, do you want to?

Yeah, let me go ahead and open it up to the same exercise. Let's go ahead and go back to those council members that weren't supportive of this to see if there's any adjustments that they'd like to make at this point and then we'll open it up to the balance of the council.

Any takers?

The map is perfect. Councilmember Lopez got a question?

Jessie LopezItem 1

No more of a comment I guess it's perfect so that can come back as is.

Would you want me to make any of these similar adjustments with unifying the downtown unifying Bella Vista. Let me see the…

Yeah, if they're applicable to this version of, you know, this SARC 2A, which is M2, I guess, yeah, you might want to maybe incorporate those changes. I'm not sure if I'm hearing any other changes from members of the council on this one.

David PenalozaItem 1

Council member. Thank you, Mayor. Paul, with this map, can we shift in order to continue having a predominantly southern district, can we shift the bottom of Ward E and C up to Warner Avenue?

Well, we definitely couldn't put it into A. We could try putting it into F.

This is MacArthur here.

Is Warner all the way up here?

Siegerstrom, Alton, MacArthur.

Warner's way up here?

Correct.

So I, this portion from Warner on both C and E, What you could essentially do is...

Let me just see if I can do it by block group.

This portion below Warner in C and E is essentially 55% of a district.

So if you were to take this out of C and E, E would be underpopulated by 18% and C would be underpopulated by 36%. At that point, you'd probably have to do something like put all of this into F and then rebuild C and E here in order to rebalance. Is that something you want me to try and do?

Yes.

All righty. I'll do it then. So let me grab this as well. I'm going to bring it across. I'm going take the prerogative of grabbing this part over here from a to there so I'm going to put all this stuff into f and if this is something that yeah let me see what happens here

So now that we've put all of that into F we need to now rebuild these two districts C and E I'm going to do real quick on E one of the things I wanted to do anyway was unify that Bella Vista.

And then we'll have to take

roughly that.

You see this in D.

This one's just one street off on the neighborhood line.

So.

Let's see what happens with C.

It's going to take from F.

Thank you.

David PenalozaItem 1

So Is that flower, Paul? That border? Right here?

Yeah.

David PenalozaItem 1

The street here? Because I would hate to see Memorial Park split up.

Yeah, no, I don't want to split up Memorial Park either. That's flower right there, yeah.

So E needs to grow.

I think I might be able to make it grow this way. Let me do this real quick. I don't want to mess with Memorial Park real quick. Let me see what happens if I just do this.

David PenalozaItem 1

I know Wilshire Square.

We're going to do a three district rotation real quick and see if this works. So this takes this.

So that would work. This was a lot of moving pieces here. Let me back it up and show you what we have done. We made F go all the way along the bottom.

And now we have this district incorporating downtown.

This C incorporating the entirety of Memorial Park. Let me just turn this on.

So Memorial Park coming up. All these neighborhoods are kept whole. That's a balanced set of lines. Those are within deviations.

David PenalozaItem 1

Can you zoom in to see the...

Where would you like to look? uh where is henninger park oh it's it's all yeah let me look at real quick

right here

David PenalozaItem 1

can you zoom in a little bit more please yeah sure

David PenalozaItem 1

where's broadway

mcfadden bishop

David PenalozaItem 1

Where's the stream? Where's the boundary there? I can't I can't.

Main Street Main Street Flower.

Nature in the street names that make these a little larger.

Didn't do it.

So 1st Street, Main Street, Flower, and McFadden are the boundaries around Henningo Park.

David PenalozaItem 1

NEW SPEAKERS, WHAT IS THAT LITTLE YELLOW SQUARE IN THE TOP LEFT?

David PenalozaItem 1

OF THAT, I GUESS, WHAT IS THAT, WARD E? I CAN'T REALLY, FROM THE SCREEN. NEW SPEAKERS, CASA BONITA. NEW SPEAKERS, OKAY. And then is that Bristol Street on the far right?

David PenalozaItem 1

There's Flower Street here.

Bristol Street is right here.

David PenalozaItem 1

And where's Memorial Park?

Down here.

or that's Madison Park uh Washington Square Madison Park sorry now I've got a bunch of stuff up

David PenalozaItem 1

south of Mid-City I know Memorial Park runs all the way from Bristol to Main Street so south of

Phil BacerraItem 1

that yellow square Mid-City right here immediately south is Memorial yeah sorry

because Memorial Park right there. Yeah, I was thinking Madison Park.

David PenalozaItem 1

But you said that Memorial Park's right here. You said that border was Flower on the right or is that Main Street?

This is Main Street right here.

David PenalozaItem 1

Oh, okay. I kept thinking that was Flower and I know Flower is the separation between the, I mean, runs down the middle. So, okay.

So Memorial Park is whole.

And this district kind of goes up here.

David PenalozaItem 1

Madison Park is whole. And Henninger Park is whole, right?

Yeah, Henninger Park is whole.

David PenalozaItem 1

And what's the, I guess, the back toward, is it A? What is the Asian plurality?

The Asian plurality is 42.96% Asian, 41.92% Latino. Is that considered an Asian plurality? That is mathematically a plurality. Yeah. Plurality is just that it is higher than the other ethnic populations.

Influence is more of a nuanced thing.

David PenalozaItem 1

Right. So when does it and just from my curiosity, when does it go from an influence to a plurality?

Influence and plurality are different metrics. Some districts could be plurality Latino and definitely not elect Latinos because of lower voter turnout or the rate of polarized voting.

An influence district that's an influence district that's Asian doesn't necessarily in California generally need to be over 50% in order to allow that community to elect a candidate of choice. So as an example, in Northern California, there's an Asian district that, they could have made over 50% Asian. They kept it at like 45, arguing that it would be effective. The Little Saigon Congressional District that goes up around you guys through Tustin, that's considered an Asian influence district, even though it's at 38, 39% Asian. So influence more has a lot to do with voting patterns.

Plurality is just a metric. And so they are independent metrics. They might align in some places, they might not in others.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Paul, could you move the map just so I can see this very southern tip of the city?

Sure.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Can you zoom in a little bit?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions, any recommendations? Councilmember Pham.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you to my colleagues who did not originally support this map and really worked to adjust, I think, the boundaries.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I am still supportive of this. I do know, as you mentioned, Mayor, that we don't always get everything that we want. But I think that some of the concerns that folks had regarding making sure the south end is together, it's there, neighborhoods are not being split up for the most part. And regarding the EJ corridor, while it's not, the EJ corridor quotes, because most of Santa Ana is an environmental justice area. While it is not technically within one ward or district, it's in two instead of three or four, as they were in maps F and K.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And so I do believe that that is a good compromise, just as it's a compromise with other areas of the city, as I mentioned, in working with Council Member Hernandez when it comes to issues relating to Santa Anita. And I imagine whoever is then elected towards C and F would do the same in addressing these areas. So I would be supportive of this map. I think that it does address a lot of the concerns that folks had and also still meets, I think, some of the concerns that those who were not supportive really addressed that. And I think they might also be supportive.

someone might support this. Thank you. Thank you for those comments. And no, I certainly welcome especially Councilmember Peñalosa's effort to try to work this map. I think that's what all of us wanted to see. And, you know, those of us who are trying to work with some maps that look painfully wrong, in my opinion, you know, we try to see how we can maybe reconfigure them. They still may not be perfect, but there are at least no options. And now this one as well is something that personally, Councilmember, I couldn't support just because I do strongly believe that there is a corridor. And so looking at plumes that

I've seen, you know, that are in the groundwater and in the aquifer, you know, they're just very visible to me. And so those are not lines that are, you know, belong to one neighborhood association or another, or, you know, one, you know, it's a very, very vivid sort of EJ line, in my opinion. But again, I think all of us, like Council Member Hernandez, has a real priority in making sure that the few black families, black-owned businesses and churches are important. Like the API community is very important to keep intact. I think all of us have certain priorities that we want to make sure are reflected in a map.

And so I think we'll, you know, hopefully we're going to get there now. We have, you know, some of these options that have been adjusted, I think, to incorporate some things. But I certainly appreciate the effort, you know, from everybody who made the, you know, again, made the effort to try to adjust these lines to make them a little bit more palatable to everybody. So, Paul, you've, I think, already looked at four maps and you've made, you know, a version of those after some of the comments that you've heard from us. So you have those you'll you'll enumerate those accordingly.

Yeah. If we wanted to close up with this, we can have new plans for you. I am sorry. You'll have more plans in your next hearing than you had at this hearing. But you might be able to summarily dismiss them or have them maybe foster some discussion that can get you to a conclusive vote.

Well, you know, I guess, you know, I guess I'm the person who brought, you know, who kind of reigned on everybody's parade. But I think we all wanted to be transparent. And we wanted to make sure that we were doing this in public. And if it, eight maps are manageable. We're not talking about 20 maps or 30 maps. I think we're talking about maps that we're familiar with, maps that have been adjusted. So, look, if we can't wrap our heads around looking at eight maps, boy, then we're in a lot of trouble. So, in any event, not hearing or seeing anything else. Let me go ahead and just.

I'd like to say that. Go ahead, Constance. I like this map. I'm supportive of this map because it brings the southern communities together. And that was one of the issues I had, and I'm glad it was addressed. So this is a good map, and I would support it.

Thank you, Council Member.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I would like to just make one comment. Thank you, Council Member Penaloza, for your effort. I appreciate what you did. The map does look a lot like some of the maps that we were supporting initially. So I think we're all kind of going towards a certain direction. And from the comments we heard after this exercise, we've heard some that don't support it and some that do. I feel like we're still at the same place.

Thank you for those comments. Anything else from the council?

Council Member Lopez and Fan.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Yeah, just a quick question. Are we going to review MapJ 2?

Oh, that's right. That was uplifted.

So, Paul, do you have J2? Yeah let me let me get J2 and make a clone of it real quick.

Good catch.

looking at a couple different J's

104 634 I think was the most recent version it was based on

Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, while Paul is looking to clone the map J2, do we need to do anything on a special meeting? Are you going to circulate that to the council? What are your thoughts on

the timing? I'd like to have something up this week so that way we can, if there's any other changes, we have an opportunity to continue that and not limit our time. All right, you're going to circulate something? Yes, I will circulate something to see if I, if you can email me or text me your schedules I would really appreciate it for this week that would be a good head start for me

okay I have J2 up I'm just making it look a little bit nicer I haven't worked with this plan in a while so we'll all get a chance to kind of look at it with fresh eyes again

So this was J2.

Yeah, I remember this one now. The district, the A district, clearly doesn't come as far south. it goes up into Edna Park instead. I'll go ahead when we get a break in a second, I'll go ahead and run the CVAP Asian numbers on that.

Obviously it has this north-south F district which we kind of deconstructed in the last discussion.

I don't know if there's a starting point or even if we know Mr. Mayor which members of the council actually support this iteration or which members of the council don't to have like the parsing out of who's going to go first. Good question. I lost track but I think. I don't think we did a vote on this plan as a plan to adopt like we had for the other ones.

No, I think there was just a vote to bring it back for consideration. Yeah.

But so I guess we could start with anyone. So, you know, no specific order on this one since it's sort of, you know, another look.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I support it because it has the highest Asian plurality, but I think I might want to just punt it over to Councilmember Hernandez because I know that he wants Little Texas to be in his ward or I think it's Ward E. So maybe I'll let him make those statements. Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, council members. Thank you, Paul. This is this is really good to see this on screen right now. I think it's it speaks volumes of this council that we're that we're able to have these these lengths of discussions and be as transparent as we are and for the public to see that these tools are are what we are utilizing to to make sure that this is an equitable process for everybody. This really means a lot. I just want to say thank you. So, so the, the end of district E on the side of Pico Lowell is that McFadden?

Oh, this is, uh, that's first street. The north, south street though.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

You're talking about the, yeah, the side, the end of the border, um, not on first street, but further further down yes that that way what is the end of this cross street here that's mcfadden yeah okay i figured so i i think there's a way for us to um adjust this map and it would be very simple for us to do so paul and what we would want to do is decrease from mcfadden inward towards first street and what i what i would propose is to move it inward toward central

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

city and extend from to make up for us extending inward to extend from the flower park side of this district upward to the Sullivan Street I think this would be a very equitable map for everybody for district E

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

okay so yeah i would decrease from mcfadden and i would go to willett street and go from from that willett's to from mcfadden to willett's and to make up for that gap i would extend it

outward towards sullivan street so let's use north south because when you're saying outwards and it's okay so we've got this boundary here with McFadden the way that the map is right now it's

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

it's a little difficult for me to see because it's very zoomed in yeah so uh we have this boundary here with McFadden yes you want to bring that boundary north okay uh let me see if we can just um if you can just zoom out just a tad bit here that'd be helpful okay that's much better So what I would do is I would recommend you taking the end of the border, which is McFadden, and decreasing it northbound.

Move it north. Okay. So make B come up north?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

That's correct. Okay. And what I would do to make up for that gap is I would –

How far north do you want it to go? All the way to first?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

No, I would go to Willett Street.

Okay.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

And what I would do then –

Let's find that real quick. Let's find that so we see what the difference is. Absolutely. Will it's, I don't see Willits as an east west street. Then I would go with Myrtle in this case.

Cubbon, Highland, Richland, Bishop, Camille, Chestnut, Pine, Walnut first.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

So for the sake of-Myrtle's here. I see Myrtle over here. There's Myrtle. Okay. So if we went that way and then we extended the ward rather than taking it all the way to McFadden, what I would do to make up for this gap that we're taking out is I would move westbound toward Sullivan Street, which Sullivan is right before the major street, Fairview.

Okay. So first off, let's do bite-sized chunks here. So you want to move all of this into B?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I would say yes. That would make a lot more sense.

So we move all that into B.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

And so now it's a lot more reasonable now.

Now you've got to add to E. Do you want to what do you want to add to E? Do you want to add that Texas?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

That is precisely it. Yeah. So I would move it out. And and I think that makes a a much more equitable map and something that I would be more inclined to support.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

because based off of the um requests from my constituents um they do want to keep these communities together and if we are able to achieve this i don't see why i would have any issues

supporting this map all righty so we would have to probably go all the way down here

we'd probably have to use bishop instead of myrtle here that would be fine i figured bishop could be