SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) -- Each decade following the U.S. Census count, cities across the country have the task to redraw district lines -- a critical process to ensure all communities have a voice in local government.
In San Jose, last week’s city council meeting got intense as Latino councilmembers voiced their concerns to ensure the voices of historically underrepresented communities are heard.
“The debate really was whether we should take a step back and how much community engagement was going to be involved in all of this,” said Sylvia Arenas, District 8 council member.
“What we produced in a memo was what we saw missing and what was really important that Common Cause and lots of other agencies like the League of Latin American Citizens, NAACP, Asians for Community Involvement and a lot of different organizations that work with different ethinc groups here in the city of San Jose,” Arenas added.
“And that is community engagement, it really comes down to that, we didn’t hear it enough from the voices of our communities to be able to produce a process that they would look at and just nod in approval and say, yes this is what we want.”
City Council voted unanimously to adopt the recommendations suggested by political advocacy group California Common Cause which would give all San Jose residents the opportunity to apply to an 11- member redistricting commission.
Mayor Sam Liccardo also suggested an ex parte ban on private backdoor communications between commissioners and residents -- which has been met with strong pushback from five city council members who represent some of the city's most diverse communities.
Liccardo tells KRON4 News that his recommendation is not aimed to silence any communities but aimed to have conversations out in public to ensure there’s transparency in redrawing district lines.
“Fortunately council came around and held the line and recognized as councils have in Sacramento and Long Beach and as Common Cause has been advocating for that we should not allow ex parte communications, we should have those communications out in the public where the entire public can be participating,” said Liccardo.
“Because the truth of the matter is that low-income communities are truly silenced when powerful groups are able to get access to decision-makers and others aren’t and that’s exactly the problem that we need to confront.”
In addition, Liccardo proposed a ballot measure to permanently change the city’s redistricting process but was ultimately denied by City Council.
Councilmembers Magdalena Carrasco, Maya Esparza, Sergio Jiminez, Sylvia Arenas and Raul Peralez pushed back saying they think the mayor is rushing a crucial process that will impact residents for the next 10 years.
“Redistricting is super important, it only happens one every 10 years, we just had a huge effort at the city to ensure that neighborhoods particularly in east San Jose which are really undercounted are actually counted as part of the census,” said Maya Esparza, District 7 council member.
“The five council members that represent the eastside, we spent over five hours talking about redistricting, the mayor had submitted a proposal that we had a lot of concerns about … folks like the NAACP, The League of Latin American Citizens and Asian Americans for Community Involvement had a lot of concerns about,” Esparza added.
“The next step is to make sure that we really protect communities in redistricting … the fight is, hey, we should be doing this collaboratively, we should be coming together as a community, it’s so important.”
Meetings will be held in every council district in English, Spanish and Vietnamese and provide child care services for families who can only attend in person.
Applications for the redistricting commission are now open and are accepted until Dec. 13 -- each councilmember will then have until Dec. 31 to choose their nomination for the commission.
Esparza invites San Jose residents to be involved in the city's process of redistricting and can get involved with any of its community-based organizations.
“What we set up on Tuesday … you can go to an organization like Somos Mayfair, you can go to an organization like NAACP, you can go to Asian Americans for Community Involvement and we can work with them as a city,” said Esparza.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/3oOEoY1
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