Letters to the Editor: A new L.A. council district map that makes sense? Yes please!
My response to the latest City Council District map has been a long and somewhat bitter one. I would like to make a few statements that are more personal than political.
After many months of research and writing this letter I have reached the conclusion that there are a number of good reasons why the map I have described above is the true one.
First, the map is the result of many months of negotiation between all parties, including the LAC, the City Attorney’s Office, and everyone else that was able to make an appearance at the meetings. During these meetings, I was a guest speaker at the LAC and I gave numerous presentations to the LAC and to the Citizens Advisory Committee. I presented the map to all the various parties that attended these meetings.
The LAC produced a tentative map, which in itself is a map that was intended to be sent to the Citizens Advisory Committee. In order to get the tentative map to the LAC it was put “in the mail”, but without any return address, and with an airmail express postage label (the same one as the other mailing the LAC sent to the Community Advisory Committee). All these details were discovered by the LAC, but because of the LAC’s determination that the community members were not being represented there was no resolution to the problem.
That was then, this is now. The map has been revised as suggested by the city attorney’s office and by everyone else involved in the process. I have been provided the final maps to the LAC, the Community Advisory Committee, and the L.A. Council, and they are now all available for the public to refer to. The map is the result of a democratic process in which all the parties were allowed to present the information they had regarding the map, in order to arrive at a final map that represented the best interests of the community and the city.
The final map has been prepared to reflect the recommendations discussed during the various meetings, which included a discussion in which I presented the proposed changes, the current community advisory committee recommendations, and the current mayor’s recommendation. Each party is represented by an equal number of “residents” on the new lines.
The new lines reflect
