Placer County has new supervisor district boundaries. See where you’ll vote in 2022

The Placer County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to adopt a new district boundary map Tuesday that was created by members of the public and widely supported by county residents.

The map, known as “Hybrid 2.0, Option 1,” makes a few significant changes to the county’s district boundaries, including uniting Rocklin within one district, adding the entirety of Granite Bay to another district, and adding Auburn and North Auburn to District 5.

The county grew by nearly 57,000 people in the past decade, with the largest areas of growth in Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln and other parts of the western county. To compensate for all the western growth, the new district map had to increase the size of the eastern districts, according to meeting documents.

“Districts 1 and 2 grew by approximately 25,104 and 15,733 people, respectively, while in comparison, District 5 grew by only 2,067 people,” a county resolution said. “Since the population increase focused on the western area of the County, District 5 needed to increase by approximately 12,849 people to achieve the parity amount of 81,061 people per district.”

To do this, District 5, which spans to the the Nevada state line, was expanded westerly to now include the communities of Auburn and North Auburn.

Consequently, Jim Holmes, supervisor for District 3 and a resident of North Auburn, now no longer lives within the boundaries of his district, meaning he will have to move in the next election cycle if he intends to run for District 3 supervisor again.

He had previously asked that District 3 boundaries be drawn to include his address in earlier drafts, but he addressed the public at a Nov. 30 meeting, saying it was not his “best move” as a supervisor and that he had made the issue about him, which wasn’t fair to the county. Holmes then voiced his support for the hybrid map and others that excluded his home from the district he currently represents.

Other changes include splitting the city of Roseville, Placer’s largest city, among three separate districts; grouping the communities of Loomis, Penryn and Newcastle together in District 3; and adding the entirety of Granite Bay to District 4.

The map, while popular among the public, was not initially the front runner among the supervisors, who had opted for a map with fewer changes. But the board reversed course last week after Supervisor Suzanne Jones, who represents Granite Bay, made a motion to rescind the board’s earlier decision to approve Map A. She proposed adopting the hybrid map instead.

“It meets all of the criteria of the (Voting Rights Act) to the highest degree, it follows all federal and state guidelines and requirements, it better aligns communities of interest and eliminates peninsulas, it keeps cities whole, it follows natural boundaries … and it’s fully supported by the constituents of Placer County,” Jones said in the meeting. “Today marked the second call of support from the public for Map A as opposed to the gazillion phone calls, emails and text messages from the community who’ve begged us to vote for (the) hybrid.”

After dozens more Placer residents spoke in support of the hybrid map during public comment, the board unanimously approved it.

“There was no perfect solution here,” Supervisor Cindy Gustafson said. “And as you know, I was not supportive of our final action. I stand unified with my board because I think that’s the right thing to do. When the majority rules, we come together to represent the people of this county.”

The new map will take effect in 2022.

This story was originally published December 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.