Asian community groups: Sacramento supervisors trying to ‘stifle our power’ in redistricting

Despite considerable public input to establish a supervisor district that joined Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in south Sacramento together, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors are finalizing a redistricting map that fails to do so.

Supervisor districts are redrawn every 10 years after the U.S. Census Bureau releases population change figures. Glendale-based firm National Demographics Corp., hired by Sacramento County to assist with the redistricting, created several maps for the board to consider. A dozen maps were also submitted by the public.

During over an hour of public comment Tuesday evening, several community groups urged the Board of Supervisors to put Elk Grove, Florin and Vineyard into the same district to ensure Asian American and Pacific Islander communities who live there have a strong voting representation.

“Separating us would severely stifle our power, our numbers and our representation,” said Sacramento Asian/Pacific Islander Regional Network co-director Megan Sapigao Tuesday night.

None of the maps created by NDC merged Elk Grove with Florin and Vineyard, which are currently split between District 2 and District 5.

“I am disappointed after all (the public discussion), draft maps still disregard the interest of the Asian American population in the county,” Cha Vang of AAPIs For Civic Engagement said Tuesday night.

Other speakers Tuesday night urged that District 1, which generally covers the north and central parts of the city of Sacramento, maintain its southern border along Broadway and continue to include Curtis Park, Oak Park, Tahoe Park and a part of unincorporated county north of Fruitridge Road. Many public comments submitted ahead of the meetings were from Rancho Murieta residents, asking to remain in District 4, which currently hugs the northeastern edge of the county.

But over the course its two-day redistricting workshop meetings, supervisors instead focused at length on adjustments on the boundaries of District 3, District 4 and District 5 — whether to separate Foothill Farms and North Highlands into different districts, splitting up Rancho Cordova into two districts and adjusting the boundaries around the College/Glen and Rosemont area.

How Sacramento district lines are drawn

There are several principles to redistricting local leaders typically follow, such as creating compact districts and preserving communities of interest such as cities and neighborhoods. Districts should be balanced population-wise too: the difference between the smallest district and the largest district must be less than 10%, even if new population growth and housing development is expected in the next decade.

“It is like a puzzle,” said District 1 Supervisor Phil Serna, “and it’s not a simple one, because I think, as we have all acknowledged in the past, movement in one area has precipitous effect in others.”

Supervisors spent hours between Tuesday and Wednesday meetings pouring over the redistricting mapping software. Picking and choosing different blocks and neighborhoods, they directed NDC consultant Douglas Yoakam standing at the lecturn to add and subtract from districts in realtime, the results of which were put up on projectors in the room and livestreamed online.

It’s a process that some in the community criticized, saying it gives supervisors too much authority to dictate the course of county politics for the next decade without sufficient public feedback.

“It seems like a lot of the discussion has been focused not really on trying to best incorporate the community’s input and feedback, but a lot of discussion around what you as individual supervisors want for your district,” Andrés Ramos told supervisors during public comment Wednesday afternoon.

“Redistricting is supposed to be focused on keeping communities together for fair and effective representation, not the sort of, ‘I want this area for x, y or z reason,” Ramos added.

Part of the reason the redistricting process has been more swift and less iterative than in past decades is because of the delayed release of census data due to the coronavirus pandemic. Full population figures for California were published in September rather than in the spring, while the deadline for new maps — tied to upcoming elections — didn’t change from its initial December deadline.

“There was so many criteria we had to meet, it was not just a matter of geographic population, political persuasion, ethnicity, there were so many federal and state laws that were in play,” Board Chair and District 4 representative Sue Frost said.

The final draft map that the board settled on Wednesday evening will be made available to the public by Friday, and will be officially published by Nov. 30. The Board of Supervisors are expected to approve a new district map by Dec. 7.