Sacramento’s proposed redistricting changes for Oak Park, Curtis Park reinforce past sins

The Sacramento Independent Redistricting Commission is poised to adopt a map that reinforces our city’s past sins of redlining and racial segregation.

Misguided use of “community of interest” is the basis for a commissioner’s creation of an 80% minority district with only one criteria: poverty. The correct principle states that smaller communities within a council district should not be split on the boundaries between council districts. Incorrectly applied, it’s being used to justify removing Curtis Park from Oak Park, a historically Black and brown low-income neighborhood.

The new District 5 would stretch from Highway 50 to Mack Road and include neighborhoods that have no commonalities other than their poverty status. Doing so violates the true meaning of “communities of interest” by splitting Meadowview between Districts 5 and 8. It would also “pack” Black, Latino and Asian residents into an 80% minority district that may violate law. And Curtis Park would join Land Park, Greenhaven and Pocket to create a 45% white district.

A commissioner states that wealthier Curtis Park residents have dominated District 5 and that less wealthy Black and brown residents suffer as a result.

I lived in Oak Park for nearly 30 years. I was Oak Park’s representative on the city council, in the state Assembly and Senate for 14 years. History shows that Curtis Park consistently elects Black or Latino council members. For 50 years, five of the seven council representatives were either Black or brown. Two came from Oak Park and one from Hollywood Park. Of the four from Curtis Park, one was Black and another was Latino — late Mayor Joe Serna. Anyone who suggests that Serna stifled the voice of or did not fight for poor people is just wrong.

Curtis Park supported my work to close dangerous alleys, enact vacant and boarded building penalties against absentee landlords, fund youth soccer programs, pass illegal dumping penalties and other neighborhood protection measures. We worked to keep Oak Ridge elementary school open when a collapsed ceiling threatened closure. Curtis Park understood and supported me devoting greater efforts to communities that needed advocacy and resources.

The flawed use of “community of interest” to create an 80% very poor “Council District of Interest” was not applied evenly. In District 4, wealthy midtown residents of Capitol Avenue, Boulevard Park and the Fab 40s are not split away from low-income apartment dwellers, unhoused residents that camp under the W-X freeway, public housing in Dos Rios or the desperately poor served by Loaves & Fishes. These economically diverse communities of interest are all within one council District 4.

However, when commissioners added Curtis Park to their new District 7, they had to reduce population elsewhere and excised out the only poor neighborhood in Land Park, that includes public housing residents of New Helvetia and Seavey Circle, making District 7 the least economically diverse district.

Well-designed communities have a mix of incomes and housing, as well as different social, economic, racial and ethnic groups. This is the very meaning of integration. Curtis Park was wrongly blamed for Franklin Blvd, South Oak Park and Woodbine residents not calling commissioners. Lack of civic engagement is due to long standing barriers and harsh realities of work, family and survival.

Segregation will not amplify those voices. Curtis Park has been a “Yes in My Back Yard” neighborhood. They are connected to Oak Park and Franklin Blvd youth who play soccer, basketball and tennis in Curtis Parks. Oak Park youth attend Bret Harte Elementary School and families from both neighborhoods shop along Franklin Blvd. They are a connected community of interest.

If the commission’s proposed map is approved on Thursday, poverty and segregation will be locked in for the next decade.

Commissioners: please reconsider whether applying a flawed interpretation of “communities of interest” warrants creating a “council district of interest” based solely on poverty. Fifty years of partnership between Curtis Park and Oak Park is model for our city that strengthens, not harms residents of District 5.