Irvine leaders are seeking community input as the city moves toward hosting by-district elections.
After previous councils resisted pressure — and the threat of a lawsuit — to make the switch to by-district elections, where voters would choose only the one council member who lives within their geographic area, councilmembers in January decided to look at it further.
If the new voting system is approved by Irvine voters in March 2024, the size of the City Council would increase from five to seven members, with only the mayor elected at large.
The new system would then go into effect in November 2024. Current Council terms won’t be affected by the new system. Because Irvine councilmembers are elected to four-year terms and were not all elected at the same time, only some districts would be up next November.
After several months of public hearings and community workshops, the council earlier this month selected six maps to be considered at a public hearing in September.
Five of the six maps were drawn by residents. Some of the maps have councilmembers drawn together, including maps 109, 126, 133 and 136 which put Councilmembers Larry Agran and Mike Carroll in the same district.
“At the end of the day, we want the maps to be a reflection of what the community wants,” said the National Demographic Corporation’s Justin Levitt, who is serving as Irvine’s demographer. “The focus maps are a starting point for the next conversation.”
For maps to be compliant with federal and state requirements, they have to be population-balanced, have easily identifiable boundaries, no racial gerrymandering and cannot favor or discriminate against a political party.
“We are not considering partisanship, registration, voting patterns, etc.,” Levitt said. “The central point of this is to figure out the best ways to represent the different communities of interest within the city.”
Councilmember Tammy Kim, who has been the sole voice of dissent on the…
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