Maps creating concentrations of voters of Asian descent garnered a lot of support this week as Irvine leaders look at how to carve up the city to create new council districts.
The council was narrowing down the options for boundary maps as it considers the transition from having all voters chose council race winners to by-district elections, where voters would choose only the councilmember representing their geographic area. The council picked three maps to move forward, though a majority of public commenters and two councilmembers voiced support for one in particular that has high Asian representation in more than two districts.
“When I look at the citizen voting age population, the Asian community is fairly well-represented in three districts, above 40%” Councilmember Kathleen Treseder said of Map 148. “I’m a bit worried about maps where there’s only two that are fairly high because I think that constrains representation to a maximum of two seats.”
The council has tasked the city demographer with taking the three maps and drawing a compromise version that incorporates the best qualities of each to be presented for a public hearing on Oct. 10, when the council is expected to select a final division of district boundaries to present when putting before voters the question of changing to district elections.
After previous councils resisted pressure — and the threat of a lawsuit — to make the switch to by-district elections, current councilmembers decided in January to look at the election process further.
If the new voting system is approved by Irvine voters in March, 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 would not be affected by the change. Because Irvine councilmembers are elected to four-year terms and were not all elected at the same time, only some districts would be on the November…
Read the full article here
