School Board Maps Proposed

The commission redesigning Los Angeles Board of Education districts voted Wednesday to submit three competing maps for public review amid charges of “classic gerrymandering.”

Sponsors of two of the maps sharply criticized the third as a plan to protect board President Caprice Young by extending her district from its Studio City base into the largely white west San Fernando Valley. That would force the current West Valley member, Julie Korenstein, into an East Valley, Latino-dominated district where she would face a much more difficult election.

The third map, drawn by Young appointee Michael Keely, would stretch board member David Tokofsky’s northeast Los Angeles district in a long arc into the heavily Latino cities southeast of downtown, where he has no political base.

Representatives of Korenstein and Tokofsky on the commission each submitted alternative maps that would keep Korenstein in a largely white West Valley district and place Tokofsky in a less heavily Latino district. Tokofsky, who is white and lives in Eagle Rock, has just barely won two elections in his majority Latino district.

Both maps would require Young to run in a new Valley district, which is largely Latino.

At issue in the three maps is how to give the Valley the two whole districts and part of a third that its population dictates without cutting up its representation.

The commission is expected to recommend a single map to the City Council by March 1, but has asked for an extension. The council must adopt new board districts by June 30. The first election based on the new districts would be held in March 2003.

Backers of the maps that favor Korenstein and Tokofsky accused Young’s representative of classic gerrymandering.

“He’s putting his appointer’s political priorities ahead of the children of the LAUSD,” said Sue Burnside, a political consultant named to the panel by Tokofsky.

“It’s clearly not what the Valley wants,” Korenstein said. “The Valley wants two Valley seats, east and west, with the San Diego Freeway as the boundary.”

Current Boundaries Had Caused Anger

Young defended her map as the one that best respects neighborhoods and school attendance areas. But even under her own plan, Young said, she would lose all the portions of her current district in Hollywood and mid-Wilshire, where she has formed close constituent ties.

“It’s not perfect. Frankly, the other two maps are not perfect either,” Young said.

The current configuration, with a portion of the Valley in a Westside district and another in the northeast L.A. district, angered Valley leaders when it was adopted after the 1990 census.

“In some part of the Valley there has to be a portion going over the hills,” Young said.

The map she endorses joins the far West Valley to the Westside.

Korenstein’s representative on the commission submitted a map that would use Cahuenga Pass to bring a piece of the Westside district into the Valley. That map was drawn by Alan Clayton, research director of the California Latino Redistricting Coalition, which has filed lawsuits contesting political districts that it believed shortchanged Latinos and African Americans.

Clayton said he devised that configuration by listening to Valley residents.

He believes it will ease resentment that still boils from the 1991 redistricting. He says Young’s map will aggravate that tension.

Tokofsky’s representative, Burnside, drew Korenstein’s district into a horseshoe sweeping over the north Valley. It joined the Valley to the Westside over the mountains in Sherman Oaks.

Burnside said she tried to match communities of interest that she believes link Sunland-Tujunga to Chatsworth and Sherman Oaks to Hancock Park. Young said she believes that Woodland Hills is more akin to the Westside.

In drawing the new boundaries, the commission must try to balance a number of goals that sometimes conflict.

A primary goal, as required by the Voting Rights Act, is to maintain each of the seven board districts at about the same population. At the same time, the boundaries have to strive toward racial parity. That means expanding the representation of Latinos.

Meetings on Maps Planned

Currently, Latinos make up more than 70% of the residents within L.A. Unified, but there is only one Latino on the seven-member board. All three maps under consideration provide four districts with majority Latino populations.

Another goal is to try to keep board members’ residences in the districts they would represent. Keely’s map departed from this principle by including board member Julie Korenstein’s home in what would be Westside board member Marlene Canter’s district. Clayton’s map creates a narrow finger that connects Young’s home to the northeast Valley district.

The commission will display the maps and take comments Wednesday at San Fernando Middle School, 130 N. Brand Blvd., San Fernando; Feb. 21, at Locke High School, 325 E. 111th St., Los Angeles; and Feb. 28, at Brooklyn Avenue Elementary, 4620 Cesar Chavez Ave. All meetings begin at 7 p.m.