Citrus College Redistricting Balances Population, City Boundary Interests

Citrus College fielded community input on the redistricting of the five trustee area boundaries during a public forum Tuesday on the Citrus campus.

Done once every 10 years, the redistricting process takes into account the population and demographic changes of each district. For Citrus College, the five districts and their elected Board of Trustees representative, encompass the communities of Glendora, Azusa, Claremont, Duarte, and Monrovia.

As in the case of legislative redistricting, the goal of redrawing community college trustee areas is based on several factors, such as creating equal sizes of population, following contiguous boundary lines, keeping communities of like interests and city boundaries together as much as possible, and taking into account incumbents’ home base.

Similar to the recent Census data, Glendora showed minimal population change in its district, with the majority of the city represented by Trustee Area 4, and representd by Trustee Board member Dr. Patricia Rasmussen. Based on redistricting data, Trustee Area 4 had actually decreased in population by 3 percent, falling below the redistricting goal population of 43,358.

“We may look at taking another chunk from another district to make up for the decline,” said Stacy Berger of Community College League of California.

While most of Glendora remained intact within Trustee Area 4, comments were made regarding the area on Citrus Avenue not included in the Trustee Area.

“The main constraint for some districts is to maintain its Citizen Voting Age Populations,” said Paul Mitchell of Redistricting Partners, referring to the protected ethnic group populations. Because of the density of the Latino population, Mitchell said the area was included in District 1, which maintains a 55 percent Latino population.

“We can’t cut out chucks and regress the number of minority populations of interest,” said Berger.

Other public comment concerns included the gerrymandering lines encompassing the cities of Duarte, Azusa and Monrovia.

Mitchell said Redistricting Partners would take a look at the district boundaries and try to reunify cities without threatening the VRA balance.

Based on input from the public and the Board of Trustees, Redistricting Partners will draw up three possible maps for the Board of Trustees to approve during a meeting in August.

For more information visit http://redistrictingpartners.com/community-colleges/ or call (925) 413-3201.