ESCONDIDO — After a several-month process, the Escondido City Council has approved the city’s new electoral map based on new U.S. Census data and community input.
Since converting to electoral districts in 2013, Escondido City Council is required to redistrict its map one every decade and no longer than 120 days after recent census data is released. The city established an Independent Redistricting Commission to handle the task, which first met at the beginning of 2021.
Several public outreach meetings were held beginning earlier in January to gather community input regarding the redistricting process. Several different visualizations of maps were introduced throughout this time, and the one that received the most approval was Map Visualization 2E.
Council unanimously approved Map 2E as the final map during a special meeting on March 16.
The new map adjusts the four districts based on factors required by federal law, including maintaining relatively equal populations, keeping communities contiguous and compact, protecting communities with shared interests, and protecting racial/ethnic minorities.
As The Coast News previously reported, Escondido is required to maintain at least one district whose majority is a racial/ethnic minority. District 1 met that requirement with a 53.64% Latino population but failed the equal population requirement, as the district’s overall population was significantly smaller than the other three districts.
Under the newly approved map, District 1 will have a 53.61% Latino population and 37,457 people.
District 2 will have 38,358 people, District 3 will have the most with 38,821 people, and District 4 now has the smallest population of the four districts with 36,880 people.
Resident Pam Albergo wrote a letter to Council expressing her support for Map 2E.
“I believe Map 2E has been developed after the redistricting committee listened to all of the input from the community and found what I believe is the best map that reflects the city’s current population and its changed needs since our last map was developed in 2013,” Albergo’s letter read. “This map will give a voice to our agricultural community in District 2, our urban core in Districts 1 and 3, and our transportation corridor in District 4.”
