OCEANSIDE – The Oceanside City Council selected a finalist among three draft district maps to move forward in the city’s redistricting process.
In early February, the council chose three map visualizations created by both staff and the public to become draft map options for consideration at the Feb. 23 meeting.
City Council started the redistricting process at the beginning of this year, hosting several public hearings at each council meeting plus some additional community meetings as well. The city is required to shift its districts after the 2020 Census determined their populations had fallen out of balance.
Draft Maps A and B were both options created by staff, while Draft Map C was originally submitted as “Joel’s Map” by a member of the public.
Residents have been submitting their own materials to the city’s redistricting website, which allows users to create their own maps of what they think the new districts should look like. They’ve also been able to create their own “communities of interest” in an effort to keep certain neighborhoods together in one district rather than split between two or more.
Joel’s Map was revised slightly at the previous council meeting to have Districts 1 and 3 split along Oceanside Boulevard and to prevent splitting a neighborhood in District 3 around Galbar Street, thus creating what is now Draft Map C. In the end, Council chose this map as its finalist in a majority vote.
Mayor Esther Sanchez was the only member to vote against approving Draft Map C because of how it splits the Rancho Del Oro neighborhood between Districts 1 and 4 at Ivey Ranch Road. Council discussed potentially moving the District 1 and 4 boundary back to Rancho Del Oro Road, but that would have made District 1 off balance by more than 7%, which is beyond the maximum 5% population variance a district is allowed.
Currently, District 1 has a -8.82% population variance which falls over the maximum allowed variance, meanwhile District 3 is currently nearing the maximum variance in the opposite direction at 4.51%.
Under the finalist map, District 1 would have a -0.11% population variance, District 2 would have a 0.22% variance, District 3 would have a 3.66% variance and District 4 would have a -3.78% variance.
“I believe (draft maps) A and B do a better job in terms of trying to avoid splitting communities,” Sanchez said.
Disagreeing with the mayor, Councilmember Christopher Rodriguez pointed out that all three maps end up splitting some communities between districts.
“I can point out 15 different neighborhoods that are getting split in half on all of these maps,” Rodriguez said.
Selecting the draft map was the second to last step in the city’s redistricting process. The final public hearing on March 9 will discuss any additional feedback the community has on the map and end with City Council voting on the finalized map.
