SANTEE REDRAWING ITS DISTRICT BOUNDARIES

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By Mike Allen

Photo:  the current Santee district boundaries

February 2, 2022 (Santee) -- The city of Santee continues the process of redoing the boundaries for its four electoral districts, which will likely result in keeping the lines as they currently are.

At the City Council’s last meeting on Jan. 26, the five-member board was updated on the process and presented with the current district map and one alternate map to consider. It was the third public hearing of the four required before the council adopts a final district map before the deadline of April 17. The document will be delivered to the county’s Registrar of Voters, which oversees all local elections.

Stephanie Smith, an attorney from the city’s contracted law firm of Best, Best & Kreiger, said Santee doesn’t have to change anything about its current district map because it conforms legally to federal and state laws governing district composition.

“Your current districts are in compliance with federal and state law,” Smith said. “They meet all the boxes; they check everything on the map.”

Because the city’s population is just above 60,000, the target population for each of the four districts is 15,040. Districts have to be balanced, and differences between the largest and smallest should not exceed 10 percent.

In Santee’s case, three districts are above 15,000, and one, District 4 is at 14,629, which gives that district  a raw deviation of 2.74 percent below the ideal target population.

Unlike some other cities in the county, Santee’s population characteristics, as revealed in the last census in 2020, does not require that it create  “a majority minority district,” Smith said.

“You have a lot of minorities that live in your community, but they are dispersed throughout the community,” she said.

The white population in each of the four districts ranges from 8,992 in District 2 to 10,022 in District 1. Only in District 2 does the non-white population get above 5,000. The largest minority group is Latinos, at about 11,000, or 18.5 percent of Santee’s total population of 60,162.

The next largest minority groups are Asian and then black.

To create a majority minority district, the boundaries would have to be drawn in a zig-zag manner, which would not comply with the Fair Voting Rights Act, Smith said.

Smith did present the council with one alternative map that shifted some of the census tracts and would reduce the total deviation of the entire city slightly, but the difference as displayed on a map showing the two versions was difficult to see.

Santee residents were invited to draw their own maps and submit them to the city. The software tool to create a map can be accessed via the city’s website, https://www.cityofsanteeca.gov. For those trying the exercise, they should be aware that maps are broken down in census blocks which could involve dozens or hundreds of residents. So moving lines around can be a bit tricky, Smith said.

Smith apologized for not having the software tool posted on the website earlier, but promised it would be available by Jan. 27. She said the tool on the city’s website is much more user friendly than some other versions she has used. In past workshops, she observed seniors drawing maps quite easily on their iPads.

Santee will hold the fourth public hearing on the district boundary maps on Feb. 23, then will hold at least one other hearing in March before the map is voted on and adopted.

Santee adopted its first district map for the November elections in 2018. City voters elect councilmembers from four districts, and a mayor on a city-wide basis.

This November, elections are scheduled for Districts 1 and 2, which are now represented by Councilman Rob McNelis and Vice Mayor Ronn Hall.

 


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