Well, no big surprises out of the meeting today regarding Alameda County supervisorial redistricting. The proposal going forward for two readings and a final vote is Map E, the Board's proposal that puts Pleasanton 100% in District 4 with Oakland and the Castro Valley area. Web Link

There was no serious consideration given, either by the Board or Vice Mayor Cook-Kallio who spoke at the meeting, to any of the proposals from the independent citizens group, the Alameda County Citizens Redistricting Task Force. VM Cook-Kallio said that Pleasanton appreciated all that Supv Haggerty had done for us, would miss him if the Board's choice was Map E, but looked forward to working with Supv Miley if that was the decision. Almost a repeat of Mayor Hosterman's comments to the Independent last week, without the point about running for one of the supervisor's seats.

In order to determine consensus, the supervisors were asked which maps they objected to. Supvs Carson and Miley had no objections to any maps; Supv Chan objected to Map C because it split the Chinese population she represented; Supv Lockyer objected to Maps C, D and G because they split her Hispanic base and did not preserve the "relationship" she had with her district; Supv Haggerty objected to Map A1 because he didn't realize what a "firestorm" it would cause to split Pleasanton. I was glad to see there was some discussion that the criteria for redistricting did *not* include protecting a supervisor's "relationship" with their current district, however, it was said that supervisors could certainly voice their desire to remain with their current constituents.

Map E was sent forward because it was the only proposal without any objection from any supervisor.

Oh yeah, and Supv Haggerty made sure that the county's legal representative at today's meeting said there were no Brown Act violations in this process. Evidently, because the the three supervisors not on the Ad-Hoc Committee "dropped" in and sat in the audience at various "points" during the 26-minute June 15, 2011, meeting, the "full Board" was publically "advised" on the submitted redistricting proposals and the Brown Act was not violated. OK, sure . . . .

My last comment on this process is that it's too bad we didn't have a voter-mandated Citizens Redistricting Commission, like the one working on the state and congressional districts, at the county level that would have removed the politicians from the redistricting process. Maybe next time.