County Draws Lines, Ire for Redistricting Map

Castro Valley sees few changes in the new Alameda County supervisorial districts set by the Board of Supervisors every ten years following the census, but some neighboring communities were combined differently into districts.

The board voted at a December 2 online meeting to adopt a final map, identified as the “A” map. Aftercounty staff is expected to make minor technical changes, the map still needs a first vote to accept it and then a formal vote to formally pass the map, scheduled for December 14. The first vote was scheduled to be held last night after we went to press.

The redistricting was the first carried out under new laws that stressed keeping together “communities of interest” (COI) even if that meant splitting cities between districts. The COIs could be based on ethnic identity, school boundaries, shared cultural interests, or even how youth sports leagues are organized — anything that would unify a community.

Castro Valley remains in District 4, currently represented by Nate Miley, along with Ashland, Cherryland, and Fairview. There will be less of Pleasanton, however, in District 4, and more in District 1, which contains the rest of the Tri-Valley (Livermore, Dublin and Sunol) and part of Fremont. District 1 is currently represented by Dave Haubert.

Numerous comments at public hearings by Tri-Valley residents wanting all of Pleasanton put into District 1 did not entirely convince the board. The supervisors did, however, acknowledge the community concern, and put more of Pleasanton in District 1.

Jane King commented that the entire Tri-Valley was a community of interest across city lines already. 

“There are lots of organizations called Tri-Valley already, covering all of the cities,” she said.

She added that many people in the Tri-Valley get their health care from Axis Community health, whose offices are in Pleasanton, Livermore, and Dublin.

Al Molling, a Livermore resident, questioned what Fremont would have in common with Livermore, or why anyone would want to split the Tri-Valley between two districts.

“Livermore and Pleasanton even share a fire department,” he said.

Also not getting their wishes were those residents of unincorporated areas who wanted all of them put in a single district. Several went into District 4, but San Lorenzo was included with San Leandro, Alameda, and a small part of Oakland in District 3. District 3 was represented by Wilma Chan until her recent death. Chan's chief of staff, Dave Brown was appointed to fill the rest of her term.

Hayward stayed all in District 2, which is currently represented by Richard Valle, along with Union City, Newark, and part of Fremont. The Hayward City Council had split, however, on whether they wanted to be in one district, where they would be a prime focus of a single supervisor, or in two districts, where two supervisors would need to pay them some special attention.

Speakers from unincorporated areas disagreed on that, too. One speaker pointed out, though, that a majority of the board would be three supervisors, not two. 

Left unspoken at the meeting was that this also would be relevant to whether Oakland ended up in two districts or three, even if only a small part of the city was in the third district. Oakland has too large a population to fit into a single district, which are legally required to be similar in population.

Most of Oakland is split between District 5, which also includes Berkeley and Piedmont, currently represented by Keith Carson, and District 4, represented by Miley, in the new map. A small part is included in District 3.

Members of the County Coalition for Fair Redistricting, a nonprofit set up to push maximum citizen involvement in the process, spoke in favor of one district including all of the Tri-Valley, two districts for Oakland, and one district including the unincorporated areas near Hayward, splitting Hayward itself if necessary.

Group member Kyoko Takayami said minor changes to what the supervisors voted could have accomplished those goals. 

She also noted that the League of Women Voters had recommended the county use a nonpartisan citizens commission to adopt the maps, rather than let current officeholders draw them. 

“That’s how we do it at the state level,” she said, “and some counties took that route. But not ours.”

Casey Farmer, the county’s redistricting community outreach director, said there were some advantages in the map that was adopted. Communities of interest identified in Oakland were mostly kept together, she said, and the country’s largest Afghani-American community in Fremont’s Centerville district was reunited after having been split between two districts 10 years ago.

Also reunified, Farmer said, were the Oakland neighborhoods of Chinatown, Dimond, and Fruitvale.

While the pandemic prevented large, highly visible in-person meetings around redistricting, Farmer noted that over 100 people attended every community meeting held online in the redistricting effort. 

Numerous community organizations took part in redistricting, she said, following up on contacts made during the successful effort to promote a full census count despite the pandemic blocking large public events. Redistricting both follows and is based on the census, Farmer added.