Santa Rosa City Council to consider final redistricting map Tuesday

The Santa Rosa City Council appears to be largely sticking with the status quo as the city reconfigures district boundaries to account for population loss in northeastern Santa Rosa and growth in the city’s southwest.

The City Council will review and vote on a final map during Tuesday’s council meeting following a monthslong process that was triggered by updated population counts following the 2020 U.S. Census.

Roughly half a square mile of land would shift districts affecting about 3,220 residents in Districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 under the map the council is considering, city spokesperson Kevin King said.

Districts 1, 6 and 7 would remain unchanged, he said.

If approved, the map will set the lines for the city’s seven council districts for the next decade and be used in the November council election where four of seven seats are on the ballot.

Santa Rosa switched to districted elections in 2018 under threat of a lawsuit by a Southern California attorney who claimed the city’s at-large elections disenfranchised minority voters.

Council member John Sawyer, the city’s longest serving incumbent who represents District 2 in southeastern Santa Rosa, said elected officials from the start wanted to ensure there was minimal disruption to the current boundaries so as to not confuse residents. Incumbents likely will benefit from this, too, as they campaign for another four-year term.

“We wanted to keep the districts pretty much intact for the time being and then in 10 years I’m sure things will change enough where it will be important and necessary to make more substantive changes than we want to make this time,” he said.

District 4 will see biggest changes

The city began the redistricting process in October and held five public meetings where residents could provide feedback and review draft maps. Residents also had the opportunity to submit their own maps for the council’s consideration.

Districts should be relatively equal in population, have contiguous boundaries and neighborhoods and “communities of interest” should remain intact, King said.

Santa Rosa’s seven districts will each have about 25,500 people under the new map and changes to the existing boundaries are intended to distribute population more evenly among the districts, he said.

The most significant changes will be in northeastern Santa Rosa’s District 4, which saw a decrease in population, according to the latest Census count.

Council member Victoria Fleming, who has represented the area since 2018, attributed the discrepancy to population loss in Fountaingrove after the 2017 firestorm and a lag in rebuilding efforts while other parts of the city have grown. Inaccurate population counts related to the pandemic and efforts by the previous presidential administration to obstruct the once-in-a-decade effort also may have led to a lower count in her district, Fleming said.

District 4 would absorb the Ridgway Historic District bounded by Ridgway and College avenues and Highway 101 and Mendocino Avenue, which is currently part of District 5. A sliver of District 2 along the Santa Rosa Creek and a small section of District 3 west of Mission Boulevard would also become part of District 4.

District 5 would gain a section of District 2 between the Santa Rosa Creek, Sonoma Avenue, E Street and Brookwood Avenue.

The boundary changes would translate to District 4 gaining nearly 3,000 new residents, while Districts 2 and 3 would each lose about 1,000 residents and District 5 would lose about 600 residents, according to the city.

Council members say changes keeps focus on critical issues

Mayor Chris Rogers said the map being considered keeps neighborhoods whole and ensures areas such as Roseland can continue having representation on the dais.

Council members did not want to split neighborhoods and felt more drastic changes to the boundaries would be confusing to residents who are still getting accustomed to districted elections, he said.

Feedback from residents also showed they favored minimal changes, the mayor said.

The council reviewed two other maps that ultimately were tossed. One divided Coffey Park along the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit line, a divider used in Sonoma County’s redistricting process, and would’ve created a single district out of southwestern Santa Rosa. The other split Roseland in two.

Rogers described them as “completely unworkable” and said he didn’t favor any changes that would harm Roseland’s ability to elect its own representation since much of the districting process has been driven by efforts to ensure historically marginalized groups have adequate representation on the council.

Splitting neighborhoods in northern Santa Rosa would’ve diluted their ability to lobby for their interests, too, Fleming said.

Maintaining similar boundaries could benefit more than just residents though as the proposed new lines also favor sitting council members.

Sawyer said major changes to the boundaries could’ve pushed an incumbent out of their district.

The council already experienced a shake up when Jack Tibbetts resigned in December, triggering an election this fall to fill the remainder of his term. Longtime Council member Tom Schwedhelm isn’t seeking a third term leaving northwestern District 6 up for grabs.

This will provide stability on the council as members tackle issues from pandemic recovery downtown to housing and homelessness, said Sawyer, who is up for reelection but was not yet ready to say publicly whether he would run again.

Fleming agreed and said the council didn’t want to make changes that would “distract from the business at hand.”

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @paulinapineda22.