Santa Rosa narrows possible electoral districts to six

The Santa Rosa City Council last week pared down a long list of maps of possible future electoral districts to a handful, but consensus remains elusive on the best way to carve the city into the fairest possible political fiefdoms.

The list of 28 different maps - created by the city’s demographer based on public response - was whittled down to just six by the end of Tuesday’s council meeting in an effort to focus what so far has been an unwieldy mapping process for the council and the public.

“It’s difficult for us to look at 28 maps,” Mayor Chris Coursey said. “It’s very difficult for the public to try to sort this out.”

In the face of a lawsuit claiming its election system disenfranchises Latinos, the city is in the midst of switching to district-based elections. When implemented, the seven council members, like county supervisors, will be elected from specific areas of the city instead of citywide.

So instead of being able to vote for three candidates this fall and four in 2020, voters will be able to vote only for a single candidate who lives in their district.

Figuring out how to chop the city into seven equal-sized chunks of 25,000-ish residents has proved tricky, however, in part because of just how many maps there are to consider. Council members sought to winnow the list of potential districts down to a more manageable number so they and the public can have a more productive discussion about the key themes underlying the effort.

Should the downtown have a single council member represent it for simplicity or several because it’s too important to have just one vote on the council?

Should Coffey Park and Fountaingrove be in separate districts because they’re separated by Highway 101 or a single one because they’re both in north Santa Rosa?

Should Roseland have a single representative or be divided in a way that gives two Roseland residents the chance to serve on the council?

Of these, the issue of how many districts should touch the downtown has emerged as a key and potentially divisive issue. Coursey and others made a strong case that the downtown, because it is both an economic engine and future site of significant housing, needs to be represented by multiple council members.

That struck some members of the public as a power grab by already influential business interests, but Coursey rejected that notion.

“Having multiple districts touch the downtown is not a gift to the business community,” Coursey said. “It’s a recognition that the downtown is important to everyone in this city. It’s the most vital part of the city. It’s where we’re going to be able to generate the revenues to help us pay for things that the people throughout the city want to have done.”

To that end, he advocated for a map, No. 102, that has three different districts representing a portion of the downtown core.

The map envisions District 2 beginning at the northern edge of the city in the Skyfarm and Fountaingrove areas and stretching down into the Junior College neighborhood to City Hall.

It also called for District Four to cover the west side of the city north of Santa Rosa Creek to Guerneville Road, including Railroad Square and reaching across Highway 101 to Mendocino Avenue.

And District 6 would straddle Highway 101 from the city’s southern boundary, cross Highway 12, and meet up with those other two districts near Santa Rosa Creek.

The three districts would meet just north of the intersection of Sonoma and Mendocino avenues, at the bridge over Santa Rosa Creek.

A new map posted online Friday goes one step further, creating four districts with a piece of downtown. It does so by letting the Roseland district stretch northeast into the southern half of Railroad Square, extend beneath the freeway to grab the southern third of the Santa Rosa Plaza shopping center and the city Transit Mall.

Another question is how much Highway 101 and Highway 12 should be used as boundaries. Coursey has said he prefers districts that cross over such boundaries but others, like Tom Schwedhelm, said at times they seem appropriate.

Schwedhelm, who lives in Coffey Park, said he and his neighbors on the west side of the six-lane Highway 101 view their neighborhood as separate from the Fountaingrove neighborhood to the east.

“That is a separator for me,” Schwedhelm said.

This tension between using existing boundaries or ignoring them has run throughout the mapping process, but the idea of having at least one district that crosses Highway 101 now seems to have strong support.

Of the six maps that are now the council’s focus, all contain some districts that cross the freeway, some dramatically. Map 101 contains a central Santa Rosa district that runs from Summerfield Road in Montgomery Village through downtown all the way to Stony Point Road, which Allen Thomas, a resident of the West End neighborhood, said seemed to him a stretch.

Another map of interest to the council, No. 114, contains one of the more oddly shaped districts being considered. District 7 on that map runs east from Farmer’s Lane to Stony Point Road below College Avenue. But then it makes an torturous meander south to grab a thin ribbon of commercial area between Highway 101 and Santa Rosa Avenue all the way to the city limits.

The other maps the council intends to focus on include:

Map 113, noteworthy for a sprawling northeast district ranging from Skyfarm to Skyhawk, as well as a central district linking leafy Rincon Valley to the higher-density subdivisions west of the rail line along North Dutton Avenue.

Map 121, which links the Fountaingrove neighborhood to the Junior College, splits Roseland into two districts, contains a single district for the downtown and stretches past Northwest Community Park.

Map 127, which lops off much of the top of Roseland by drawing its northern boundary along Sebastopol Road, and includes a District 4 that stretches from Skyfarm down nearly to Juilliard Park.

The shortlist is by no means definitive. All the maps are subject to changes, whether to balance their populations, keep neighborhoods more intact, or achieve other goals.

The public has a chance to submit maps of their own through March 30. The deadline will allow the city’s demographer to input them into the mapping software and post them online before an April 10 public meeting. The council is expected to pick a map at this meeting, which would become final April 17.

On April 10 the council also is expected to address the touchy issue of sequencing, or which districts are up for election in 2018 and which in 2020, a decision that could affect whether current council members can continue serving.

For the complete list of maps as well as an interactive mapping tool allowing for comparison of each and demographic data, and upcoming meeting details, visit srcity.org/2593/District-Based-Elections

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 707-521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.