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1/19/22 Letter to Escondido City Clerk Zack Beck—

California Common Cause (CCC) and the League of Women Voters (LWV) have been closely monitoring the redistricting process in Escondido and are writing to express concern regarding the way the Escondido Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) has been conducting its public hearings. Specifically, we believe that the following practices might be dampening public participation in the redistricting process:

The act of creating map visualizations in real time during meetings advertised as “public hearings” might be depressing community participation. Traditionally, meetings advertised as public hearings are completely set aside for the collection of public comment. Doing real-time map drawing diminishes the total amount of time available to collect public comment. 

The act of not immediately calling upon speakers during these public hearings is reducing public participation in Escondido’s redistricting process. During meetings on January 10, 2022 and January 13, 2022, individuals with their hands raised, either in-person or on Zoom, were asked to wait for the IRC to finish a given task related to drawing a map visualization. This delay in receiving community input  occurred during an agenda item titled “Public Hearing on Communities of Interest.” The priority of the Escondido IRC during such an agenda item should be the receipt of public input on the redistricting process, not the drawing of map visualizations during the time allotted for receiving this input. In addition to the recommendations below, we urge the Escondido IRC to limit repeat speakers and establish more clear parameters for the collection of public comment.

We believe that the deleterious effects of Escondido’s current policies and practices are visible in the low turnout at its meetings, in addition to the consistent repetition of the same commenters who speak multiple times within individual meetings and across meetings in general. 

CCC and LWV urge the Escondido IRC to take steps to increase public turnout by no longer drawing map visualizations in real-time during meetings designated as public hearings and instead to reserve that kind of work for commission meetings. We would also encourage  the IRC to schedule  additional pre-draft map public hearings that are used exclusively to collect public input and not to perform live visualization drawing. Given that Escondido does not have to finish redistricting until 120 days before the upcoming council election in November 2022, we believe that adequate time exists to make such an adjustment. 

Thank you, and please reach out to us with any further questions or comments.

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Karen Sutton

President

League of Women Voters-North County San Diego

 

Kim Knox

President

League of Women Voters-San Diego



Mary Thompson

Civic Engagement Chair

League of Women Voters-North County San Diego



Alesandra Lozano

Program Manager, Voting Rights & Redistricting

California Common Cause



Kaelen Perrochet

Regional Redistricting Advocate

California Common Cause