In January, the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council requested that the city council Redistricting Commission reunite all of its neighborhoods within one city council district as new boundaries are drawn this year. Â (Currently, the GWNC area lies within 3 city council districts – 4, 5 and 10). Â When the Commission released its first Draft Map of new districts on January 25, the GWNC was united…in City Council District 5 (currently, about 75% of the GWNC’s area falls within CD 4).
Shortly after the release of the draft map, the Redistricting Commission began holding another series of public meetings to solicit feedback on the proposed new boundaries. Â At the first of these meetings, held last week at the Ebell Theater, members of the GWNC thanked the Commission for honoring its request for unity. Â (Not surprisingly, unification – or the lack thereof – was a major theme with attendees from other parts of the city as well: members of the Orthodox Jewish community thanked the commission for uniting their community of interest within CD5…while hundreds of people from Koreatown, which is still divided among several districts in the draft map, protested the split and pleaded for the Commission to keep their area whole as well.)
This week, at the February 8 meeting of the GWNC (7:00 p.m. at the Ebell of Los Angeles, 4400 Wilshire Blvd.), the discussion about Greater Wilshire will continue, as stakeholders and board members discuss whether or not to formally express a preference for unification in a specific council district (and which district that might be). Â All area stakeholders are invited to attend and join in the conversation, which could directly affect representation for our neighborhood for the next 10 years. Â If you’d like to add your voice to the chorus, now is the time. Â The outcome of Wednesday’s meeting will be conveyed later this week to the Redistricting Commission, which will release and send its final map to the City Council before the end of February.
