Greetings, Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak at the last city council meeting to share the expertise and resources, including www.localredistricing.org, that CA Common Cause has in setting up an independent redistricting commission. My apologies that I can not attend the meeting on Monday. CA Common Cause has been assisting residents, including Pamela Jones, to address the issue of fairness for Belle Haven's representation. I have also spoken with Mr. Shenkman. Ms. Jones will be making these comments at the meeting and I wanted you to have a copy. "Common Cause could not be here this evening but they have been helping me and other citizens address this issue. They spoke with Mr. Shenkman and we all agree that since the city already has a citizen that would pursue litigation over fairness, ensuring that the district lines do not create additional litigation over fairness would be advisable. Mr. Shenkman agrees that an independent redistricting commission would be best. He would be amenable to an extension to create the commission but, he does not want the process to set up the commission to impede the creation of a Belle Haven district by the 2018 elections. He would also agree to a provision that if the commission can not be set up by the November 2018 elections, it should be instituted by law at a later date. Finally, CA Law, SB 1108 authorizes a general law city to to create a commission to change the districts boundaries. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml ?bill_id=201520160SB1108 " -- Helen Grieco Northern CA Common Cause Organizer 415. 531. 1774 hgrieco_at_(domainremoved)twitter https://twitter.com/#%21/commoncauseca > CA Common Cause http://www.commoncause.org/ca > facebook http://www.facebook.com/commoncauseca > Received on Sun Oct 29 2017 - 11:21:30 PDT
