Kings County supervisors adopt anonymously drawn map over public opposition
.JPG "Kings County Board of Supervisors Chairman Craig Pedersen, left and Supervisor Doug Verboon voted on Dec. 14 in favor for the formal adoption of a supervisorial map that was submitted anonymously during the county’s redistricting process.")
Despite public opposition, the Kings County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday morning voted 3-2 for the formal adoption of a supervisorial map that was submitted anonymously during the county’s redistricting process following Census data that shows Latinos with 56.8% of the population.
The county has no way to find out who submitted the anonymous map, according to county counsel Diane Freeman.
Supervisors Craig Pedersen, Doug Verboon and Richard Fagundes voted in favor while supervisors Richard Valle and Joe Neves voted against.
Verboon, who made the motion to approve the resolution, which was seconded by Fagundes, said “120 close enough to 113, does the least amount of changes to our map.”
Because Kings is a general law county, the board only needed three votes to approve a new map.
“I will be voting no on today’s resolution and asking the board to do the same so that we can have the opportunity to do the right thing and come back and have the discussion and the opportunity here to bring back some integrity into this process and bring back some transparency into this process,” said Valle before the board voted. “As counsel pointed out, we do have two good maps, Public 101 and Public Map 113 B.”
Public 101 and 113 B maps were the two maps listed on the redistricting website for consideration after the board had settled on them at a Nov. 16 public hearing to bring back for discussion on Dec. 7.
According to administrative analyst Matthew Boyett, Public Map 120, which was presented to the board at the Dec. 7 public hearing, was submitted by the 5 p.m., Nov. 22 deadline and published on the redistricting website, www.redistrictkings.com on Nov. 29.
Despite Public Map 120 being posted on the redistricting website eight days before the last public hearing, no public comment was allowed on it at the Dec. 7 public hearing. The board did not discuss the new map, but board chair Pedersen made the motion to approve Map 120 with Verboon seconding the motion last week.
That map was approved by a majority vote.
Defending last week’s actions
Pedersen and Verboonn defended last week’s vote.
“There were two different motions made. Neither got a second. I took this seriously; I studied the maps,” Pedersen said of comments about last meeting.
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“The job of this board is to try to find a map and not to let it go to court and with the lack of a second for either of the motions that were made, I took the initiative to endorse a map which I believe captures the requirements of the law,” Pedersen said. “And I’m not sorry that I did that. It moves the process forward and y’all can have your opinions on whatever has occurred, but I did this in a professional manner and I made my choice and that’s what it finally comes to.”
“You know you all have the choice. You’re all voters and you can do what you want to do after this. But I did this in a professional manner. I’m proud of what I do and I’m proud of what I represent here and I’m proud of my decision and it moves the county forward,” Pedersen said.
“A lot of us don’t need to be here. If we do this because of people who want us to be here to represent our districts,” Verboon said. “And I think it’s disrespectful for Map 101 to carve out two sitting county supervisors. Supervisor Neves is carved out. Supervisor Pedersen is carved out.”
“I don’t think Supervisor Valle would appreciate if we carved him out of the map. I think we have respect for each other. That map is disrespectful as far as we sit. I’m not gonna choose it for that reason,” Verboon said of Map 101.
You can listen to Verboon’s comments starting at the 1:15:08 minute mark on the YouTube recording of today’s board meeting here.
Valley Voices’ map 101 did not take into consideration the location of any of the current board of supervisors’ residences, but rather used indicators such as the residential clustering of groups of voters with common interests, the locations of municipal boundaries or physical geographic features and the desire to keep a district relatively close together.
“The public has come or the Valley Voices group has come here on multiple occasions and ridiculed us, called us names, called us all kinds of stuff so they didn’t do their selves any good by doing that. So that’s why I chose Map 113,” said Verboon.
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“There was no need to even change the maps, but we were gonna adjust them to fit the needs for next 10 years,” Verboon said.
Pedersen represents Armona and parts of Hanford.
Verboon represents north Hanford, the Island District and north Lemoore.
Fagundes represents Hanford and Burris Park.
Neves represents Lemoore and Stratford.
Valle represents Avenal, Corcoran, Home Garden and Kettleman City.
Verboon said Pedersen does a good job representing Armona like Valle does in representing Home Garden. “I don’t want to see that change,” he said.
“We appreciate your comments. We appreciate you coming here. We took note of it. Why are we not going 101? It’s disrespectful for sitting board member to take out another board member for the map. The people voted us in office. And we’re here doing our jobs,” Verboon said, adding that from public comments he has heard the opposite, “to keep the district lines the same.”
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National Demographics Corporation consultants that were hired by the county to conduct the redistricting process has reminded the board during the redistricting process that they should stay away from what they call “incumbency protection.”
Community outrage by board’s action on Map 120
At today’s public comment, community members continued to speak in support of Map 101, brought up the discrepancies that occurred at last week’s public hearing involving Map 120 and asked the board to be fair and reconsider last week’s vote.
Public Map 101, was submitted by the nonprofit organization Valley Voices, which has been engaging with the community in Kings County by collecting community of interest surveys and hosting weekly redistricting Zoom meetings.
“I understand and respect the board authority to select and adopt whichever map it chooses. It does disappoint me that despite all the public comments supporting Public Map 101, the majority of the board ignored those comments completely,” said Avenal City Manager Antony V. López, adding that the board “elected to elevate a random map” and rushed to adopt any map that was not Public Map 101 without discussion or explanation given to the public.
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“Change is needed. Change is good. There’s a whole point of performing the census and redistricting every 10 years,” said López, who like many others, urged the board “do the right thing and pick Public Map 101.”
“Don’t be afraid to make change for the better,” said Avenal resident Lupe Chávez to the board.
“We didn’t have an opportunity to spend a lot of time with it (Map 120). So again, I would ask you, as others have, to reconsider your vote from last week and to adopt public MAP 101,” said Barbara Castle.
Claire Fitiausi, community outreach for Valley Voices, said the actions of Pedersen and Verboon at the Dec. 7 public hearing were alarming.
“The speed with which Verboon gave a second to Peterson’s motion to adopt 120 within seconds and with no public discussion makes me think that there were private conversations outside of the public meeting. This is an obvious Brown Act violation,” Fitiausi told the board.
“So much has been said about involving the community and the community have showed up. We spent hours looking at maps and reading about redistricting and the Voting Rights Act and Fair Maps Act and talking to people about how a good map could bring better representation for our ever-changing community,” Fitiausi said. “We showed up and we spoke on the record and overwhelmingly endorsed Public Map 101.”
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“I’m on the record today telling you that you will be held accountable for your vote. There have been public comments from residents in each of your districts supporting Public Map 101,” Fitiausi said. “Yet over the course of just a few minutes last week, you discounted each and every one of those endorsements to pick a map that essentially maintains the status quo and your paycheck, which is exactly what happened a decade ago.”
“You proceeded to pull this map out of thin air and adopt it. A map that is almost an exact replica of the current maps we have,” said community member Yvette Chaídez of the board not allowing public comment last week. “A map that has not had a single soul show up in support of.”
“Then to see blatant lies on the Redistrict Kings Facebook page, citing careful consideration shows just how duplicity this board is. You should be ashamed of yourselves. This board is a perfect example of why it is so important for community members to get educated about and involved in all aspects of local government,” Chaídez said.
“I’m outraged. And I don’t need to be a fan of you. I don’t need you to like me. I need you to do your jobs. And you’re not doing it,” Chaídez said.
Cathy Jorgensen told the board the Facebook post was a lie since there was not discussion on Map 120.
“No one knows where Map 120 comes from. I have my suspicions,” Jorgensen said.
“This is not a game. We’re serious, we care. Mr. Pedersen, you are my supervisor and I don’t feel that you care about me or anyone else in the district other than maybe a few rich farmers,” Jorgensen said.
Valle told the board the public is correct about last week’s recount since he was the one who asked the board if any of them wanted to discuss any of the new maps that came in, including Map 120. He said no one spoke up, including Pedersen.
“That’s not right. Mr. Chair, that lacks transparency. That lacks integrity. That puts the county at risk,” Valle said, adding that his call on county administrators to look into the post got no response.
Valle said he also wants to know where Map 120 came from and hasn’t get a response either.
Every 10 years, county supervisorial districts must to be redrawn to ensure each supervisor represent approximately the same number of people.
The deadline for counties to adopt new redistricting maps is Dec. 15.
