San Rafael officials are poised to leave the city’s electoral district maps unchanged because the existing boundaries comply with legal requirements.
The City Council held a third public hearing Tuesday on how the city’s districts could be redrawn. Even though San Rafael adopted its district map only four years ago, district boundaries have to be reassessed following the national census to ensure that each district has an approximately equal number of residents.
No members of the public submitted maps for consideration by the Feb. 14 deadline. Consultants did provide an alternative district map that would even out the population among the city’s four districts. However, City Council members agreed that without a compelling reason to change the boundaries, they are fine as they are.
“We’re just training the community and all trying to understand how our districts work and what districts people are in,” Vice Mayor Rachel Kertz said, noting that the city has only had one district election since approving its map. “I think any type of change right now would not really be necessary.”
The city’s four districts each have approximately 15,333 residents, with a 8.53% deviation between the most populous and least populous district. The deviation falls within the allowable 10% range.
Because no public maps were submitted, Kristen Parks, a consultant at National Demographics Corp., proposed an alternative map that aimed to achieve a 5.5% deviation.
The existing district map, called Canal Map 3B, was approved in 2018 after a lengthy public process that included several maps proposed by community groups. District 1, known as the south district, includes the Canal area and Spinnaker-Baypoint.
The other districts in San Rafael are District 2, known as the west district, or downtown area; District 3, or the east district, which includes Peacock Gap and China Camp area; and District 4, the north district, which encompasses the Terra Linda area.
Each district had roughly 14,500 people based on the city’s 2010 census estimate.
“It sounds like the lines that we just very recently drew with so much effort,” Councilwoman Maribeth Bushey said.
“I hear loud and clear the absence of any community input on changes being necessary to these district boundaries,” she said. “And I think we should listen to that silence and go forward without making these changes that have been proposed by our consultant.”
The final public hearing is March 21. A district map has to be adopted by April 17.
More information on the city’s districts is at redistrictsanrafael.org.
