Del Mar No Longer Part of North Coastal San Diego?
The time is NOW to oppose a redistricting proposal to remove Del Mar from its North Coastal Congressional District. Submit your comments today!
The California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC) is currently meeting to make key redistricting decisions – and it appears to be on the verge of drawing Del Mar right out of North County.
The “visualization map” currently displayed on CRC’s website draws a line at the Del Mar-Solana Beach border – a line that leaves Solana Beach in the North Coastal Congressional District, but moves Del Mar to a district that includes La Jolla, University City, Coronado, and Imperial Beach.
Read on to learn more, and for suggestions on submitting effective comments.
Ways to submit comments (this is time-critical: do it today!):
By phone:
TODAY starting at 2PM: Call in number: 877-853-5247
Code: 875 2728 4951 *9 to queue.
By email:
Emails should go to votersfirstact@crc.ca.gov, copied to marcy.kaplan@crc.ca.gov and linda.akutagawa@crc.ca.gov
For good measure, submit a comment via the CRC’s online comment form:
WHY DEL MAR SHOULD REMAIN IN THE NORTH COASTAL DISTRICT:
Our communities of interest align with North County.
The CRC follows the criteria in the California Constitution (relevant excerpt below) in re-drawing Congressional districts following a census. It is NOT relevant whether you “like” your current Member of Congress and wish to stay in his or her district. What does matter: keeping communities of interest together.
Here are key communities of interest that Del Mar shares with the North County cities that are proposed to remain in this North Coastal district while Del Mar is removed from it:
Transit — Del Mar is part of, and served by, the North County Transit District and serves on its governing board, along with other jurisdictions in the north coastal district. The proposed district would put us with cities in San Diego’s MTS system. Our community of interest with respect to transit is with North County.
Fire Protection — Del Mar shares a Fire Chief and top management with Solana Beach and Encinitas. Again, our community of interest is with North County.
Clean Energy — Del Mar is a founding city, along with Solana Beach and Carlsbad, of the Clean Energy Alliance (CEA), and other North County cities in the North Coastal Congressional District are also joining the CEA (Escondido), or are considering doing so (San Marcos, Oceanside, Vista, San Clemente). When it comes to energy services, Del Mar’s community of interest is with North County.
Education — Del Mar’s High School and Community College Districts are shared with other communities in the North County district.
Environmental & Open Space — Del Mar shares significant environmental resources and concerns with our North County neighbors: the San Dieguito Lagoon and San Dieguito River; bluff erosion and protection issues; lagoon restoration issues, and more. And we share the threat of SONGS radiation contamination with other North County cities that are close to this decommissioned nuclear power plant, as we are.
California Constitution Article XXI, Section 2(d):
“The commission shall establish single-member districts for the Senate, Assembly, Congress, and State Board of Equalization pursuant to a mapping process using the following criteria…
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(4) The geographic integrity of any city, county, city and county, local neighborhood, or local community of interest shall be respected in a manner that minimizes their division to the extent possible… A community of interest is a contiguous population which shares common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation. …”