Letters to the Editor: A new L.A. council district map that makes sense? Yes please
Editor’s note: We have a new council district map that makes sense, and we’d be grateful if you would write a letter to the editor about it. It’s the Map Cactus at Large, and it’s open to letters. Send your letter to this address by February 11. For suggestions on how you might approach the issue, read this article.
The City of Los Angeles’s original map design for the new L.A. Council District 10 district — and the map that currently is in force for the first time — is the Map Cactus at Large.
If you haven’t already read about it, visit the website of the Santa Monica-based Nonprofit Corporation that’s managing the project. It’s the Map Cactus Alliance, and it’s open to letters now, as well as to submissions to the L.A. Times editorial board. This is, after all, the Times’s first ever letter to the editor.
You can also contact the Planning Department or City Council to speak with one of the many planners, engineers and planners. And you can visit the City Council Website, which has lots of maps — but not that one.
The Map Cactus at Large is based on the old map for Council District 30, which, as you know, was the same area as Council District 10, except that District 30 was drawn to make L.A. County more contiguous.
Here’s a map of Council District 30, after all:
The new map for Council District 10 is more logical and more compact. The new map has one councilman whose district is roughly equivalent in size to District 30’s old one.
But what makes that map more logical and more compact compared to the old one that was used to draw the new District 10?
There are four main reasons:
1. Two new councilmen, Jeff Drake (District 1) and Larry Agran (District 4), are being added to the map (both from District 30, as it happens) with the same boundaries as Councilman Agran’s old district. The new District 10 borders the City on the north, with the new District 1 on the east, District 4 on the south, and District 5 on the west.
2