Signal Hill City Council discussed the preliminary boundaries of the city’s new voting districts and chose a map to start working from at the Oct. 13 meeting.
Five voting districts are slated to kick in during the November 2028 election, but the map must be adopted and finalized into the City’s ordinance by the council in November of this year. Two districts will have an election in 2028, and the other three districts will hold a 2030 election.
This pivotal change responds to the letter of intent to sue Signal Hill from the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. The non-partisan voting rights organization cited underrepresentation of the Latino vote and the California Voting Rights Act, giving the City the option to challenge them in court or voluntarily switch to districts
The Council unanimously chose map 101 out of four options, citing that the district borders keep natural parts of the town together, like the westside, the historical district, the southwest area and a chunk of new condos and apartments.
Another factor the Council considered was its Opportunity Study Areas (OSAs), which are part of the City’s downtown revitalization efforts. Since these OSAs will receive new commercial and residential developments, the Council felt they should be broken up equally in the districts. To do so, they requested a change to map 101 to use Cherry Avenue as a dividing border all throughout the map.
In the original design, District 2 had two OSAs, but they’ll use Cherry Avenue as a border to put one OSA in Districts 1, 2 and 3.
The revised map 101 will return to City Council on Oct. 27, along with any new maps submitted. At that public hearing, the council will make its final decision on a map and decide on a sequence of elections.
The maps were drawn by the National Demographic Corporation (NDC), a research organization the City of Signal Hill hired to facilitate the map-drawing process and ensure the City’s voting district map follows all state and federal guidelines.
In each of the four map options, the five districts contain about 2,380 residents each (allowing for a 10% wiggle room). The districts may differ more in the number of voting-age residents and registered voters.
Dr. Justin Levitt, the Vice President of National Demographics for NDC, explained that some blocks within districts may have a majority population of voters, where perhaps the median age is above 18, while others may have lower voter turnout or fewer voting-age residents.
“This is actually one of the intentions of district elections in general,” Levitt said. “There are parts of the state and the country where turnout rates differ. So by equalizing this total population, the Supreme Court has called it the one-person, one-vote principle. This helps to make sure that children and other non-voters also are equally represented as well as voters and non-citizens.”
While the Supreme Court recently ruled that states cannot create voting district lines based predominately on race, other factors can be used such as partisanship. Levitt says this ruling has left them in a “murky” position.
“We don’t have real guidance from the court on the extent to which race can be a permissible factor to look at in the creation of districts,” Levitt explained, adding that they still examined the possibility of creating maps that prioritize protected classes. However, he said every map they drafted already included a majority protected class, so it didn’t end up being a factor.
The next Census will take place in 2030 and may require redistricting. Thus, the adopted map will be revisited in 2031. Signal Hill will have to reexamine its maps after every Census count, which currently takes place every 10 years.
Each councilmember represents a different district, and residents will only be able to vote on the representative for the district they reside in. Every current councilmember will have the option to finish out the remainder of their term, regardless of what district they end up representing.
The position of mayor will continue to rotate through the council members.
Where a current councilmember resides cannot be taken into consideration when making the map. Multiple current councilmembers may end up living in the same district, in which case, when their election comes up, they can choose to run against one another or as an at-large councilmember, representing all districts.
Elections are expected to follow this format, but may be switched to the inverse:
- 2028: Districts 1, 3 and 5
- 2030: Districts 2 and 4
Residents and councilmembers pushed back against this change at the Oct. 13 meeting. Pam (no last name given), who has lived in Signal Hill for over 20 years, called the change to voting districts a “ridiculous burden” that the City has to do.
Meanwhile, another Signal Hill resident, Mary Gonzalez, asked the council why they didn’t discuss this process at their recent State of the City and said it’s important the council treat this as a change that may result in greater participation for the Latino community.
“I think the hard thing for us with districts is that we really are one city in what we do and we’re very diverse,” Councilmember Keir Jones said. “We have neighborhoods filled with renters and owners, so we don’t really think of ourselves in these little pockets and so as we go to this, we still want to think of this as a city as a whole. We all on the city council today like representing the entire city and the vision of the entire city and focus on bringing our entire population forward, not just the folks who live in our district.”
All five maps are available to view on the City’s drawsignalhill.org, where residents can zoom in and look up specific addresses.
The next public hearing regarding Signal Hill’s district voting maps will take place on Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. at City Hall (2175 Cherry Ave.). Councilmembers will adopt their preferred map at this meeting and choose which districts will have an election in 2028 and 2030. The chosen map will be adopted into the City’s ordinance on Nov. 10.
Residents can email districts@signalhill.org with any questions about the process.
