Community college district narrows redistricting scenarios

By Rebecca Ray

After spending two months examining various redistricting scenarios, the West Valley-Mission Community College District Board of Trustees narrowed it down to two possible scenarios at a recent board meeting. Trustees will decide whether or not to adopt one of the scenarios at the Dec. 13 board meeting or afterward.

Under the current setup, the college district is divided into three areas, based on the boundaries of three high school districts--the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District, the Campbell Union High School District and the Santa Clara Unified School District. Out of seven trustees, two each represent the Los Gatos-Saratoga and Santa Clara district areas, while three represent the Campbell area.

Board members are considering redistricting because of a recent study conducted by Lapkoff and Gobalet Demographic Research Inc. The study showed that the Los Gatos-Saratoga area was overrepresented, while the other two areas were underrepresented. The current scheme deviates from the ideal representation of one person, one vote by almost 80 percent.

Under one alternative scenario that board members agreed to examine at the Nov. 15 meeting, district areas are based on city boundaries. One area includes Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and the parts of Saratoga in the district. Another area contains Campbell and adjoining parts of San Jose. The third area consists of the parts of Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Cupertino in the district, as well as a part of San Jose that's north of Santa Clara.

Under the scenario, two trustees represent the Santa Clara area, four board members represent the Campbell area and one trustee represents Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and Saratoga. The scenario deviates from ideal representation by 38.1 percent.

Another alternative board members agreed to consider Nov. 15 deviates from perfect representation by only 5.9 percent. Under this scenario, Campbell, parts of Los Gatos that are east of Highways 85 and 17 and an adjoining part of San Jose make up one area. Monte Sereno, Saratoga and the rest of Los Gatos constitute another area. Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Cupertino and parts of San Jose that are north and south of Santa Clara make up a third area. While one board member would represent the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno-Saratoga area, three each represent the Santa Clara and Campbell areas.

Board President Nancy Rucker says she is requesting that the board examine a third scenario discussed Nov. 15. Under this scenario, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Saratoga and an adjoining part of San Jose make up one area and merit the representation of two trustees. Two board members also represent the Campbell area, and three represent the Santa Clara area. All three areas include parts of San Jose. The scenario deviates from ideal representation by 5.1 percent.

All three alternative scenarios call for the board to retain an at-large election, which means that every voter in the district votes for all trustee seats.

Trustee Chris Constantin says he favors the scenario based on city boundaries, because the boundaries make more sense than scenarios based on arbitrary streets. Also, he says, people within cities have the most in common, in that the same municipal laws govern them.

Constantin says that the parts of San Jose that surround Campbell belong in the same area. One undesirable scenario, according to Constantin, is having too many trustees coming from San Jose, leading to that city having a "super-majority" on the board.

Constantin isn't pushing for the part of San Jose that's north of Santa Clara to belong to the same area as the rest of San Jose, because state law recommends that portions of land within an area be contiguous.

Rucker says she would like to examine the scenarios with lower deviations, because as long as the trustees are redrawing district boundaries, they might as well examine scenarios that come closer to equal representation.

Once the board approves a new redistricting scenario, the County Committee on School District Organization holds a public hearing and then reviews it. Once the committee approves it, voters vote under the new redistricting scheme during the next board election to occur at least 120 days after the approval, unless 5 percent of district voters file a petition.

The next election will occur in November 2002, when the four-year terms of Rucker and the two trustees from Saratoga, Jeffrey Schwartz and Don Wolfe, end.

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