The Palm Springs City Council adopted a new district map Thursday.
The new map will result in relatively minimal boundary changes from the current map.
The Sunmor neighborhood, on the west side of the airport, moved from District 3 to District 1, while a small number of homes centered around Arnico Street in the Gene Autry neighborhood moved from District 1 to District 2.
Another small section of downtown centered on the Palm Springs Art Museum moved from District 5 to District 2, reuniting it with the rest of the Old Las Palmas neighborhood with which it is sometimes associated. Two streets in the Lawrence Crossley neighborhood will move from District 4 to District 1.
By law, city council districts should contain roughly the same number of residents — in the case of Palm Springs, that’s about 8,900 people in each of the five districts. According to an attorney hired by the city to assist with redistricting, the courts currently allow a total 10% deviation in the size of council districts within a city.
District populations are allowed to vary by up to 10% in the interest of keeping together “communities of interest” — that is, communities that share commonalities such as a neighborhood or school.
The total deviation between the size of the council districts under the new map, which is known as Map L, will be 7.55%.
The selection of Map L on Thursday was the culmination of a roughly three-month process that cities must complete to update their district maps following the completion of the 2020 Census. In Palm Springs, that process included four public hearings during city council meetings as well as community meetings in each current council district.
This was also the first time Palm Springs has held a redistricting process since it moved from at-large council elections to district-based ones.
In November, an attorney hired by the city to guide the redistricting process informed the council that while the city had barely grown since the 2010 Census, the council districts had become unbalanced beyond the 10% total deviation limit as a result of uneven population growth. Therefore, the district boundaries would have to be adjusted.
Throughout the process, the city council repeatedly emphasized that it would prioritize adopting a map that includes a district where racial majorities together constitute a majority. Under the current council map, District 1 is that minority-majority district and will remain one under the new map.
The law firm the city was consulting with initially suggested that District 1 could not be maintained as a minority-majority district. However, in December, the council was shown a map option that preserved District 1 as a minority-majority district.
The subsequent two redistricting meetings focused on minor adjustments to that map.
The last tweak made Thursday was to modify the boundaries of District 3 to include the downtown section, which brought Old Las Palmas — which had previously been split between District 5 and District 3 — together. That change added 80 people to the district, Councilmember Geoff Kors said.
The largest district under the new map will be District 4, with 9,005 residents. The smallest district will be District 1, with 8,863 residents.
None of the residents who are moving districts are moving from one that will vote in 2022 to one that will vote in 2024, which the council repeatedly cited as another priority.
The new map, labeled as Map L, can be viewed at psdistricts.com.
Districts 1, 2 and 3 up for election in fall
The District 1, 2 and 3 seats will be up for election this November, while Districts 4 and 5 will not be up until November 2024. Several people have already announced their candidacies, or lack thereof, for those seats up for election this year.
Grace Garner has announced she will seek re-election in District 1.
In District 2, incumbent Dennis Woods has not announced whether he will seek re-election. He told The Desert Sun on Jan. 23 that he was still considering whether to run and would make an announcement soon.
That was the same day Destination PSP owner Jeffrey Bernstein announced that he would also be running for the District 2 seat. Earlier this month, Woods called for an investigation into Palm Springs’ Measure J Oversight Commission, alleging the appearance of conflicts of interest for Bernstein and other members. He later apologized while walking back for many of his concerns about him.
In District 3, Geoff Kors has announced he will not seek re-election after serving two terms. Ron deHarte, the president of Greater Palm Springs Pride and chair of the Palm Springs Human Rights Commission, has announced he is running for that seat.
While District 4 will not be up for reelection, there is a chance it could also be represented by someone new sooner than that. That’s because in January, Councilmember Christy Holstege launched a campaign to represent California Assembly District 47.
If Holstege wins that assembly seat in November, the city council will have 60 days to either appoint someone to finish out her term or schedule a special election.
Mayor Lisa Middleton, who represents District 5, had announced in November that she would be running for state Senate. However, following the senate redistricting process, Palm Springs was moved into state senate District 19, which will not be up for reelection until 2024. Middleton said in December she is still planning to run for the seat at that time.
Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the City of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and via email at [email protected].
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism