On Dec. 14, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors approved on a 4-1 vote a district map that primarily impacts the city of Hollister. The deadline to adopt a map was Dec. 15.
The area of Hollister that includes the Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital that was part of District 2 is now part of District 3. The area east of Highway 25 from Sunnyslope to Hillcrest roads changed from District 3 to District 5, which also now includes the Hollister airport and the unincorporated area north of Highways 25 and 156.
Assistant County Counsel Joel Ellinwood said it was impractical to keep Hollister, which has a population of 41,770, within one district.
“In order to equalize the population it’s necessary to provide some portion for the city of Hollister within each of the five districts,” Ellinwood said.
According to the presentation, the map labeled D83953a includes three districts that have a Latino majority population, a concern raised at the Nov. 23 public hearing by Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki, who said it was important the districts reflect the county’s population.
“There are a lot of priorities but we have to make sure that we are compliant and that we are maintaining three districts with a majority of citizens voting age Hispanic and these maps accomplish that,” Kosmicki said of the final maps.
Districts 2, 3 and 5 have a majority Hispanic voting age population. District 1, while its population is 55% Hispanic, 41% are of voting age.
“The goal,” Ellinwood said, “is to have distribution by citizen voting age population to provide for at least three supervisorial districts in which the Hispanics have a majority of the citizens voting age population, which reflects both the rough percent of the population of the county as a whole at 61% and the citizen voting age population of 50%.”
Kosmicki said one of his priorities was having a district map that was geographically continuous and kept neighborhoods together.
The populations per district range from 12,521 in District 1 to 13,029 in District 3.
“This distribution of population represents a maximum deviation from the average (12,867) between the lowest and highest populated district of 3.95%, which is substantially less than other maps submitted for final consideration,” according to the slide presentation.
Supervisors Peter Hernandez, Bob Tiffany and Betsy Dirks said they supported the map because it had minor changes, the population was evenly spread out, and it provided geographical continuity.
Supervisor Bea Gonzales said she supported the NDC3 map, which differs from D83953a in that District 3 extends from the corner of Nash and Riverside to the Highway 156 and Union Road intersection.
“I thought that was the best map that addressed all of the issues,” Gonzales said. “I saw it being compliant, I saw that it took in some of the concerns that the public had inquired about, it gave the opportunity for all the supervisors to have both rural and city limits, it protected the communities of interest.”
Gonzales was the lone vote opposing the D83953a map.
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