Follow Mayor Jennifer Fitzgerald’s lucky star to find her in the middle of a district that is somehow not majority Asian American.
In our previous story, the Rag noted that the awful Map # 8A is the only one of the final four District Elections Maps that manages to create a district in the Amerige Heights area that is not majority Asian. It’s quite an accomplishment, given the largely Korean-American population of Amerige Heights and the surrounding area, but somehow the bar owners, or whoever actually drew this map, came out with a district, numbered 1 on their map, that is less than half Asian. The entire reason for establishing district maps in the first place was to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of Asian and Latino voters, who claimed they were not represented on the council under the current at-large system of electing council members.
The other three maps all have an Asian majority in the Northwest region of the city because they don’t include gratuitous finger of land trickling into the downtown area eastward. Map # 8A, proffered by the downtown bar owners to split up Downtown Fullerton’s voting residents in order to preserve their party-town, also lessens the chances of an Asian-American member being elected to the Fullerton City Council. Conveniently enough, this district is where Mayor Jennifer Fitzgerald lives. She, like Council member Greg Sebourn, will have the opportunity on June 7 to vote for a map that gerrymanders their own homes into districts that increase the likelihood of their own re-elections. Is this what the plaintiffs had in mind when they sued the city to create a fairer system of elections?
On June 7 Mayor Fitzgerald and her fellow council members may claim that they are being objective when they vote for a final district elections map to put before the voters in November, but some of them have already compromised the process by discussing the locations of their own residences while deliberating the issue. Giving the terrible Map # 8A any serious consideration at all is enough to make voters question the motives of city council members. The credibility of all members of the Fullerton City Council will depends on who they listen to on June 7. This map should be crumpled up and tossed into the recycle bin.
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