SAN FERNANDO VALLEY : Chambers Oppose School Remap Plan

A group of San Fernando Valley chambers of commerce has announced its opposition to a redistricting proposal for the Los Angeles school board, saying it would cut the area’s influence in half.

In a letter to the Los Angeles City Council, which is scheduled to vote on the proposal today, United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley President Robert Scott accused elected officials of caving in to special-interest groups that demanded the remap.

“It is a total abdication of responsibility for the City Council to ‘butcher’ the Valley and ‘bastardize’ the electoral process out of fear and weakness,” he wrote. “We cannot, and must not allow or sacred voting rights to be held hostage by bullies.”

The plan would expand the number of districts in the Valley from two to four. Only one of those districts would be wholly within the Valley. The rest would be weighted heavily with voters from the Westside and East Los Angeles. Scott and other critics of the plan fear that the uneven distribution of voters would weaken the voice of Valley residents.

Supporters of the proposal have threatened to sue if the city does not adopt it. They say new districts are required under the federal Voting Rights Act to give minority voters more power on the board.

But Scott argued in his letter that redistricting would be required only if the current boundaries were shown to be biased intentionally against minority voters. Since no such finding has been made, he said, no redistricting is needed under the law.

The United Chambers of Commerce represents 20 local organizations with a total of about 10,000 members.