Got an opinion about new Newport-Mesa school trustee areas? Speak up at 3 public hearings

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District will hold three public hearings in the coming months to collect additional community input on redrawing the district’s trustee area boundaries.

School board members voted unanimously Tuesday to schedule the meetings for Sept. 18 in the Newport Harbor High School theater, Sept. 28 in the theater at Costa Mesa High School and Oct. 9 in the district’s Costa Mesa boardroom.

All three are expected to run from 6 to 8 p.m.

During the hearings, residents will have the chance to address the board, but there will be no discussion between board members and speakers.

The hearings follow two public meetings the district held in March to discuss the proposed zone adjustments.

Board members are considering two alternatives — Options B and G — for shifting the boundaries of Newport-Mesa’s seven trustee areas, which haven’t changed since the school district formed in 1966.

One goal of the effort is to better balance the population living in each trustee’s area. A recent board report indicated some areas have as many as 46,000 residents while others have around 16,000.

The two draft maps under consideration would divvy up the district so the population of each trustee area would fall between 26,000 and 29,000.

District officials have said realigning trustee areas would not affect school attendance boundaries.

Each Newport-Mesa board member lives in a different trustee area. However, each trustee has historically been elected by voters throughout the school district.

That will change starting in November 2018 when board members will instead be chosen by the voters in the areas they live in.

The shift is part of an agreement approved in March to settle a lawsuit Costa Mesa resident Eloisa Rangel filed in Orange County Superior Court alleging that the district’s election system violated the California Voting Rights Act by preventing Latino residents from electing candidates of their choice.

Both maps under consideration would create a voting district covering Westside Costa Mesa in which a majority of residents are Latino.

luke.money@latimes.com

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