Some comments and note from 8/1/2011 are very disappointing to many of us http://www.sandiego.gov/redistricting/meetings/index.shtml.
The following is a link to PQ council member http://rpcouncil.com/cms/about-the-council/current-council-members/
Some people mentioned in the meeting several people who should represent Park Village interests did not done such job. You can quickly search the portion containing Rancho Pensaquitos. Here are some people who agreed or attend to agree to separate Park Village from district 5.
Andy Berg, town council member, specifically for Park Village
Ramesses Surban, is also on PQ council
Joost Bende, past chair of PQ planning board
ITEM 2 – PUBLIC COMMENT REGARDING PRELIMINARY REDISTRICTING PLAN
(Transcript Begins)
Comment 1: Andy Berg
Thank you very much. I’m Andy Berg, President of the Rancho Peñasquitos Town Council. Again, thank you, Commissioners for all your hard work. Ten months is a long time, and just another month, hang in there, we’ll get this done. I’m here to ask you for one thing, and one thing only tonight, and it’s not that you combine all of Rancho Peñasquitos back into one district, it’s not even that you move my house back into that main district where Rancho Peñasquitos will reside. I would love you to do that, but I’ve kind of conceded that those aren’t going to happen, and there are logical reasons for them not happening. What I don’t understand, and what I’m asking you for, and I’ve asked you for it three times in emails and twice other times in testimony, is to please move the east-west boundary from Salmon River Road to Black Mountain Road. Salmon River Road is a long, I admit that, but a very narrow residential street that will have more than 100 people looking across the street at their neighbors and being in opposite districts and they won’t understand why you did that. It also bends a little bit back east-west, so somewhere you have to draw a line where next-door neighbors would be in opposite districts. The only reason that made sense, and it did make some sense, because you wanted to get the numbers exactly right. You wanted each district to have exactly the right numbers, or as close as possible—that’s no longer the case, you’ve set the precedent. District 1, District 2, District 3, all of which have bigger deviations than what I’m asking you to do will cause for District 5 and 6. So there’s no reason not to move the boundary from a small residential street to a major four-lane road that has no houses on either side of it. It’s a logical boundary; everybody will understand it. If you don’t do that, people are going to get their voter registration, their voter ballots, and they’re going to look at their neighbors and they’re going to try and figure out what happened and they’re going to go, what the heck was that Commission thinking, why did they do that? You know, we have this major thoroughfare, you figured that out with 56, that’s a major thoroughfare, that’s where you’re splitting Peñasquitos. We also have a major thoroughfare going north-south, that’s Black Mountain Road, it’s just a logical place to do it. There will not be a negative effect. It’s, it’s like I said, the deviation will be less than other districts you’ve already created, and there’ll be no demographic change, the API populations of 5 and 6 will stay essentially the same whether you do that or not. That’s, you know, we’re at this final stage. Please finish this out. Please do, do the right thing and stick to really recognizable solid boundaries. Thank you.
Comment 4: Ramesses Surban
Good evening, members of the Redistricting Commission and to the others present here tonight. My
name is Ramesses Surban. I’m a law student and an urban planner. Thank you for allowing me the
opportunity to be heard. I was raised in Rancho Peñasquitos and my wife and I are lucky enough to find
ourselves raising our own kids there. I’ve lived in PQ for over 25 years and I’m happy to now serve on
the PQ Town Council, as well as the PQ Planning Board. Throughout my life in Rancho Peñasquitos I
have been fortunate to have interacted and engaged with various people from a diverse assortment of
backgrounds, all living and calling Rancho Peñasquitos their home. I believe that respecting the
diversity of our community helps to sustain our community. We must ensure that within diversity,
everyone has an equal voice. So, I’d like to thank the Commissioners for the hard work and diligence
they’ve displayed during their service. This has been a challenging process and we need to acknowledge
that it’s okay to have push-back here and there throughout. I was sorry to see PQ divided with the last
map and even now my fellow PQ council members, as well as the planning group, would like the district
lines to fall on Black Mountain Road, rather than Salmon River Road. But compromise and negotiation
are part and parcel of democracy. So, I’m here to recognize that we are nearing the end of this process
and soon it will be inevitable that we, all of us as community members, will have to move forward and
Minutes of the 2010 Redistricting Commission
Post-Map Public Hearing – Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Page 5
work together regardless of where these district lines fall. Let’s focus on the future possibilities available
to us if we work together as a community, all of us – celebrating our diversity and moving forward,
together, focusing on the possibilities for the future, rather than dwelling on the politics of the past. To
all the members of the community present here tonight, we all have to come back and sit at the table to
work with each other after this. It’s my hope that in the future, at the end of this process and once the
final map is drawn, we can resolve to work with each other and realize that we live in one diverse
community, a community that celebrates its diversity while rejoicing in the shared history and common
ision that unites us all. Thank you.
Comment 22: Joost Bende
Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Joost Bende. I am the past chair of the Rancho Peñasquitos
Planning Board. I’ve lived in Peñasquitos for 10 years and no matter what your race is, most folks that
move to Peñasquitos move there because they want their kids to go to the Poway Unified School
District. I want to thank the Commissioners for recognizing the community of interest as the Poway
Unified School District and as the Palomar/Pomerado Health District and looking beyond race. If you
use District 4 as a great example of where the African American community has empowered themselves
Minutes of the 2010 Redistricting Commission
Post-Map Public Hearing – Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Page 14
with a ratio of 25% of African Americans, you have in fact created three Asian Pacific Islander districts.
District 1 has 26%; District 5 has 29%; and District 6 has 32%. Peñasquitos is prepared to sacrifice the
Park Village area but it should be split correctly, according to the Black Mountain Road and not Salmon
River Road. Park Village has its own maintenance assessment district, separate from the Peñasquitos
East Maintenance Assessment District. The dividing line is Black Mountain Road. Again, I want to
thank the Commission–also the Black Mountain Road is also the dividing line east and west for the
Palomar/Pomerado Health District. The other area is that—the difference between Palomar–or the Black
Mountain Road and Salmon River Road, the population is insignificant to the API population either
way. So, with that, I want to thank the Commissioners for their critical listening skills and understanding
Comment 43: Jon Becker
Thank you, Commissioners, for all your diligent efforts and participation in the process and trying to
steer this. I also want to thank Midori Wong for coming to our Planning Board to review some of the
process that occurs through that. And with that, I’m Jon Becker, current Chair of the Rancho
Peñasquitos Planning Board and Black Mountain, as well as Torrey Highlands. I would hope that we
could keep that planning board intact into one district. The proposed map District 6, I don’t’ foresee that
the communities of common interest which reside within that planning area occur. Midori, I don’t know
if you can zoom into that area of Park Village, but I think some of my associates on the board as well as
Minutes of the 2010 Redistricting Commission
Post-Map Public Hearing – Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Page 23
with the Town Council have noted a couple of the issues that I wanted to point out during this process.
I’ve been a 17-year resident in this community of Park Village, which is— as a 17-year resident there, it
is a bedroom community that is surrounding an elementary school in the Poway Unified School District.
It is not like a lot of the other communities which are to the south of an industrial base. It’s also an area
that is separated by natural boundaries. You may be familiar with the Rancho De Los Peñasquitos
Canyon which is about a half-mile wide; it’s about 1100 acres in size. It’s a natural boundary. It’s got its
merits and it also has its difficulties. As one who has been vacated during the Witch Creek fires, that is
prone to some of the fire concerns that occur within the areas in the district up further to the north in
District 5. With that, I hope that Park Village can be kept in District 5 as a community of common
interest. However, I recognize that a balance can be achieved and I hope that with it, we could shift the
line from Salmon River to Black Mountain Road. Thank you very much.
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