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The Alameda County Board of Supervisors adopted the final county supervisorial redistricting map last week, which divides Pleasanton into two separate districts.
Pleasanton's boundary has been redrawn on the south side of the city, moving a portion from District 4 into District 1, which includes Sunol and parts of Fremont as well as neighboring cities Dublin and Livermore.
The map — which determines which communities and cities are represented by which elected supervisor — is part of the redistricting process that occurs every 10 years in conjunction with the census to ensure that each supervisor represents the same number of constituents.
According to the Alameda County Coalition for Fair Redistricting, the county has legal requirements to meet, including: Keeping district populations balanced within 5% deviations; not segregating minority populations into isolated districts; contiguity, not unreasonably splitting voting boundaries; keeping community of interests in a single area; and keeping city and census-designated places united.
Over the last six months, the board engaged the public and accepted community input in multiple formats, including online comments, "community of interest" (COI) drawings, emails, letters and maps proposed by the public, county officials said.
Some Tri-Valley residents who submitted input and advocated for Pleasanton, Dublin and Livermore to be included together in the same district have expressed discontentment in the Board of Supervisors' decision to adopt a map that only moves a small portion of Pleasanton into District 1.
"We are disappointed that Pleasanton is still in District 4 and split without much consideration," said Kyoko Takayama of the Alameda County Coalition for Fair Redistricting.
Takayama told Livermore Vine that although Supervisor Nate Miley, who represents District 4, "acknowledged that Tri-Valley is a community of interest and should be kept together, it was clear that he had no intention of keeping us together."
"To split 15% of Pleasanton into District 1 is not a good faith gesture, in my opinion, especially when it includes the least vaccinated census tract in Pleasanton," she added.
During the Dec. 14 hearing where the finalized map was adopted, county staff said they received approximately 150 COI requests. Miley asked staff if it would have been possible to accommodate all of the requests that were received, to which staff replied that it would have been "very difficult, if not impossible" as a number of the COI requests were competing with each other.
Miley explained that the reason he asked staff to clarify that point was because of a reader-submitted post in the Pleasanton Weekly's Town Square community forum, which accused the supervisors of gerrymandering and argued that Miley "refused" to give up Pleasanton from his district.
Miley said the Town Square post caused him "disappointment."
"I know I tried to do the best I could to get Pleasanton in a Tri-Valley district," Miley said. "I did everything I thought reasonable to push to see if there was a way of getting Pleasanton in a Tri-Valley district and in order to do that would have meant Oakland maybe not having three supervisors, which I thought was really fundamentally important for Oakland to have three supervisors."
Miley also said that getting Pleasanton in a Tri-Valley district would have potentially meant that the unincorporated areas wouldn't have two supervisors, which he also believed to be "fundamentally important."
Ultimately, Miley said splitting Pleasanton was the best option but he asserted that he and Supervisor David Haubert, who represents District 1, would work together to fulfill the needs of the Tri-Valley.
"I've known Supervisor Haubert for many, many years and I know that he and my office will collaborate extremely well relative to the needs and the interests and concerns of the Tri-Valley as I did with (former) supervisor Scott Haggerty," Miley said.
Haubert echoed Miley's sentiments and called attention to an article that he said suggested that Pleasanton was being split from the Tri-Valley. He did not specify the publication that the article was from but he argued that the piece was "misleading" because Pleasanton was already in a separate district from Livermore and Dublin prior to this year's redistricting process.
He said that while the new map does split Pleasanton into two districts, it does not "take Pleasanton out of the Tri-Valley but in fact helped bring part of Pleasanton into the rest of the Tri-Valley district" and as such, "the glass is maybe half full versus being half empty."
Haubert also said that although some people are not happy with the finalized map, the Board of Supervisors has received several positive responses from a number of Tri-Valley officials, including Livermore Mayor Bob Woerner.
"Nothing is perfect but we did the best that we could," Haubert said.
Pleasanton Mayor Karla Brown also expressed confidence in the collaboration between Miley and Haubert.
"Over the past 10 years, the city of Pleasanton has worked very well with County Supervisor Nate Miley," Brown said. "We have also worked very closely — since his election — with Supervisor David Haubert. I expect the two county supervisors will well represent our community going forward. They're both terrific professionals, experienced and will be excellent representing Pleasanton," she added.
A complete recording of the Dec. 14 hearing is available here.
