The Chula Vista City Council on March 11 approved the first reading of an ordinance that would govern a redistricting commission to break the city of Chula Vista into voting regions.
Under the city ordinance reviewed by the Charter Review Commission, the redistricting commission will set out the initial city boundaries to be drawn out for the districts.
Assistant City Attorney Jill Maland said the original plan was to have the commission intact by May of next year, however, she said the goal is to seat the commission by July, with its duties completed by next July in time for campaign season.
“The primary rationale, the driving force for those dates is because July 2015 is when the new candidates can start actually receiving campaign funds,” Maland said. “So we wanted to have the districting lines drawn and have the candidates know which district they would be in before they started really doing their campaign efforts.”
In establishing the district boundaries, the redistricting commission is to look at the decennial census for 2010 and apply that information to create the initial boundaries.
Maland said a redistricting commission will be created every 10 years to review the decennial census, and to redraw the district lines based on the new census information.
Maland said an application to apply for the commission is being drafted and should be available on the city’s website by the end of the week.
There will be a 30-day period to apply.
The process of selecting the seven commissioners is at random.
Maland said once an application is filled out, it would be turned into the City Clerk’s Office for review and then passed on to the Charter Review Commission.
The Charter Review Commission then selects the most qualified 10 out of the total applicant pool, Maland said.
Out of those 10, Maland said, the Charter Review Commission randomly selects four.
Those four then get sworn in.
Then three more applicants get randomly selected and need to be approved by the City Council.
