Residents gave input Monday night on how they want themselves and their interests to be represented at City Hall at a meeting of the Redistricting Task Force dedicated to District 11.
The nine-member RTF will decide where the district’s borders lie based on local population data gathered during the 2020 census and community feedback.
The new district boundaries will determine how communities are represented at City Hall for the next decade. It can be shaped in any way so long as it keeps existing communities intact to the greatest degree possible and keeps the district’s population within one percent of one eleventh of San Francisco’s population, which is 79,451 people.
The RTF is on a listening tour before it begins to propose district maps later this year.
Many comments at the virtual meeting regarded Ingleside’s stretch of Ocean Avenue and McLaren Park.
Ocean Avenue once served as the boundary between District Seven and District 11. In 2012, the boundary was moved south to Holloway Avenue. Some residents asked the RTF to move the line back to Ocean Avenue, halving the Ingleside’s main commercial corridor under the purview of two supervisors instead of just one.
Simon Timony, co-director of Advocates 11 which is working with the Filipino American Community Forum, called for the Ocean Avenue to again be the boundary line and add the area around Saint Mary’s Park to the district.
“Due to the population growth in some areas and population loss in others, one thing we thought was a good opportunity to get two supervisors to represent one corridor,” Timony said. “We feel that it is not only a feasible thing to do, but the right thing to do.”
Timony said the area near St. Mary’s Park has a large Filipino population that would help consolidate existing Filipino communities in and near the Ingleside together in one district.
When asked whether they hope to create a more cohesive progressive voting bloc in shaping the district, Timony asserted that their motives are “purely non-political”, but that they seek to give the Filipino community in District 11 a “more consolidated voice”.
Former two-term District 11 Supervisor John Avalos said that the less a district’s population shifts, the less the boundaries should be redrawn.
“The districts that have had the least amount of population change should have the least amount of change in their district boundaries, and there should be efforts to make sure that the populations are kept whole, like concentrations of people of color,” Avalos said.
Avalos said that having two different supervisors representing Ingleside’s stretch of Ocean Avenue will give that corridor better access to the government, especially when addressing concerns about public transit.
“If you have two supervisors, you have two supervisors on the County Transportation Authority who will join together on supporting the Ingleside line to address the needs of passengers who have had to deal with the slowdown during the pandemic,” Avalos said. “Those two supervisors can work together. They won’t have to compete with each other.”
Avalos said that he supports returning the Merced Extension Triangle to District 11 because of the high concentration of people of color, including Filipinos, that reflect the diversity of the other neighborhoods in the district.
District 11 resident Linda Litehiser said that her primary concern with redrawing the district map is ensuring that McLaren Park continues to have representation from Districts Nine, 10 and 11 because it helps ensure the public can effectively advocate for the park, which is the second largest in San Francisco.
“McLaren Park is in three districts: Nine, 10 and 11,” Litehiser said. “This has served us very well. We have had a coalition of supervisors when there are issues with park safety, with park changes. We’ve been able to advocate for more funding for our park.”
McLaren Park is divided between Districts Nine and 10, although the District 11 borders the park.
The public is invited to draw proposal district maps for submission to the Redistricting Task Force using an interactive tool.
Correction: This article has been updated to clarify the districts in which McLaren Park is located and neighborhoods advocates would like be put back into District 11.
Correction: This article has been updated to correctly reflect Simon Timony’s position on Merced Extension Triangle.
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Garrett Leahy is an award-winning freelance journalist and a contributor to The Ingleside Light. His reporting has also been published in 48Hills, Mission Local, El Tecolote and the Guardsman.
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