Stanislaus County leaders approve new election boundaries. Not everyone is happy
Stanislaus County leaders gave final approval Monday to a redistricting map with redrawn boundaries for county supervisor elections.
The board vote at a special meeting was unanimous, but not everyone was happy with the new boundary lines.
Rebecca Harringon, a member of the South Modesto Municipal Advisory Council, said the new boundaries divide the south Modesto and South Ninth Street corridor between two districts represented by supervisors Channce Condit and Mani Grewal.
The south Modesto MAC has worked for years with the District 5 representative on issues such as streetlights, wastewater infrastructure, parks and police protection. Part of the underserved area is moving into Grewal’s District 4.
“I am very disappointed about how our area is being affected,” Harrington said.
She said a redrawing of congressional boundaries also threatens to adversely affect south Modesto, as a draft proposal would remove Modesto entirely from Congressman Josh Harder’s district. California’s redistricting commission has until the end of December to firm up the boundaries for the state’s congressional districts.
Condit, the District 5 representative, told Harrington, “You can always contact me or Mr. Grewal if there is ever a concern.”
Grewal said he believes the south Modesto area can benefit from representation by two county board members.
With the new map, Grewal’s district also takes in portions of central and west Modesto from Supervisor Terry Withrow’s District 3. It places neighborhoods west of Tully Road, south of West Orangeburg Avenue, to Highway 99 in District 4.
District 3 also gives up an area south of Paradise Road and east of Sutter Avenue to District 4. Grewal’s district will include a piece of south Modesto, south of the Tuolumne River and west of Central Avenue.
The District 5 boundaries around Ceres are expanding to include Keyes and Empire. Patterson, Newman and other communities in western Stanislaus County are remaining in District 5.
Grewal, an appointed supervisor, said his district primarily represents Modesto on the Board of Supervisors. And the changes place more of Modesto within his district territory.
The new map setting the boundaries for county board elections through 2030 does put a larger piece of east Modesto in Supervisor Buck Condit’s District 1, which mostly includes Riverbank and Oakdale.
District 1 takes in the Village I area between Oakdale Road and Roselle Avenue, north of East Orangeburg to Sylvan Avenue, and takes in another pocket east of Coffee Road to Oakdale Road, south of Sylvan.
The boundaries for Board Chairman Vito Chiesa’s District 2 will include Waterford.
At Monday’s special meeting, the board gave recognition to the 11-member advisory commission for working within difficult time constraints to bring six proposed maps to the board. Data from the 2020 national Census were not delivered until late September.
One goal of the redistricting process was providing a supervisorial district with a strong Latino voter population. Changes to District 5 increased the concentration of eligible Latino voters from 53.93% to 54.09 % in that district.
The advisory commission included Angelica Garcia, Perfecto Munoz, Cecelia Hudelson, Anokeen Varani, Christine Schweininger, Carmen Morad, Miguel Dinoso, Mark Looker, Kimberly Ochoa, John Mataka and April Henderson Potter, plus five alternates.
