By Tes Welborn, HANC Board

This will be the largest change in San Francisco district maps and potentially, the largest change in San Francisco politics.  We've known for years that all the development on the east side of town would mean major shifts in district maps and the pool of supervisor candidates.  And now a nine-member appointed task force will be the final decision-makers on a new map, based on the 2020 Census. The task force has three members appointed directly by the Mayor, three by the Dept. of Elections, and three by the Board of Supervisors. That's only three progressives.

Another factor is that the Mayor has mandated NO public meetings until at least March 2022.  The final map is due by April 15, 2022. This limits public access and discussion.  The taskforce meetings have been running about 6 hours each, and are expected to run longer. And recall elections may further distract residents and voters from this important issue.

Each supervisor district must be about equal in size by number of residents.  Note: number of residents does not equal number of voters. Several eastside districts' populations are over the permitted +/- 5%. The largest increase is in D3, about +30%! This means major changes must be made to most if not all other districts.

The Redistricting Taskforce is meeting online twice a month, and really wants to hear from us! https://sf.gov/public-body/2020-census-redistricting-task-force .  There is an online map drawing tool available so we can propose new district lines for just D5, or for the entire city.  https://sf.gov/redistricting-tool-sf-redistricting-task-force .

The key to redrawing or retaining existing boundaries is communities of interest. This is defined as areas that share social, or economic, or other connections.  So we can advocate that parts of D5 should stay together, not be separated into other districts, and similarly for the rest of the city. The bulge in D3 means a lot of D3 with have to be relocated in adjacent districts, such as D3 and D9, but D10 also has a surplus of residents. Look at the map – that bulge will affect us in D5 too. Districts on the westside will have to get larger.      

Here is a map of San Francisco’s current districts and neighborhoods:

D5 residents are encouraged to start talking about our communities of interest, to draft potential new maps, and to meet one-on-one with Taskforce members.