 Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, outlined in green, and its current position straddling CDs 4,5 and 10; the pink area is CD4, the northwest corner is CD5, the southeast, where Wilshire Park is, is CD10. Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council's request to be intact in one Council District has been honored by the Redistricting Commission in their tentative map, released to the public late last week. As those of you who have been following the process know, the Redistricting Commission has been listening to the public for several weeks, gathering various opinions, many of them very aggressively promoted, about how the new City Council lines are drawn. Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, as it has been, is in three Council Districts, 75% or so in CD4, Wilshire Park and Windsor Village in CD10, and a small rectangle in CD5 in the northwest corner (see the map above). Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, a community that has recently been further split by the Police Precinct lines and again in the California redistricting process, sought to be unified to give us a stronger and more effective resident representation. At their last meeting, the GWNC Board officially adopted the resolution that GWNC's main focus in redistricting is to be intact, a concept that takes precedence over which Council District we would be in. This turned out to be a winning strategy. The Commissioners heard us and agreed, and moved all of GWNC into Council District 5 in the first draft map. This was a bit of a surprise, considering that only the northwest corner of GWNC was initially in CD5, and CD4 was the presumptive new CD. Current CD5 stretches to the west, encompassing the Carthays, Westwood and other similar areas. Current CD4 reaches north to Los Feliz and Griffith Park and on into the Valley. While we did get what we asked for, for us in Wilshire Park, this is a bitter-sweet victory, since we are all aware that CD10 has done a lot for us, including supporting the formation of our HPOZ. We owe Sylvia Lacy, Andrew Westall and Herb Wesson and the rest of his staff so much - how do we ever thank them enough? Without them, we would not be the wonderful neighborhood we are.  This first draft is controversial and still subject to change. The Redistricting Commission will be gathering more public input through the end of February in a series of meeting, the first of which is right outside Wilshire Park on Feb 1 at the Ebell. Most of you have already received a paper flyer announcing the meeting and encouraging you to come. Timing is critical here, since there is still the distinct possibility that we could be "traded away" in all the flurry of the process. For now, regardless of your ultimate preference for a specific CD, the general strategy of GWNC is to remain neutral about which CD we are contained in, to avoid risking being split up. When the maps are adjusted and the recommendations are sent from the Redistricting Commission to the City Council at the end of February, that would be the time to appeal to the Councilmen in whichever district we might call home. So that you are well informed about the process and what it could mean to Wilshire Park, please go to these various links.
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