I have all kinds of political views, some more right, left, or in the middle, and I don’t really know which of those will be most helped or hurt by which of these “communities of interest” the commission decides are deserving of gerrymandering, and I don’t really care to know. What I do know is that we should be picking politicians and not the other way around. We should be the ones picking the issues that we think are most important and not the political powers that be telling us what they are, and that’s exactly what drawing boundaries by “communities of interest” accomplishes. For example, if (as in the past) districts were drawn according to political party concentrations then you can count on political party being the determining factor of who wins and loses the elections. But if they drew them based on race then race would become the most important issue. If they drew them on the basis of boxers or briefs then that could become the most important issue that would determine whether you get elected or not.

It is madness to put the power to decide these things into the hands of the people drawing the districts. They should not even be allowed to know these population pattern data and thus they could draw fair districts by geography and population rather than according to some political calculus designed for example to divide people up by race (which seems to be what so many people are pushing for (particularly racially oriented political groups and candidates). In addition to this being unfair to those of us who don’t think race matters it also heightens racial conflict and tension. If someone is in a racially gerrymandered district this will make it highly unlikely that he will have to have many political dealings with people of other races. After all, people of the “wrong race” will be written out of politics in racially gerrymandered districts all things being equal.

This will allow sharper racist ideas and rhetoric to have more acceptance than it would if politicians had to appeal to a more mixed race population. Why in the world would we want to heighten racial divisiveness like this? It is madness! Commissioners should reject the idea of gerrymandering by race, sexual identity, and so on for all the same reasons the voters rejected gerrymandering by party affiliation in the election.

let’s remember also that jean quan co-wrote measure Y — the very measure she now claims is causing the bulk of the city’s budget gap. never mind that measure Y is an epic fail, the police numbers were never met in any meaningful way.

she’ll always deny rather than take responsibility for her errors and bad decisions.

she dips into the general fund without transparency to the public she is sworn to serve
she’ll be the first to raise taxes and fees, because to her way of thinking, the way to solve a problem is to throw money at it, then “lose” that money and go begging for more money from the tax payers
her hubris knows no bounds: listen to the way she speaks about “her district” her people” “her city”
she’s the LAST council member who should be in charge of the city’s finances and yet there she is on the front lines of the city’s finance committee, making bad decisions that cause taxpayers to pay ever more

do not vote for jean quan unless you welcome a 30-47% increase in taxes and fees over the course of her term.