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The Los Angeles City Council meeting on redistricting this Friday erupted in verbal crossfire and a vote of 13-2 on new district boundaries, bringing to a close one of the most controversial episodes in LA city politics in recent memory. The redrawing of the city’s council districts , a process occurring every 10 years was fraught with charges of gerrymandering, backroom dealing, and naked political corruption. Council members Jan Perry and Bernard Parks were the only two dissenting votes and claim that the new map violates the Federal Voting Rights Act. Minority groups and community organizations have also lambasted the 21 person LA City Council Redistricting Commission, whose members were appointed by city leaders including the City Council and the Mayor, for its apparent pandering to its political backers.

Commissioner Helen Kim, appointed to the LACCR by city controller Wendy Gruel, has leveled sharp criticism at the commission charging that decisions were reached without public input and dominated by appointees made by Mayor Villaraigosa and City Council President Herb Wesson. During the Friday council session, speakers lined up to express their anger and disbelief over the redistricting effort which has contorted district boundaries, split neighborhoods, and questionably apportioned economically vibrant areas of the city. Residents of the newly expanded CD4 have expressed bafflement over the new borders of their district which now extends from Sherman Oaks to Silver Lake. To the south, city council members Bernard Parks and Jan Perry have complained over a perceived misuse of the Voting Rights Act to strip their districts of some of their most lucrative neighborhoods under the guise of ensuring Latino majorities for at least 5 council seats. Meanwhile residents of Koreatown have threatened legal action in protest of their neighborhood’s annexation into Herb Wesson’s 10th district citing concerns that predominately Asian and Latino communities would be underrepresented in the majority black district.

GUEST: Grace Yoo, Executive Director of the Korean American Coalition, Glenn Bailey, Board member of the Encino Neighborhood Council and activist with the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils

Click here for a map of LA’s new Council districts: http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/final%20map%20recc.jpg