New Census Figures Mean Riverside County Faces Redistricting

As more figures are released from the 2010 Census, Riverside County leaders prepare plans to redraw the district boundary lines as they’re required to every ten years.

Members of the Redistricting Steering Committee face the task of evenly distributing the number of residents in each supervisory district.

County officials told committee members Tuesday that census figures established a target population of 437,928 residents for each district. By law, the number of residents in the new districts cannot vary by more than 10 percent between the most and least populated district. County leaders say their goal has been to keep the variance to approximately 5 percent.

Based on Census figures released last week, here is the puzzle facing committee members:

Supervisor Bob Buster?s District 1 needs to grow by 15,601 residents.

Supervisor John Tavaglione?s District 2 needs to grow by 30,657 residents.

Supervisor Jeff Stone?s District 3 needs to shrink by 79,925 residents.

Supervisor John Benoit?s District 4, which includes the Coachella Valley, needs to grow by 41,349 residents.

Supervisor Marion Ashley?s District 5 needs to shrink by 7,683 residents.

The process will include community forums in April and at least two public hearings in June and July. Residents will be able to discuss mapping proposals and offer plans of their own before new district lines are approved.

Tentatively agreed to public forums on April 20, 21 and 27 will be held in Menifee, Desert Hot Springs and Riverside in order to make the meetings as accessible as possible to residents of the 7,200?square-mile county. The exact locations will be announced at a later date.

The committee consists of Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder Larry Ward, Assistant County Executive Officer Jay Orr and the chief of staff for each member of the Board of Supervisors. Committee recommendations will go to the Board of Supervisors in June, with public hearings tentatively scheduled for June 28 and July 12. New district lines must be in place by Nov. 1.