Foothill-De Anza district publishes proposed election maps ahead of hearing

Two years ago, the Foothill-De Anza Community College District decided to switch to electing its trustees by area, rather than face a lawsuit over claims of racially polarized voting in its districtwide contests. Now, draft maps proposing how to split up the trustee areas are ready for public review.

Those maps show different ways of dividing the district into five subareas for governing board elections and are posted online ahead of a meeting scheduled for next week at which the board will review the options.

With area elections, voters elect a trustee who lives in their part of the district. The trustee areas are supposed to be compact; contiguous; as consistent as possible with city, county and local government boundary lines; and drawn to maintain “communities of interest,” which can include racial or language minority groups, as well as features like neighborhood associations or areas with shared community facilities, according to information from the district.

Since the community college district’s founding in 1957, trustees have been picked through districtwide elections. The switch to area elections will take place over two election cycles beginning in November 2022.

The board is currently in the process of deciding on boundary lines for the trustee areas, with a vote scheduled for this February. Ahead of the vote, the trustees will discuss the different draft maps at public hearings slated for Dec. 13 and Jan. 10.

The district’s consultant Redistricting Partners has created three draft maps, each of which aims to split the district’s 448,000 residents into five roughly equal sections based on 2020 Census data.

Redistricting Partners’ first map focuses on city boundaries, the second considers both city and school boundaries, and the third prioritizes school boundaries. Members of the public have also submitted map suggestions.

The proposed maps can be viewed at fhda.edu/trustee-areas/A-DraftMaps.html.

Board President Peter Landsberger, in a September interview, encouraged the public to participate in the redistricting discussions and provide feedback along the way.

“If they’ve got a point of view, express it and help inform the process,” Landsberger said.

Foothill-De Anza’s move to area trustee elections is part of a broader trend of governing boards in California switching away from at-large elections. The district decided to make the change in 2019 after district resident Sebastian Aguilar sent the district a demand letter, threatening a lawsuit and alleging that the district’s at-large elections may be violating the California Voting Rights Act.

The district’s board disputed that characterization but decided to make the transition anyways to avoid a court battle, noting in a resolution that the California Voting Rights Act “strongly favors” area-based elections over at-large ones.

The community college district spans from Palo Alto into a small part of San Jose and includes Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and small portions of Santa Clara and Saratoga.

The Dec. 13 public hearing will take place during a regularly scheduled board meeting, held in-person at the district office building on Foothill College’s campus, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills.

For more information on the redistricting process, to view the draft maps and to find details on next week’s meeting, visit fhda.edu/trustee-areas.