A second public hearing will be held Dec. 13 on a proposal to begin trustee-area elections for the five members of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District governing board. Following the hearing, the board is expected to approve a map showing the boundary areas that each of the five trustees will represent.
The hearing will be held Tuesday, Dec. 13 at 6:30 p.m. at Griffin Gate at Grossmont College. A map of the college campus is available at www.grossmont.edu.
Trustees have been elected at-large by voters in the more than 1,100-square-mile East County district that stretches from the East County cities of El Cajon, La Mesa, Lemon Grove and Santee to the Imperial County line. Beginning in the 2012 elections, the district will be divided into five trustee areas and voters in those areas will elect a trustee to represent them.
District elections will begin with the June 2012 primary. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast, the top two vote-getters in the primary will face each other in the November 2012 general election.
The college district is one of many government agencies around California that are revising their elections process to comply with the California Voting Rights Act of 2001. District elections help ensure that minority populations are equitably represented at the voting booth.
The college district hired consultants from National Demographics Corp. to draw up the maps creating five trustee areas with approximately equal populations. Almost 465,000 people live in the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, with about 90 percent of them residing west of Alpine. According to the 2010 census, the district is 60 percent white, 25 percent Hispanic, 7 percent African-American, 5 percent Asian and 3 percent other.
In drawing the boundary lines, the consultants considered factors including already-established communities such as the East County cities, natural boundaries such as canyons or highways, and creating trustee areas with compact, contiguous territory as much as possible.
Three proposals for creating the trustee-area boundaries were presented to the board at its Nov. 17 meeting, and board members indicated they favored Plan 1. Here’s how the trustee areas would be divided up in that plan:
•District 1: Santee, Winter Gardens and Lakeside (incumbent Edwin Hiel)
•District 2: La Mesa, Mt. Helix, Casa de Oro and Rancho San Diego (incumbent Debbie Justeson)
•District 3: El Cajon (incumbent Bill Garrett)
•District 4: rural East County, including Alpine and most of Jamul, all the way to the Imperial County line (incumbent Mary Kay Rosinski)
•District 5: Lemon Grove, La Presa, Rancho San Diego, Spring Valley and a small portion of Jamul (incumbent Greg Barr)
Garrett and Rosinski will be up for election in 2012. The other three seats will be up for election in 2014.
No one came forward to speak at the first public hearing held at Cuyamaca College. Justin Levitt, a senior analyst with National Demographics Corp., said the lack of attendees indicates that the public feels the board has been working well and hasn’t been involved in any controversy.
The hearing will be held Tuesday, Dec. 13 at 6:30 p.m. at Griffin Gate at Grossmont College. A map of the college campus is available at www.grossmont.edu.
Trustees have been elected at-large by voters in the more than 1,100-square-mile East County district that stretches from the East County cities of El Cajon, La Mesa, Lemon Grove and Santee to the Imperial County line. Beginning in the 2012 elections, the district will be divided into five trustee areas and voters in those areas will elect a trustee to represent them.
District elections will begin with the June 2012 primary. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast, the top two vote-getters in the primary will face each other in the November 2012 general election.
The college district is one of many government agencies around California that are revising their elections process to comply with the California Voting Rights Act of 2001. District elections help ensure that minority populations are equitably represented at the voting booth.
The college district hired consultants from National Demographics Corp. to draw up the maps creating five trustee areas with approximately equal populations. Almost 465,000 people live in the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, with about 90 percent of them residing west of Alpine. According to the 2010 census, the district is 60 percent white, 25 percent Hispanic, 7 percent African-American, 5 percent Asian and 3 percent other.
In drawing the boundary lines, the consultants considered factors including already-established communities such as the East County cities, natural boundaries such as canyons or highways, and creating trustee areas with compact, contiguous territory as much as possible.
Three proposals for creating the trustee-area boundaries were presented to the board at its Nov. 17 meeting, and board members indicated they favored Plan 1. Here’s how the trustee areas would be divided up in that plan:
•District 1: Santee, Winter Gardens and Lakeside (incumbent Edwin Hiel)
•District 2: La Mesa, Mt. Helix, Casa de Oro and Rancho San Diego (incumbent Debbie Justeson)
•District 3: El Cajon (incumbent Bill Garrett)
•District 4: rural East County, including Alpine and most of Jamul, all the way to the Imperial County line (incumbent Mary Kay Rosinski)
•District 5: Lemon Grove, La Presa, Rancho San Diego, Spring Valley and a small portion of Jamul (incumbent Greg Barr)
Garrett and Rosinski will be up for election in 2012. The other three seats will be up for election in 2014.
No one came forward to speak at the first public hearing held at Cuyamaca College. Justin Levitt, a senior analyst with National Demographics Corp., said the lack of attendees indicates that the public feels the board has been working well and hasn’t been involved in any controversy.
